Arts-informed Approaches Research Articles

Digital storytelling online: a case report exploring virtual design, implementation opportunities and challenges

BackgroundDigital storytelling is an arts-informed approach that engages short, first-person videos, typically three to five minutes in length, to communicate a personal narrative. Prior to the pandemic, digital storytelling initiatives in health services research were often conducted during face-to-face workshops scheduled over multiple days. However, throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns where social distancing requirements needed to be maintained, many digital storytelling projects were adapted to online platforms.MethodsAs part of a research project aiming to explore the day surgery treatment and recovery experiences of women with breast cancer in Peel region, we decided to pivot our digital storytelling process to an online format. During the process, we observed that the online digital storytelling format had multiple opportunities and challenges to implementation.ResultsThis paper outlines our promising practices and lessons learned when designing and implementing an online digital storytelling project including pre-production, production and post-production considerations.ConclusionsWe provide lessons learned for future teams intending to conduct an online digital storytelling project.

An Analytical Apparatus for Visual Imagery Applied in a Social-Behavioral Research

Participant created visual data are increasingly being used in social-behavioral sciences projects. They have become a popular medium in community-based research adopting an arts-informed approach to study challenging life circumstances of community members. We argue that visual data can do more than just illustrate ideas or concepts, particularly in the process of research where participants contribute to the data collection phase. Visual images record the tacit meanings of the person who makes them, and they can—with the help of a researcher skilled in qualitative reasoning—form another stream of textual analysis. The authors developed an Analytical Apparatus for Visual Imagery (AAVI), constructed from the elements of art and the principles of design and other arts-based sources, and applied it to two different arts-based research projects where participants created visual images or artworks for analysis. Through a combination of storylines and the AAVI analysis, a deeper level of analytical interpretation and a better understanding of the complexity of human experience were reached, particularly in trying to understand the emotional layers linked to experiences.

Creating a symbol of hope for 2021

The idea behind our project was to encourage nursing and midwifery teams to create artistic symbols of hope amid the challenges posed by the global Covid-19 pandemic. Our experiences working with teams using arts-informed approaches have shown us that they offer a space for deeper reflection and a change from more traditional reflection models. The outcome of such projects are unique visual representations of what a subject or event means to the team, and of their emotions and experiences. These are displayed in individual wards and units for all staff, patients, relatives and other visitors to see, often becoming a focal point for conversation. In November 2020, our practice development unit invited teams from across the local health district to create a symbol of hope for 2021. This was inspired by reading an article in AI Practitioner, the international journal of appreciative inquiry, entitled ‘Hope and appreciative inquiry during a pandemic’ (Houston, 2020). The author describes hope as something that is ‘an inescapable part of being a human. Both aspiration, belief in our future and reflection, how we view our past’ (p 49). The importance of finding reasons to ‘live, share, cry, sing, laugh, love, be fearful’ (p 51) is also expressed, with the contention that embracing these as our strengths is where hope lies. One aspect of the work of the practice development unit is inspiring nurses and midwives to capture the essence of experiences that occur in everyday practice using creative approaches. Arts-informed approaches provide a way for individuals and teams to express their experiences, thoughts and feelings visually and creatively (McCormack and Titchen, 2006; Horsfall and Titchen, 2009). Creative approaches such as painting, photo elicitation, creative writing, music and dancing can be used to engage our senses, helping us to access, pay attention to and express feelings and experiences, that might initially be difficult to put into words (Horsfall and Titchen, 2009; Sullivan, 2012; Weber, 2012). This is referred to as embodied knowledge, in which the body is the source of knowing rather than the mind (Weber, 2012).

