University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Swansea College of Art

Guidelines for Students and Examiners of Doctoral Research Through Visual Arts
Practice

Professor Emeritus Howard Riley PhD MA(RCA) CertDes FRSA FHEA

This document sets out to clarify how visual arts practice may be understood as research,

and to provide guidelines both for those who wish to undertake doctoral research through

visual arts practice and for those charged with examining such research here at the

Swansea College of Art.

Introduction

The genesis of the debate about the status of visual arts practice within a university

research context can be traced back to the mid-1960s, when art schools first began to

offer degrees. By the end of that century, Christopher Frayling (1997:14), Rector of the

Royal College of Art, was articulating the position of doctoral research within the art

schools:

The practice-based doctorate advances knowledge partly by means of

practice. An original piece of work is included in the submission for
examination. It is distinct in that significant aspects of the claim for
doctoral characteristics of originality, mastery and contribution to the
field are held to be demonstrated through the original creative work.
Practice-based doctoral submissions must include a substantial
contextualisation of the creative work. This critical appraisal or
analysis not only clarifies the basis of the claim for the originality
and location of the original work, it also provides the basis of a
judgement as to whether general scholarly requirements are met.
This could be defined as judgement of the submission as a
contribution to knowledge in the field, showing doctoral level
powers of analysis and mastery of existing contextual knowledge, in
a form which is accessible to and auditable by knowledgeable peers.

This document takes the view that practice-based research is a sub-set of academic

research in general, and offers four criteria for its identification and assessment.
Criterion 1: Hypothesis

Practice-based research sets out to answer explicit questions posed normally in the form

of a hypothesis. Simply pursuing an interest through practice is not research because it is

unlikely to result in an outcome relevant for the academic community, one it can absorb

in order to enable the accumulation of new knowledge essential to the research process.

The absence of a research question and answer is an indication of professional practice

rather than research.

Criterion 2: Research Communities

Within the general academic research community, there exists a specialist community

likely to scrutinise the practice-based research process and outcomes. Ideally, Examiners

would be prominent members of this specialist community. The specialist community is a

sub-set of the general community and so is not in a position to decide definitions of what

constitutes research unilaterally. However, the new knowledge resulting from practice

based research may be interpreted by specialists in ways not necessarily agreed with or

understood by the general academic community, as is the case with other specialist

communities.

Criterion 3: Method

Once the research question is posed, the way to identify a suitable method of approach

becomes evident. Practice-based researchers need not necessarily follow those methods

approved by the general research community, as a researcher operating within the

parameters of a positivist paradigm might feel obliged to do. Rather, a more pragmatic

approach to evaluating the appropriateness of method would be taken, based upon how

the answer to the research question is relevant to that question in the context of its
benefits to the specific academic community. Practice-based research most often takes

place within either a constructivist or participatory paradigm as defined by Norman

Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (2005) in their Handbook of Qualitative Research, for

which methods based upon hermeneutical or dialectical strategies have proved most

appropriate.

Criterion 4: Experiential Knowledge

Practice-based research sets out to contribute to shareable knowledge. The understanding

of knowledge and the expectation of how and what that knowledge will contribute is

conditioned by the different conventions devised within different disciplines. For

example, a question "What is Mercury?" would generate different answers given by

astronomers, chemists and painters, illustrating different ways of responding that are

nevertheless relevant and meaningful to their various specialist research communities.

Research students and Examiners should be familiar with the knowledge conventions of a

visual arts practice community.

Whilst it is accepted that a certain degree of contextualisation of visual arts practice based

research in the form of written language is required, as is evidence of the general scholarly

structure of a thesis advocated by Frayling and adumbrated in the first three criteria,

practice based research inevitably involves what Frayling omitted to elaborate: a material

practice embodying experiential knowledge, which can be difficult, if not impossible to

express linguistically.

