Masters Project – Creative Evolution

1st March 20221st March 2022

Tacit Knowledge | 2

At the outset, I spoke about the importance of the initial understanding of a skill and essentially how embedding basic knowledge is key to developing the skill to then advance tacit knowledge. I gave the example of performing shoulder-in on a horse, this could also be going back over lesson notes/videos to embed the information learned. But there is another way we can think about tacit knowledge which Barbara Bolt (2010, p. 29) describes as “material thinking” this is the knowing that arises through handling materials in a practice. Each practice has its own materials (or tools) which vary from discipline to discipline, but these materials are not just passive objects but are used instrumentally by the individual to achieve an outcome (Barrett and Bolt, 2010, p. 29). Whether that be a painting, creating a garment or a movement on a horse, each material will be used and applied differently by each person. Bolt is an Australian academic and a painter herself, therefore her thoughts and reflections come first-hand. She unpicks the meaning of material thinking in comparison to Paul Carter’s book Material Thinking, she agrees with Carter that the joining of hand, eye and mind is where material thinking occurs (Barrett and Bolt, 2010, p. 30), but she disagrees when Carter believes that talking about practice with writers also contributes to the overall material thinking. Bolt believes talking about the work can articulate realisations but does not believe it can contribute to the tacit knowing of material thinking. I can understand Bolt’s perspective, as she appears to be thinking about the doing action or working with the materials to create something however, I think Carter’s talking to someone else (which doesn’t need to be a writer in any case) can also contribute to material thinking if you frame material thinking (the physical act of working with materials) as part of the development of tacit knowledge or knowing, then, I do also think talking about materials, tools, concepts, aids etc. does actually help in the development of tacit knowledge. For me, tacit knowledge should always be advancing, and I think it is important in any practice you engage with. Tacit knowledge is what sets you apart from others and can be gained in a multitude of ways.

When I think about tacit knowledge in regard to my own (research) practice and when teaching students I really do believe in the development of a skill by repetition (Denning and Dunham, 2012, p. 18). Anyone can teach you how to do something, but for you to achieve mastery you need to put in the hours and practice and experiment to advance your tacit knowledge, but this can also include ‘sidebar’ conversations with colleagues, students, or experts, which also contribute to your understanding. An example, last year I had training on a software called Optitex, for each 3hr session it probably took me 6hrs to go over the content to a point where I felt comfortable with that information, but since then I have experimented further using the techniques and tips and tricks learnt to apply to my own garments. This has allowed me to develop my knowledge further, ask more questions and discover beyond what my previous knowledge was. The nuances of each practice cannot be explicitly learned but come afterwards with experimentation and a deeper understanding of the skill.

Tacit knowledge is what sets creative practices apart. When we look at social sciences, they always talk about things needing to be repeatable (Snyder, 2019). But when we consider creative practice is anything repeatable? If more than one person was asked to draw a curve what are the chances that both curves would be the same…. impossible. There are so many different factors that can change or determine a person’s response – their culture, upbringing, learning difficulties such as dyslexia, mood etc. – all affect each individual’s interpretation and understanding. But this is also what makes creative practice exciting as there isn’t always a defined path to follow and depending on what materials are used and the individual’s tacit knowing will determine the outcome. This is what is so magical about tacit knowledge it is the unknown, the knowledge which cannot be documented verbatim and the knowing which allows for innovation.

References

Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (2010) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. Reprint edition. London: I B Tauris & Co Ltd.

Denning, P.J. and Dunham, R. (2012) The Innovator’s Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation. The MIT Press.

Snyder, H. (2019) ‘Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines’, Journal of Business Research, 104, pp. 333–339. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039.

1st March 20221st March 2022

Tacit Knowledge | 1

Through studying the unit ‘research through practice’ I wanted to focus more on my practice rather than following the usual quantitative and qualitative approach to research, which I think comes a little more naturally to me because there are often rules and protocols to follow. But by focussing on my own ‘practice’ and deliberately using studying this MA as an opportunity to develop my own skills, I have come to realise research through practice isn’t as always clear cut, for me, this means I need to think more creatively and outside the box in terms of what I am researching, and I often find the concepts a little harder to grasp.

From research around the area of practice as research the term tacit knowledge comes up a lot, and a term I have come to appreciate, as tacit knowledge is defined as the knowledge, skills and abilities an individual gains through experience, which can’t necessarily be documented verbatim (Oragui, 2020). An example I can share of not inhabiting the ‘know-how’ or having the experience to respond appropriately is from my recent horse-riding lessons. I have been learning a specific movement called Shoulder-in, which is when you ask the horse to walk on 3 tracks, with their inside shoulder off the track moving on an inner track (see Figure 1). Even though my instructor explains to me the aids I should be asking – the explicit knowledge (See figure 2): knowledge which can be easily documented and replicated (Oragui, 2020) – I don’t behold the tacit knowledge to tweak my own body movements or know what I should be feeling beneath me because I don’t have much experience in performing this movement. Therefore, this proves the importance of practice, to inhabit a skill, hours of experimentation, understanding and coming across different obstacles helps to embed the skill, which is trying to be learnt.

