Amanda Cooper
Queen’s University
Michelle Searle
Queen’s University
Stephen MacGregor
University of Calgary
Tiina Kukkonen
Queen’s University
Who Really Cares about Using Education Research in Policy and Practice?
Developing a Culture of Research Engagement
Educational Research and Innovation
9. The audacity of imagination: Arts-informed approaches to research and co-production
Abstract
Arts-informed approaches offer a new way for teachers and researchers to engage with research and capture diverse community perspectives to advance equity in schools. This chapter outlines different types of arts-based approaches, with concrete examples from three initiatives from Canada. The chapter proposes an actionable configuration of context + mechanism = outcome embedded within five key dimensions that influence arts-based engagement with research: 1) features of the approach; 2) resources and infrastructure; 3) relationships and collaboration; 4) skills and experience of stakeholders; and 5) realising impact from engagement. The chapter concludes with four propositions on the value of using arts-informed approaches to improve culture and learning within research-practice partnerships.
“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.” (Dewey, 1929, p. 310[1])
Introduction
The struggle to make data, research and evaluation more useful to frontline practitioners in education has been over four decades in the making (Cooper and Levin, 2010[2]; Weiss, 1979[3]). As the field known as knowledge mobilisation (KMb) has evolved, so too has the recognition of the need to move beyond traditional research and dissemination approaches. Consequently, interest in using arts-informed approaches within research, evaluation, dissemination and partnerships to increase stakeholder engagement is growing (MacGregor et al., 2022[4]). This chapter explores two overarching questions using studies set in the Canadian context: How can arts-informed approaches to co-production within research‑practice partnerships (RPPs) improve learning within and across research, policy and practice‑oriented organisations to strengthen stakeholder engagement and improve evidence use in public education systems? How can we evaluate the impact of KMb efforts across diverse partnerships and educational contexts? Four interrelated problems set the stage for our work:
1. Stakeholder engagement: Widespread recognition that traditional research approaches must move beyond stakeholders included only as passive study participants and encourage substantive collaboration via co-production (Cooper, 2014[5]; MacGregor, 2021[6]).
2. Multi-stakeholder networks: The need to build more substantive, long-range, multi-stakeholder networks comprised of diverse educational stakeholders called research-practice partnerships (Coburn and Penuel, 2016[7]; Cooper et al., 2022[8]; Tseng, Easton and Supplee, 2017[9]).
3. Research and KMb products: Empirical work showing that traditional research products, including long, uninspired reports and journal articles hidden behind paywalls, are not dynamic enough to engage stakeholders, so are insufficient to move the evidence-needle in public service sectors (Farley-Ripple et al., 2018[10]).
4. Measuring impact: Evaluating evidence use across RPPs and co-production mechanisms remains a complex challenge (Cooper et al., 2018[11]; Henrick et al., 2017[12]; MacGregor and Cooper, 2022[13]; MacGregor, 2021[6]).
While bodies of empirical work are amassing on RPPs, there is still very little work on co-production and the use of arts-informed approaches to increase stakeholder engagement within KMb initiatives and multi‑stakeholder educational networks. International examples focusing on arts-informed approaches to research and stakeholder engagement are scarce, but some studies are emerging across global contexts. Ball et al. (2021[14]), in a new rapid review of arts-informed approaches to stakeholder engagement, found the largest share of articles emerging from the United Kingdom (N=18, 33%), followed by Canada (N=11, 20%), the United States (N=9, 17%) and Australia (N=5, 9%); there was one study from Chinese Taipei, with the remaining articles including an international focus (N=7, 13%) and 3 (6%) that were not country‑specific (summarised from p.28). While data from this chapter are based on three studies in Canada, the emergent findings have the potential to be applied more broadly in other international contexts.