Co-production and arts-informed inquiry as creative power for knowledge mobilisation

Background:Interest in using arts-informed approaches within research to increase stakeholder engagement is growing; however, there is little work describing how these approaches are operationalised across contexts. This article addresses that gap by exploring the use of arts-informed approaches across three projects. Aims and objectives:We explore how conceptualising research and evaluation as creative endeavours, particularly in arts-informed approaches to co-production, create opportunities to move knowledge into action (knowledge mobilisation). We propose an actionable configuration of context + mechanism = outcome (CMO) to understand the influence of arts-informed approaches to co-production. Methods:Multi-case design and cross-case synthesis was conducted of three studies that used arts-informed approaches. A common focus across our cases was evidence use in the K-12 education sector; however, each engaged with this focus by involving different types of evidence and sets of education stakeholders. Findings:Arts-informed approaches and co-production were influenced by a variety of contextual factors such as relationships between researchers and stakeholders, ethical issues of collaborative research activities, approaches to meaningful stakeholder engagement, co-production of knowledge, capacity-building support and resources, and communication between multi-stakeholder partners. Outcomes included new ways of thinking about research topics based on arts-informed approaches, more positive attitudes about co-production, more relevant and useful research and evaluation findings, and increased openness to future co-productive work. Discussion and conclusions:Four propositions arising from this article include: (1) arts-informed approaches address context specificity and sensitivity; (2) arts-informed approaches promote engagement; (3) arts-informed approaches enhance and intertwine skills; (4) arts-informed approaches broaden thinking about impact.

Noticing, curation, cultivation: Academic development leadership in the arts university

The curation of four ‘teaching exhibitions’ of pedagogic research outputs in a specialist arts university is presented as a case study of distributed leadership practice, with the leadership in question being positioned as a feminized mode of leading educational or academic development from a middle-out position. Scholarship of teaching and learning focused upon the development of academic micro-cultures within universities is collided with thinking around arts-informed approaches to leadership. Through reflexively evaluating her nascent curatorial practice, the author reconsiders what academic development leadership in the specific organizational culture of the arts university can look like when arts modalities are brought into play.

Quilting emergent advanced practice nursing educator identity: an arts-informed approach.

Arts-informed pedagogy in the graduate nursing classroom is used to support the integration of theory with advanced practice nursing (APN) competencies (Canadian Nurses Association, 2008, 2019). Using the patterns of knowing (Carper, 1978; Chinn & Kramer, 2018), Iwasiw & Goldenberg's curriculum development model (2015) and practice development (McCormack, Manley, & Titchen, 2013), two course professors facilitated the delivery of an innovative arts-informed approach in a nursing graduate program, the Quilt. The Quilt was meant to invite graduate students to critically reflect and create a visual depiction of their emergent identities as advanced practice nurse educators (APNEs). As three graduate student authors, we reflect on our experiences engaging with arts-informed pedagogy to explore the features of the collective APNE identity. The design and delivery of the Quilt is described. Finally, we discuss the lessons learned, and the value of arts-informed pedagogy to support the meaningful integration of theory amongst graduate nursing students becoming APNEs.

Supporting relationships, providing presence: Arts-informed approaches to LTC staff dementia care literacy

Early findings and insights are shared from an interpretive analysis of interviews with 15 leaders in arts-based approaches in dementia care. This was conducted as part of a larger project that has the goal of operationalizing ‘good’ literacy in social and relational care in long-term care (LTC). Interviews aimed to identify promising directions in arts-based approaches in education and training for LTC staff provincially, nationally, and internationally, and understand how they contribute to ‘good’ mental health and dementia literacy. Participants were recruited using a purposive snowball sampling method and semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were conducted in-person, via telephone and Zoom, and digitally recorded. Arts-making enhances mental health and dementia literacy of LTC staff by: 1) supporting relationships by generating trust and collaboration among persons living with mental health conditions and/or dementia, arts facilitators, and family members; 2) creating alternative communication spaces that allow people to see themselves and be seen by others from new perspectives; 3) fostering an artistic sensibility that: encourages imagination and empathy, brings spontaneity and playfulness to interactions, and disrupts restrictive expectations entrenched in typical caregiver/care receiver relationships. ‘Good’ literacy involves a relational and spatial awareness which manifests in the form of an artistic sensibility. Arts-based approaches can be used to enhance quality care by capacitating staff in the art of being open and curious, nimble and flexible, in how they know and make connections on an interpersonal level, in the moment.