Figure 1: Horse doing the movement Shoulder-in
(Image taken from http://artfulriding.com/why-do-we-need-the-shoulder-in)

*Figure 2: The difference between Explicit and Tacit knowledge (Oragui, 2020)*

Denning and Dunham outline a “skill is not the same as a practice – the practice is the context of the skill” (2012, p. 21), so in my example, the practice would be horse riding but the skill would be performing the movement shoulder-in. Denning and Durham believe practice is the exercise of a profession or discipline with the development of a skill by repetition (2012, p. 18). Through practice of the skill the tacit knowledge advances, learning the little nuances of the practice, tips and tricks, and troubleshooting, which is the unknown of which Donald Schön refers to, as he frames practice as something that is not always known and constant (1984, p. 17).

Tacit Knowledge also relates to your working memory, Denning and Durham (2012, p. 4) describe this as ‘embodied skills’ developing those automatic habits or muscle memory to perform an action, gaining those automatic habits, gives the individual greater capacity for their working memory to think about the task at hand. While I have been learning the movement shoulder-in my working memory has been on overdrive, as before I even think about asking for the movement, I need to ensure I have the horse going in a nice outline, the rhythm is good, as well as plan-ahead what I am about to do and ask the correct aids to hopefully feel what I’m supposed to feel. David Oragui (2020) highlights in his piece that individuals “don’t know what they don’t know” often when learning we are too afraid to ask the question in fear that we will look stupid or worse be embarrassed because we should already know that!? As the teacher or the expert, we often take for granted our previous knowledge and omit this when delivering, making assumptions the students or individuals we are sharing knowledge with already know what we are talking about. So, I think collating some of these thoughts from these 3 pieces, it is important to ensure your own understanding and ask the question to help fully grasp the concept, after we have all the information, then further practice will then aid in our development of tacit knowledge and embedding that muscle memory to give us more space to advance further and innovate.

This piece of writing perhaps took a different route than I first anticipated but is still equally important. Although the new skills I am learning for my MA are nothing to do with horse-riding, writing this allowed me to highlight the importance of understanding first and then the tacit knowledge will arrive with further practice and collaboration.

References

Denning, P.J. and Dunham, R. (2012) The Innovator’s Way: Essential Practices for Successful Innovation. The MIT Press.

Oragui, D. (2020) Tacit Knowledge: Definition, Examples, and Importance, Helpjuice. Available at: https://helpjuice.com/blog/tacit-knowledge (Accessed: 1 March 2022).

Schön, D. (1984) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action. 1st edition. New York: Basic Books.

23rd February 202223rd February 2022

Project Planning

Project Title | Paths of Collision

Research Question | How can inter-disciplinary exploration transform garment realisation?

Is there a need for a literature review in this area?

Yes, this is an emerging research area.
Post pandemic 3D technology as part of garment realisation has come more to the forefront
Combining 3D with explorative teaching techniques i think is relevant as the 3D discipline already straddles other disciplines

What type of literature review would be most helpful and would make the greatest contribution?

Integrative [Contextual] review
- Contextual – Include literature, podcasts, videos, conferences, evaluation of practical work
- The aim to assess, critique, and synthesize the literature on a research topic in a way that enables new theoretical frameworks and perspectives to emerge (Torraco, 2005 in Snyder, 2019, p.335).
- They are normally used to address mature or new and emerging topics, not to cover all published articles ever published but to combine perspectives and insights from different fields.
- The result of this type of review should be advancement in knowledge and theoretical frameworks rather than an overview.
- One key element to this type of review we must not forget is we need to be transparent in how each article was chosen and how the integrative (combining 2 or more things) topics have been defined (Snyder, 2019).

What audience will most likely be interested in the review?

Tutors
Fashion Technology educators
Pattern cutters
Digital fashion designers

Keywords:

Need to Outline:

Develop a search strategy for identifying relevant literature.

Develop a system to decide what criteria to include and exclude e.g. year of publication, language, journal etc

Provide reasoning and transparency concerning all choices made.

References:

Snyder, H. (2019) ‘Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines’, Journal of Business Research, 104, pp. 333–339. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039.

23rd February 202223rd February 2022

Literature Review as a Methodology

The purpose of this reading is really about engaging with what already exists to help inform our opinion – what do we think? Is it difficult to understand/read? Why didn’t enjoy reading it? What is the tone? And what does the tone say about the paper? Unknown to me already by having a preference or an opinion of a paper we are already defining ourselves as a researcher (O’Rielly & Smith, 2022). And to develop as a researcher digesting the literature we are reading and writing down what we think of a piece is part of developing your own positionality (hence what I am doing right now), we will not form a position until we in fact begin writing, therefore it is almost like a continuous circle of reading and writing.

