Creative Methods in Research

Creative Methods in Research

Creative Methods in Research – Discussion and Clinic Divine Charura and Matthew Reason   The use of creative methods in research – including drawing, photography, creative writing, collaging, vlogging and more –  is now established across disciplines ranging from health to education, psychology to the arts. Creative methods involve inviting participants to engage in an active creative task through which they can communicate their lived experiences and draw out insights and meanings. It has particular affordances in exploring experiences that might resist verbal articulation, whether affective, traumatic, emotional, aesthetic, and when working with individuals or groups who might be resistant to traditional research methodologies.  In this session Divine Charura (counselling psychology) and Matthew Reason (arts) will share examples of the use of creative methods in their own research and discuss its potential, its challenges and is practice.  As well as discussion, we also hope the session will act as a ‘clinic’, in which anyone attending can bring along their own experiences or plans for using...
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The Conversation media training

The Conversation media training

Facilitator: Jack Marley RDF Indicator: A1 Programme: PGR Research Skills Programme 2021-22 Theme: Academic Skills Session Overview: The Conversation is a news analysis and opinion platform of articles written by academics and funded by more than 70 UK and European universities. Working with an editor, researchers write short pieces that deliver academic expertise directly to the public. York St John University has partnered with The Conversation since 2018, with our academics amassing a readership of well over a million people via the platform. If you’ve not written for The Conversation before or would just like a refresher session, please come along to one of the online workshops that are being run exclusively for members of the academic community at York St John. You’ll gain valuable insights into writing for a general audience and find out what The Conversation can offer for your research and academic profile. The workshops are run on Zoom by an editor from The Conversation, and you only need to attend one. Booking is essential and places are limited....
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Life, work and sustainable work practice

Life, work and sustainable work practice

Session facilitator: Professor Vanessa Corby The aim of this session is to equip PGRs and staff with a sustainable approach to their PhD and research projects. Historically, research has been billed as an isolating experience, legitimated by the romantic vision of the solitary (usually male) scholar immersed in dusty texts or pouring over pestilent petri-dishes. The completion of any research project is not only dependent on academic excellence, however, but also health and emotional well-being. This session unpicks the unhealthy relationship between academic identity, time and solitude and asks PGRs to think differently about what it means to work effectively as 'an academic'. Learning Outcomes: This session promotes the need for structure in the working day and the benefits of working incrementally to accommodate exercise and the needs of friends and family. Rather than a guilty pleasure or impediment to ‘research’ the session foregrounds the positive impact of these non-academic activities for their thinking, thesis and well-being. As such the session will not...
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Theory, media and film

Theory, media and film

Session facilitator: Professor Steve Rawle Session Overview: There are so few academic disciplines as publicly maligned as Film and Media Studies (now often under the umbrella of Screen Studies), despite the centrally of forms of media to our everyday lives. Yet, Media Studies remains a political hot potato. In a discipline where there are also sharp divides between theory and practice, this raises the question of how Film and Media Studies theorises contemporary media cultures and defines its political contribution and impact.  How should you approach systematic searching for theoretical literature? When does theorising stop and critique or other methods begin? This session draws on a near-20-year journey in film and cultural theory, often at the lower-end of cultural distinction. It considers how to approach ‘theory’ as both an object and a critical framework, including: methods for evaluating and synthesising theory; theoretically-informed criticism; the ethics of theory; and generating impact as a theorist.   Learning Outcomes: Identifying appropriate theoretical approaches The pitfalls of theory and theorising To book your place, use this link to Eventbrite here: Book now...
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Making Waves Symposium

Making Waves Symposium

Facilitator: Professor Matthew Reason, Director of Institute of Social Justice RDF Indicator: B1, B2, D2, D3 Programme: PGR Research Skills Programme 2021-22 Theme: Events, Institute of Social Justice   Booking link to be confirmed...
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Researcher self-care

Researcher self-care

Session Facilitator: Professor Lynne Gabriel RDF indicator: B2 Programme: PGR Programme 2021-22 Theme: Wellbeing  Delivery: Online via Teams   Session Overview: Why should we address researcher self-care?  This seminar considers self-care for researchers and invites participants to consider their own self-care and implications for research/researcher practice.  Book your place on Eventbrite now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/myevent?eid=251320836387 This session will be recorded...
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Q&A with Chairs of School Ethics Committee

Q&A with Chairs of School Ethics Committee

Facilitators: Dr Scott Cole, Helen Trouille, Sophie Carter and Olalekan Adekola Session Format: In this session, Chairs of the School Ethics Committees of York St John will host a session on Ethics. Within this session, participants are advised to share any project plans and obtain peer and expert feedback on their proposals. There will also be an opportunity to ask general research ethics questions. Learning Outcomes: Although this is not a formal taught session, participants will learn; how to identify and mitigate risks, how to identify ethical issues and how to discuss ethics in a group of people with varied backgrounds and expertise.   Session facilitated by some of the School Ethics Chairs This session will be delivered live via Teams and may be recorded Booking Book your place via Eventbrite now https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/193665517777  ...
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Feel the fear and do it anyway: Intellectual risk taking and harnessing the politics of dis/comfort

Feel the fear and do it anyway: Intellectual risk taking and harnessing the politics of dis/comfort

Facilitator: Associate Professor Sarah Lawson-Welsh RDF Indicator: A3 Programme: PGR Research Skills Programme 2021-22 Theme: Research Methods Session Overview: This session provides a chance to think about the nature of researcher fear and the benefits of intellectual risk-taking, using Sarah's own research in global food studies as a case study and drawing upon the theoretical writing on dis/comfort of feminist thinkers such as Sara Ahmed, Rachelle Chadwick (and others). There will be opportunities to review your individual and collective ‘comfort zones’ as a researcher and you will be encouraged to think further – and reflexively – about the politics of dis/comfort in your own individual research praxis and the ways in which you can harness this to develop research strategies which challenge privileged positions of ignorance or ‘comfortable truths’ (Chadwick 2021). Learning Outcomes: By the end of the session, you will have a clearer sense of your individual and collective comfort zones as a researcher and better awareness of a range of strategies that you can put...
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Practice Led Research: Critical Reflection with Anecdotal Evidence

Practice Led Research: Critical Reflection with Anecdotal Evidence

Session facilitator: Associate Professor Claire Hind, Professor of Contemporary Theatre How to critically address practice led research when writing up the memory of making and producing artistic works for audiences. Learning Outcomes: Understand the relationship between creative experience, documentation and critical thinking. Grasp the concept of anecdotal evidence within art forms Book now This session will be taking place in DG/123...
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Transforming Creative Practice into a Creative Research Project

Transforming Creative Practice into a Creative Research Project

Session facilitator: Associate Professor Vanessa Corby, Professor of Theory, History and Practice of Art All processes of making be they in the disciplines of creative writing, design, performance, fine art, film or music, I would argue, can be research driven. They engage with a field but find it wanting; there’s a gap to be filled, an itch to scratch, something to be said, an experience to be shared or rearticulated. When that’s not the case, in my experience, there’s a tendency to find the practice wanting, because it can lack conviction, integrity and, to parrot the REF, originality, significance and rigour. Learning Outcomes: This workshop offers strategies to identify, articulate and pursue the research dimensions of practice. As such it will be useful for postgraduate researchers who need to meet the learning outcomes set for their programmes and practice-based staff who work within the definitions of research set by the REF. Rather than present a toolkit of how to academicize your work to...
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