Tearing down the ‘box’: students’ perspectives on activating arts-informed methods in social work classrooms

ABSTRACT In this article, we discuss findings from a study centering students’ narratives about their experiences of using arts-informed approaches to teaching and learning in social work classrooms. The study interviewed thirteen graduate and undergraduate students about their experiences in social justice and anti-oppressive classrooms. Informed by constructivist grounded theory, we analyzed students’ conceptualizations and interpretations of how using art better facilitated their learning and connection to social work practice. Specifically, the article discusses three interrelated themes that emerged for students as they emphasized the importance of such approaches in their education: enhanced connections to others; connecting emotionally to social issues and social work; and connection to self through enhanced awareness. We conclude the analysis with some guidelines for educators for integrating arts-informed approaches in the classroom.

On being transgressive in educational research! An autoethnography of borders

Autoethnography and narrative inquiry, with their focus on researching the personal dimensions of human experience, are overlapping realms within the field of qualitative research. While the dominant ways of knowing and researching in the academy remain that of empirical observation and critical analysis from a distanced perspective, these approaches attribute little meaning to the culturally relevant and reflexive accounts of those involved in the autoethnographic and narrative inquiry. In this paper, I critically reflect on my experiences of negotiating identities as an academic and educational researcher over time against a backdrop of professional anxieties produced by policy and political imperatives that have increasingly pervaded modern higher education in the UK. Adopting an autoethnographic style, I contemplate the complexities and opportunities that have inscribed my various identities as an educational researcher over a career, crossing from traditional research to creative narrative and arts-informed approaches.

Oasis in a concrete jungle: arts-informed methods in social work classrooms

ABSTRACTThis article presents a qualitative arts-informed inquiry on teaching and learning in social work education. Using arts-informed research methodology and grounded theory methodology, the research analyses ten interviews of social work educators in two Canadian provinces. This article focused on how university educators use arts-informed methods of teaching about social justice through anti-racist and decolonizing lenses; also discussed are the educators’ personal and professional transformation and development within this process. The main findings discuss the importance of creating an ‘artful’ space as a platform for experiential, embodied and emotive learning, which offers an innovative, more holistic and comprehensive way of teaching social justice. This way of teaching emphasizes personal transformation, giving space to marginalized voices and expression; as well as collective co-creation of meaning and creating practical tools for future social change. The study also touches upon challenges and gaps in using an arts-informed approach, which include student resistance to alternative ways of education, expressed specifically by racialized educators and ambiguity related to assessing artful works in an academic setting. The paper ends with recommendations for social work education.

Using an Arts-Informed Eclectic Approach to Photovoice Data Analysis

Arts-informed approaches in qualitative research are gaining more recognition as being a critical research approach in the social sciences. Using arts in research is most commonly seen in the data collection process and in data representation, however, very little is written about how to use arts-informed approaches in data analysis. There are no “how-to” guides and researchers who engage in photovoice research often implement traditional qualitative methods for analyzing their data. The purpose of this article is to merge creativity with rigor to illustrate alternative means to analyze photovoice research data. This article serves as a practical and systematic guide for interpreting photographic and interview transcript data from photovoice projects. Various tables illustrate organizational strategies, and collages serve as a metaphor for the analysis process and themes. The benefits of using arts-informed analysis methods include cross-disciplinary study, innovative ways to interpret data, enhancement of trustworthiness and rigor, and building creative mediums as a form of knowledge.

The varied textures of an arts-informed methodology: Exploring teachers' identities through artful expressions

ABSTRACTUnderstanding how teachers come to know and make sense of teaching is a challenging endeavor. Uncovering elusive strands of thinking through arts-informed approaches has the potential to transform personal understandings of teacher selves and professional practice across diverse early childhood contexts (Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, 2009). Drawing on an arts-informed methodology combining bricolage, portraiture, and an artist's methods, this article presents a seven-framed model for exploring teachers' identity journeys. Working with six early childhood teachers in community-based Australian Long Day Care settings, teachers use these frames as methodological tools for “developing and constructing” photos, drawings, narrative, and artifacts to make visible intangible perceptions of self-identity and experience (Bown & Sumsion, 2007, p. 30; Langer, 1957). These artistic responses were treated as provocations to explore shared meanings and position arts-informed methods as valuable research spaces (Black & O'Dea, 2015) of learning, connection, and transformation (Black, 2002).