To address these persistent global challenges, this chapter focuses on co-production and the arts as a way to improve culture and learning for research engagement. It does so via inclusivity and broad participation across diverse stakeholders to achieve common goals and meet the needs of various groups within and across educational organisations in RPPs. The chapter draws on data from Canada but is situated in the broader international work emerging on this topic. It first sets the stage by exploring how conceptualising research and evaluation as creative endeavours, particularly in arts-informed approaches to co-production, creates opportunities to move knowledge into action (KMb) with diverse practitioner, policy‑making and community partner organisations. Second, the chapter addresses the ever-illusive problem of evaluating evidence use and impact by proposing an actionable configuration of context + mechanism = outcome (CMO). This configuration is based on the work of Hoekstra et al. (2020[15]) and is embedded within five key dimensions that influence arts-based research (Ball et al., 2021[14]) to understand the influence of arts-informed approaches to co-production in RPPs. Third, the chapter provides concrete examples to show how arts-informed approaches were operationalised with stakeholders in research, evaluation and KMb spanning three diverse initiatives in Canada including school and community partners: 1) across the Network for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice (NEIPP); 2) in a school-wide initiative to support youth Mental Health and Well-being (MHWB); and 3) with community organisations across Rural Artists-in-School Partnerships. The chapter concludes with four propositions on the value of using arts‑informed approaches to co-production within RPPs to increase evidence use in education.
Setting the stage
“Every art communicates because it expresses. It enables us to share vividly and deeply in meanings… For communication is not announcing things… Communication is the process of creating participation, of making common what had been isolated and singular… the conveyance of meaning gives body and definiteness to the experience of the one who utters as well as to that of those who listen.” (Dewey, 2005, p. 253[16])
Why use the arts?
There are many reasons to use the arts to change and improve the culture and learning around evidence use in education systems. First, the arts offer a distinct way of seeing (Barone, 2008[17]) and can promote meaningful reflection understanding, and representation of individual and communal experiences. Greenwood (2019, p. 3[18]) highlights that a primary reason for the emergence of arts-based approaches to research “is recognition that life experiences are multi-sensory, multi-faceted, and related in complex ways to time, space, ideologies, and relationships with others.” A growing number of researchers believe that traditional approaches to research are primarily “cerebral, verbal and linearly temporal approaches to knowledge and experience”.
As such, using the arts in research offers different pathways to accessibility for a broader range of stakeholders.
Second, arts-based approaches lend themselves well to co-production. Co-production is a social and political process (Beckett et al., 2018[19]) involving stakeholders as active agents and not merely passive recipients of services (Heaton, Day and Britten, 2016[20]). We advance Greenhalgh et al.’s (2016, p. 406[21]) conceptualisation of “research as a creative endeavor, with strong links to design and the human imagination”, arguing that co-production creates opportunities for stakeholders to engage more fully with how evidence might be better integrated into their professional settings. Stakeholders are defined as those who have “a vested interest” in the research and its findings (Patton, 2008, p. 61[22]). Over time, the sphere of who might be considered a stakeholder, and thus who might be involved in co-production, has expanded in response to the need for local learning to address increasingly complex societal challenges (Boaz, Shea and Borst, 2021[23]). The arts can promote meaningful reflection, understanding and representation of individual and communal experiences. Creativity, catalysed via arts‑informed approaches, is recognised as an interactively negotiated phenomenon; it is therefore enhanced through collaboration (Sawyer and DeZutter, 2009[24]). As such, this chapter argues that processes of co-production in RPPs among researchers, evaluators, practitioners and policy makers can be augmented using artistic tools and practices.
Third, the use of arts-based approaches to increase public engagement with research is growing. Equity is emerging as a rationale for using the arts in research to represent diverse and pluralistic views on complex societal issues. Evidence suggests that using a variety of arts-based approaches (such as photography) is an effective mechanism to engage marginalised communities in research in new ways (Ball et al., 2021[14]). Many of the international examples of arts-based approaches focus on equity issues (LGBTQ+, racism, gender inequity and more) and provide powerful narratives that centre diverse perspectives and community voices.
Culture and learning around evidence use are evolving, and researchers, practitioners and policy makers should remain open to exploring how co-production and the use of arts-based approaches might extend current work globally. Research is needed to explore the impacts of these approaches, but first, schools and RPPs need to be open to experimenting with different avenues to achieve different, more pluralistic research designs that centre substantive collaboration within multi-stakeholder partnerships.
What do arts-informed approaches look like in practice?
Arts-based approaches in research can include a wide range of activities at different stages of the research process, from initial research design, data collection and data analysis to a mechanism to improve stakeholder engagement or support how research can be disseminated through KMb products and initiatives. Arts-based approaches include a diverse array of types and genres when used in practical settings, including: visual arts, performing arts, creative writing and games. The descriptions below are summarised from two reviews (Ball et al., 2021[14]; Kukkonen and Cooper, 2018[25]) (for more details on specific studies, see the original publications).
