iholmesPGCert_2025

Month: October 2025

Categories
ARP

2. Methods #1: A view from the swamp

Which way should I go now? 

Developing the research design requires my reflexivity for both avoid bias and contextualize the positionalities (Archer, 2007; Yip, 2024; Creswell, 2013) of both myself and the participants. As Schön (1983) posits, I need to reflect both in and on this process, my current view being from the ‘swampy lowlands’ (Schön, 1983 in Cook, 2009, p. 279). However, before I can move on to higher ground, this ‘messy’ moment needs to be accounted for; omitting this would not ‘offer a true and honest picture of the research process’ (Ibid). 

Whilst interviews or focus groups may provide richer more nuanced data for thematic analysis, I am cognizant of the limitations of scale and reach that this will present, given the small-scale nature and time limitations of this study. Creating questionnaires would potentially provide a greater reach and the possibility for anonymity which may yield more enlightening insights, without the risk of participants feeling obliged to provide the answers positive feedback.  Organizing time for interviews will present logistical issues, both for myself and for the participants. 

Interviews, which can be understood as empirical situations, should only function as a data collection tool for that which exists within that empirical situation (Alvesron, 2012, p. 9). However, research should be treated as a pedagogy – a teaching moment (O’Reilly, 2025), and therefore the classroom where the intervention itself takes place would seem the most ethical space in which to conduct an interview or focus group. In terms of the time this would also mean using the opportunity of class time – as a reflective language development activity which gives agency to the students to affect change. That said, the appeal of digital form remains.  

From the beginning I have been open with the students about the process – and the fact that we don’t really know what will happen or how we are going to it. I frame it not as my research but rather our research, and with the aim of creating a space for (albeit partially*) ‘participatory action research’ (Lenette, 2024), I want to try to share the decision making at different stages of the research design. In conversation with a Chinese student I presented my dilemma and she suggested that a focus group would likely yield deeper insights as I would be able to elicit more from participants and they would be able to engage with each other’s responses (this cross-cultural spoken interactivity is also a key teaching aim of my lesson design).  

Through conversation with colleagues and tutors at the workshop this week, I learn that others have similar dilemmas, but that to overcome my dilemma I could in fact employ both methods – this will give opportunity to reach more students (either anonymously or in person). 

Whilst we still don’t know what will happen or how exactly we will get there, having reflected on this moment, I feel that I am more confident to begin the ascent into the foothills. 

*As limited by project 

(500 words)

References:

Alverson, M. (2012) ‘Views on interviews: A skeptical review,’ in Interpreting Interviews, 9- 42, Sage ps://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446268353

Archer, M. S. (2007). Making our way through the world: Human reflexivity and social mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.  

Cook, T. (2009) ‘The purpose of mess in action research: building
rigour though a messy turn,’ Educational Action Research, 17- (2)- 277-291, DOI:
10.1080/09650790902914241

Creswell, J. W. (2013) Qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. 3rd ed. London: Sage Publications Ltd. 

Lenette, C. (2024) PAR: Participatory action research. August 2024 (Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/2190224/mod_folder/content/0/Lenette%20%282024%29%20PAR%20%28Video%29.mp4?forcedownload=1 (Accessed 25 October 2025).

O’Reilly J. (2025) Workshop 1: Action research project, 2025-26 PG Cert Academic Practice. London College of Communication, 26 September 2025

Schön, D. A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books. 

Yip, S.Y. (2024) ‘Positionality and reflexivity: negotiating insider-outsider positions within and across cultures’ International Journal of Research & Method in Education Vol 47-Issue 3-pp.222-232   

Categories
ARP

1. Research Question/ Objectives/ Ethical Action Plan/ Action Plan/ Data Reduction

Background to study:

A critical incident observed during a presentation workshop illustrated for me a lack of inclusivity endemic within the university. There were seven home students and one Chinese. The Chinese student sat alone at the front, so I asked the student to sit with the others so that she could participate in group work. However, the home students worked together and still excluded the Chinese student (Holmes, 2025a). The refusal of the home students to be inclusive inspired me devise a translanguaging intervention to optimize the potential for multicultural communication (Garcia, 2009, p.140). This activity involved students to handwriting in their own language on a whiteboard and then building a discussion around this, which also aims to focus attention away from the digitally mediated space and into the classroom space, and responds to discussions I had with PG Diploma Fashion course leader Tim Williams regarding strategies to develop an approach to (machine) translation (see IP blog post: Holmes 2025a)

Research Question:

How do students’ expressions of attitudes and feelings about participating in a multilingual translation intervention act as indicators of the underlying *doxa and habitus that facilitate or constrain the development of a transformative and inclusive multilingual identity and learning environment?

  • *Doxa – taken-for-granted assumptions of the social world that typically conceal power relations’ (Bourdieu, 1993)
  • *Habitus – habits of perception, classification, appreciation, feeling, and action (Bourdieu, 1977)

Objectives

To evaluate the validity of using the ‘multilingual backgrounds of students (and *tutors) as a pedagogic resource and as a legitimate part of classroom and creative practice’ (Odeniyi, 2022, p. 73).

Develop a transformative and multilingual identity and learning environment at UAL.

*the first action research cycles focuses on student participants – however the future cycle will also include educators.

Contents of ARP blog:

  1. Research Question/ Objectives/ Ethical Action Plan/ Action Plan (+ Contents)
  2. Methods #1: A view from the swamp
  3. Methods #2: Guerilla research
  4. Rationale for making languages visible
  5. Methods #3: A reflexive view (from higher ground) both above and below the waterline.
  6. Noticing #1: Flipping the classroom
  7. Noticing #2: Narration of learner/noticer
  8. So what: What now? (+ Master Reference List).

DATA REDUCTION:

Coding #1 – Survey Qual *NB: Initially a metalinguistic analysis although a thematic analysis was used for the study- this focused on a content analysis approach which was then developed as a discourse analysis approach following a critical realist frame. The final presentation of the data reduction illustrates the CR frame and possible implications (see presentation in blog post 8).

Coding #1_ Survey QualDownload

Coding #2 Aggregate of codes_ sub themes

Coding aggregate – interviewsDownload
Coding aggregate – survey_ interviewDownload

Data Reduction_ Sub themes_ Themes:

Sub themes_ themesDownload

Here is a link to the Ethical Action Plan Document for the action research project:

Ian Holmes_Ethical Action Plan 2025-26.docx

Here is a copy of the annotated version – addressing points raised by tutor John O’Reilly:

Ian Holmes_Ethical Action Plan 2025-26_JOR_6.10.25 (1) (1)Download

Here is an example consent form for interviews:

Consent Form_ ARP_ EXAMPLEDownload

Here is a link to the anonymous survey/ questionnaire MS form which was sent via Moodle to 3 x PG Marketing, MA FDM, MA FEI, PG Dip FM at LCF:

Action Research Project – Making Languages Visible in the Language Development Classroom  – Fill in form

(487 words)

References:

García, Ofelia (2009). ‘Education, multilingualism and translanguaging in the 21st century.’ In: Ajit Mohanty, Minati  Panda, Robert  Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalising the local. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, pp. 128-145

Holmes, I. (2025a) IP Unit_ Reflective Report. Available at: https://pgcertianholmes2025.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2025/07/15/intervention-reflective-report_-fostering-inclusivity-in-the-international-multi-lingual-multi-cultural-university-space/ (Accessed 12 December 2025)