Creating Spaces for Arts-Informed Responses in Teacher Education Programs

We address the bene ts and challenges of using an arts-informed response in an undergraduate teacher education course from the perspective of a teacher and two students. Feminist pedagogies provide the theoretical lens through which our experiences are analyzed. From the teacher’s perspective, this arts-informed approach modeled to pre-service teachers how they could use arts-informed inquiry in their future classrooms, to engage in conscious raising about inequality, while meeting di erent learning styles in their classrooms. From the students’ perspective, it was surprising to be invited to do an arts-informed reading response. Acceptance depended on the perception of risk. Our conclusion is that more space should be created for arts-informed approaches in undergraduate teacher education programs.

If You Knew the End of the Story, Would you Still Want to Hear It?: The Importance of Narrative Time for Mental Health Care

The origins of this paper lie in our experiences of having heard too many stories with the same outcome or ending in the field of inquiry and practice described as “Aboriginal Mental Health.” This paper was written in an attempt to make sense of these experiences. It does so by focussing on another type of outcome or story ending in mental health care/research contexts more widely known as [Recovery]. Not to be confused with the term recovery as it is used in addiction studies, the concept of [Recovery] currently underpinning mental health care policies and reform is at once a philosophy, a practice orientation, and a guiding value and principle. This paper emerged from a range of discussions about [Recovery] as a practice orientation and a particular type of story-ending told by those who receive and provide Aboriginal mental health care in North Queensland. Poetic inquiry was used as a way to respond to the questions that arose from these discussions. In the research projects and discussions that foreground and underpin this paper, the use of poetic reasoning and writing, evolved from using poetry as a reflective tool, to a being used as a method of data collection, data construction, analysis and interpretation (even though none of these words appropriately inscribe these aspects of research within Arts informed research practices). It is also posited as an aesthetic and ethical way of (re)presenting the results of inquiring. This paper (re)presents and unpacks a particular generated poem to demonstrate the approach (as it is and was) used. As an arts-informed approach to social inquiry and to writing, the purpose of this text is to open or introduce an awkward pause in an ongoing dialogue or conversation about Aboriginal people in mental health care and to amplify the Aboriginal voices informing the development of this text.

'I now have a visual image in my mind and it is something I will never forget': an analysis of an arts-informed approach to health professions ethics education.

This paper reports on a study of an arts informed approach to ethics education in a health professions education context. The purpose of this study was to investigate students' reported learning experiences as a result of engagement with an arts-informed project in a health professions' ethics course. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodological approach was adopted for the study. The data were collected over 5 years, and involved analysis of 234 occupational therapy students' written reflections on learning. Phenomenological methods were used. Five key themes were identified with respect to students' reported learning including: becoming aware of values, (re) discovering creativity, coming to value reflection in professional life, deepening self-awareness, and developing capacities to imagine future practices. There appear to be a number of unique ways in which arts-informed approaches can contribute to health professions education including: activating imaginative engagement, fostering interpretive capacity, inspiring transformative understandings, offering new ways of knowing, deepening reflection, and heightening consciousness, while also enriching the inner life of practitioners. Innovative approaches are being used to introduce arts-informed practices in health professions curricula programs. The findings point to the promise of arts-informed approaches for advancing health sciences education.

“But I Wanted to Appear Happy”: How using Arts-Informed and Mixed Methods Approaches Complicate Qualitatively Driven Research on Culture Shock

The study of culture shock has been limited in terms of the use of mixed methods research and arts-informed approaches. The purpose of this research was to expand upon the understanding of culture shock through the use of a mixed methods research design that included arts-informed, qualitative, and quantitative procedures. This study used a concurrent parallel design where all three data types were collected simultaneously, analyzed separately, and then analyzed together. It is based on an information-rich sampling of 10 undergraduate students participating in a short-term study abroad program based in the United States of America that traveled to a South American country. All data were collected throughout the duration of the program: self-portraits and explanatory artist statements, open-ended reflective journals, and responses to a modified version of the Revised Sociocultural Adaptation Scale. The analyses of each of these sets of data (i.e., the initial analysis stage) revealed a complexity of emotions that students experienced as part of their culture shock, the impact of interacting with others, and their heightened experience of culture shock upon returning home. The integration of these findings resulted in a reconsideration of the qualitative data to highlight the importance of interactions with locals while abroad as being particularly important to alleviate culture shock. The article concludes by considering the implications of the arts-informed data and the use of a mixed methods research design for the interpretation of the qualitative data and for qualitative researchers in general.