Examples might be practice-based research that enables discovery through the experience

of drawing or other visual media, which could not be discovered through any other
method: David Hackney's (2001) hypothesis that artists working in Europe around 1430

began using lenses and mirrors to project images from which portraits were then painted

required first of all an acute visual sensibility to perceive the differences between lens-

based imagery and non-lens-based imagery, which can only be acquired through practice,

then a visual comparison of paintings pre-1430 with paintings post-1430, together with

conventional historical research into the technical development and availability of such

lenses and mirrors at that time, and finally the visual analysis of paintings through

diagrams and other geometric constructions and his own practical demonstrations of

lens-based projective drawing in order to convince both the specialist and general

research communities.

Recommendations

1 It is recommended that candidates submitting a practice-based thesis for examination

include a Preface which addresses the four criteria set out in this document, and clearly

states the nature of the practical components of the thesis and how they relate to the

written component of the thesis, together with full visual documentation of those practical

components in an appropriate format.

2 Examiners are recommended to use the four criteria as an initial basis for their

assessment of the thesis.

3 It is recommended that the viva be conducted in the presence of the practical

components of the thesis, or at least in the vicinity of those components so that they can

be scrutinised when necessary.

References

Denzin, N. and Lincoln, Y. 2018 Handbook of Qualitative Research. 5th edition.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
 Frayling, C. (ed.) 1997 Practice-based Doctorates in the Creative and Performing
Arts and Design. Litchfield: UK Council for Graduate Education.

Hockney, D. 2001 Secret Knowledge. London: Thames and Hudson.

Useful, General References

BURNS, R.B. 2000 Introduction to Research Methods. 4th ed. London: Sage.

DENZIN, N. & LINCOLN, Y. 2018 Handbook of Qualitative Research 5 th edition.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

FRAYLING, C. (ed.) 1997 Practice-based Doctorates in the Creative and

Performing Arts. Litchfield: UK Council for Graduate Education.

FRAYLING, C. 2007 Research Degrees in Art and Design: Why Do People Have
Problems with Them? Online at http://vrc.rca.ac.uk/modules/articles/article.php?
id articles=2 (Accessed 21
January 2009)

GRAY, C. and MALINS, J. 2004 Visualising Research. A Guide to the Research

Process in Art and Design. Aldershot: Ashgate.

GRIX, J. 2001 Demystifying Postgraduate Research: From MA to PhD.

Birmingham: Univ. of Birmingham.

HART, C. 2001 Doing a Literature Search. London: Sage.

HART. C. 1998 Doing a Literature Review. London: Sage.

LEONARD, D. 2001 A Woman's Guide to Doctoral Studies. London: Open Univ.

Press.

MURRAY, R. 2002 How to Write a Thesis. Buckingham: Open Univ. Press.

O'DOCHARTAIGH, N. 2002 The Internet Research Handbook. London: Sage.

PHILLIPS, E. & PUGH, D. 2000 How to Get a PhD. London: OUP

POTIER, S. 2002 Doing Postgraduate Research. London: Sage.

ROSE, G. 2007 Visual Methodologies. :;td edition London: Sage.

RUGG, G. and PETRE, M. 2004 The Unwritten Rules of PhD Research

Maidenhead: Open University.

SEAGO, A. 1999 New Methodologies in Art and Design Research. Design Issues
15(2) Summer 1999.

SULLIVAN, G. 2005 Art Practice as Research. Inquiry in the Visual Arts. London:
Sage.
 Useful Websites and Mail-lists

All UK theses approved for higher degrees are listed at:

http://www.theses.com

All UK theses in Art & Design are listed at:

www.shu.ac.uk/adit

The Research Training Initiative (RTI) based at Birmingham Institute of Art &
Design:
www.biad. uce.ac.uk/research

You should also join the PhD Design list, and any others you think useful, run by
Jiscmail:
www. j iscmail. ac.
To receive contents-lists for relevant journals, join at:
www.tictocs.ac.uk
To receive alerts for Sage publications (leaders in the field of academic research)
join at :
www.sagepub.co.uk

To access a range of useful research sources, join at:

www.athens.ac. uk