I read two very conflicting papers one from Hannah Snyder (2019) on Literature reviews as a methodology and one from Eileen Honan and David Bright (2016) about how we can write a thesis differently. I am going, to begin with, the Snyder (2019) paper as this is the one that made more logical sense to me. Hannah Snyder works as a professor at the department of marketing at BI-Norwegian School of business, with research interests in service innovation, customer creativity and co-creation. She has published a handful of articles on these topics as well as literature reviews coming from a social science point of view (Hannah Snyder, no date). My initial idea of a literature review was that it is used to gather all the different literature you have been reading and to put it into context the topic you are exploring and where you place your research. What I did not realise is there are different forms of literature reviews depending on what the aim of the review is for. Snyder (2019) discusses systematic, semi systematic and integrative reviews.

Systematic: Designed initially for medical science and can be explained as a research method. The aim of this type of review is to identify all empirical evidence that fits with the specified criteria to answer a specific question or hypothesis, to enable a full awareness of existing research to compare and contrast existing data (Snyder, 2019, p.334-335).

Semi-Systematic: or narrative review approach is designed for topics that have been conceptualized differently and studied by various groups of researchers within diverse disciplines and that will hinder a full systematic approach (Wong et. Al, 2013 in Snyder, 2019, p.335). And to review every single article that could be relevant would be impossible (Snyder, 2019).

Integrative: is similar to a semi-systematic, but usually has a different purpose with the aim to assess, critique, and synthesize the literature on a research topic in a way that enables new theoretical frameworks and perspectives to emerge (Torraco, 2005 in Snyder, 2019, p.335). They are normally used to address mature or new and emerging topics, not to cover all published articles ever published but to combine perspectives and insights from different fields. The result of this type of review should be an advancement in knowledge and theoretical frameworks rather than an overview. One key element to this type of review we must not forget is we need to be transparent in how each article was chosen and how the integrative (combining 2 or more things) topics have been defined (Snyder, 2019).

Currently, for my type of research, I think an integrative review would be most appropriate, although Snyder (2019) defines this approach as more complex and requires more skills as a researcher, although it seems the most appropriate for an arts-based research project. My particular area of research, speaking quite broadly at the moment would be – 3D garment simulation, fit analysis and alternative mode of delivery using mixed reality. Snyder’s (2019) approach is very clear to me with defined steps to follow, and following these steps should give a good grounding for the beginnings of a literature review. My next step is to narrow down my research area, identifying keywords ensuring to answer the points below…

Questions to consider:

Is there a need for a literature review in this area?
What type of litrature review would be most helpful and would make the greatest contribution?
What audience will most likely be interested in the review?

Then:

A search strategy for identifying relevant literature must be developed.
This will include key words (word and concepts related to research topic) to search and databases.
And deciding on what inclusion and exclusion criteria – year of publication, language, journal etc
- Provide reasoning and transparency concerning all choices made.

Moving on to Honan & Bright’s (2016) paper, I found this a lot harder to grasp and thinking about some of the questions Smith & O’Rielly (2022) mentioned which I discussed at the beginning, I think for me it was the language which was a turn-off. I found their way of writing very complex with lots of big words which I was not aware of their meaning, therefore I found this piece very difficult to fully grasp the concepts they were trying to portray. With a little help from my peers in class, the overview of the paper was to not always stick to the mould, Snyder (2019) is very concise in her delivery there is a process you should follow which I like and relate with very much. Honan & Bright (2016) on the other hand are encouraging us to break the rules, not following pre-set structures when academically writing but to be free with our thinking and define our own paths. Honan and Bright (2016) speak a lot about major and minor literature, from what I gather major language is what is expected and what hear in the media, but minor language is something new, creating a new way of writing, designed and owned by the writer highlighting different ways of thinking or perspectives. An example given of how to write in a minor language is Milieu mapping (no beginning or end you can start in the middle and still get the same meaning) or writing in song lyrics to get your point across. This piece although written very academically and formally, probably because of the aim of publication, is highlighting the importance of experimenting and including many types of data and outcomes. For me, the concept is rather more conceptual although I can still see the importance of this type of outcome generation although I feel this does not come so naturally to me.

Who are Honan & Bright?

References:

Hannah Snyder (no date) BI Business School. Available at: https://www.bi.edu/about-bi/employees/department-of-marketing/hannah-snyder/ (Accessed: 26 January 2022).

Honan, E. and Bright, D. (2016) ‘Writing a thesis differently’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 29(5), pp. 731–743. doi:10.1080/09518398.2016.1145280.

O’Rielly, J & Smith, C. (2022) ‘Literature Review as a Methodology’ [Lecture] 21/22 Masters Project. UAL 21 Jan

Snyder, H. (2019) ‘Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines’, Journal of Business Research, 104, pp. 333–339. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.07.039.