Arts-Informed Teaching Practice: Examples from a Graduate Anti-Oppression Classroom

This paper draws on classroom examples to discuss the integration of arts-informed teaching practices. Keeping in mind the increased awareness of the potential contributions of arts-informed practices to social work education and practice, the paper presents concrete examples of how such approaches could be applied in a graduate anti-oppression course. Through activities that relied on drawing and performance, students were engaged in critical reflection on knowledge, social work education and practice. Discussion of three classroom examples includes a description of the intended learning objectives, student reactions and feedback, as well as instructor learnings. The paper argues that graduate education undertaken on the principles of questioning knowledge could contribute to a critical deconstruction and reconstruction of social work practice and teaching, and arts-informed approaches could offer a contribution in this regard. Throughout the paper, the links to anti-oppression and social justice oriented approaches to social work are emphasized.

Transforming end of life care using practice development: an arts-informed approach in residential aged care

Purpose: To demonstrate that practice development is an effective strategy to enable an aged care team to embed a palliative approach to care of dying people into practice culture. Method: Practice development methodology was integrated with an action research evaluation framework, as a systematic and reflexive process of inquiry aimed at achieving innovative and transformative end of life care. Drawing on multiple sources of observational, group and interview data, evidence-based guidelines and the use of arts-informed active learning methods, a multidisciplinary aged care team explored personal and professional values and beliefs about principles of care delivery. These were creatively translated into meaningful expressions of evidence-informed end of life care and embedded into daily clinical practice. Results: Reflexive analysis of multiple sources of data, alongside the use of evidence-based guidelines, supported the collaborative development of a ‘palliative care chest of drawers’ (PCCOD). As an artefact and one outcome of using practice development in the implementation of a palliative approach to care, the PCCOD brought visible, shared meanings and new ways of working to support care of people who are dying, their families, other facility residents and staff. The PCCOD enabled the aged care team to embed practice innovations into normative patterns of care. Conclusion: Practice development strategies are effective in enabling practitioner-led innovation in clinical practice through integrated inquiry and transformative processes. Implications for practice: The use of a practice development, arts-informed approach: Enables the creation of space for workbased learning and innovation, such as the development and use of the PCCOD to support the process of implementation of changes in practice Makes visible changes to practice, based on shared meanings of a palliative approach to end of life care that reflects the culture of the workplace Provides a creative strategic tool to engage others in the processes of transformation and collaboration, which takes initiatives from a small active learning group into the workplace Enables what was previously a ‘hidden’ part of care to be a distinctive care package that engages residents, families and all members of the aged care team

Art-informed pedagogy: tools for social transformation

How might an arts-informed pedagogy in a leadership development programme work to inspire, create and educate the leaders needed for creating more socially just and inclusive communities? This self-study explores how a post-secondary educator has integrated arts-informed approaches to teaching and learning in a leadership development programme at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada. Theories of arts-informed learning, pedagogical ambiguity and productive practices inform and situate my approach to engaging adult learners in aesthetic processes of reflexivity, emphasising the situated, inter-subjective and contextual nature of socially just knowledge construction. The article outlines five arts-informed pedagogical strategies described as ‘designs for provocation’ to explore how these aesthetic approaches support the development of creative and emergent leaders and commitments to social justice. It concludes by exploring the promise and limitations of the approaches discussed.

The Creative Research Process: Delights and Difficulties

This paper reports on an arts-informed approach to education research aimed to critically develop and promote teachers’ creative practice and understanding of creativity for both pupils and teachers. The creative research process is described to reveal how it developed 20 students as researchers in a secondary school in England. The students’ perspectives impressed artists and enlightened expert researchers into new ways of thinking and doing research. A reciprocal relationship was developed that unravelled novel data and promoted pupil voice.