Visual arts [summarised from Ball et al. (2021[14])]: Visual arts approaches include illustrated books, comics, quilting and mixed media such as photography, video (film and animation), drawing, painting, sculptures and visual displays for the public (art installations). Illustrated books and comics are being used across the health and education sectors to capture complex lived experiences of communities and to cross limitations of language or age groups (i.e. graphic novels on research for children and adolescents). Quilting can be collaboratively produced with stakeholders and often represents images and concepts to capture unique cultural and geographic contexts. Photography, displayed through public exhibits and web galleries, often evolves from research methods such as photovoice. Photovoice is an action research method that places emphasis on community engagement and driving social change. Research participants take pictures that represent their point of view on a particular issue. The photos are then used to promote dialogue among the public and policy makers (Ball et al., 2021[14]).
Video can include documentaries of lived experiences, interviews on a topic, actors playing roles from study findings and animations (Ball et al., 2021[14]). Public screenings of videos can widely engage the public and diverse stakeholders in accessible ways. Drawing, painting and sculpting often include co‑production activities in which participants generate works as a way to convey experiences on complex research topics. The quality of the art is not important; rather, it is how the creation process in arts activities and sharing elicits new pathways to understanding community and stakeholder perspectives. Art installations represent yet another area where the public can have an immersive experience (such as a booth where people enter and say a sentence on the topic, then those quotes are projected around the room randomly and anonymously).
Performing arts [summarised from Ball et al. (2021[14])]: Performing arts approaches to research and co‑production include music, dance and drama, usually through live performances emerging from research findings that collate diverse experiences from educational stakeholders. Music has been used to capture the feelings of participants or partners (sentiment analysis). Dance has been used in schools as an entry point to discuss mental health. Drama approaches use plays and performances often comprised of direct quotes from participants and communities and performed by actors to increase awareness of pluralistic views centring the actual words (voice) of different groups – often from marginalised populations or in relation to equity issues (such as LGBTQ+).
Creative writing [summarised from Ball et al. (2021[14])]: Creative writing approaches take many forms, such as poetry and short stories, and these are often written by and with educational partners during facilitated activities with clear parameters. As an entry point or warm up for other arts approaches, researchers and facilitators can use writing as a way to begin individual exploration across divergent viewpoints with timed prompts that give a specified allotment to answer encouraging free writing (one prompt per 30 or 60 seconds that encourages collaborators to think across divergent positions – for or against an issue, or anticipating what different groups positions might be and why).
Games [summarised from Ball et al. (2021[14])]: Creating games to use with stakeholders can engage teachers on how to solve problems or consider resource issues. Ball et al. (2021[14]) list three types of games from their review of arts-based approaches: video games, board games and street-based games. In the Canadian context, Dr Melanie Barwick from Sickkids Hospital has created a knowledge translation game to teach multi‑stakeholder networks how to plan and implement evidence-based policy and practice across a range of contexts and challenges.
Although each genre has distinctive elements, they all encompass multiple creative processes and media as methods of reflecting, thinking, exploring and communicating. The arts, and arts-informed approaches in particular, have a core value of finding more effective ways to represent understanding, communicate experience and engage people. In this way, there is a through-line linking co-production and arts-informed approaches entwined around the relational and process aspects of researchers and evaluators creating meaning with stakeholders (Ball et al., 2021[14]). This chapter argues the potential for the arts to play a supportive role within a holistic inquiry (Stanley, 2009[26]), where the quality of the art is less important than how it informs understanding. Box 9.1 provides two examples of tools that can support RPPs in designing arts-informed approaches to begin experimenting using the “audacity of imagination”.
Box 9.1. Two practical tools to design and implement arts-based approaches within research‑practice partnerships
People need practical frameworks, tools and templates to operationalise arts-informed approaches for co‑production with research, evaluation and evidence initiatives. This box highlights two practical resources. The first is an arts-based knowledge translation (ABKT) planning framework that can be used by researchers or other stakeholders to support the design of an arts-based research engagement.
The audacity of imagination: Arts-informed approaches to research and co-production
Arts-based knowledge translation planning framework
Figure 9.1. Arts-based knowledge translation planning framework for researchers
Source: Source: Adapted from Kukkonen and Cooper (2018[25]), “An arts-based knowledge translation (ABKT) planning framework for researchers”, https://doi.org/10.1332/174426417X15006249072134.
A guide for the development of arts-based approaches
Gardner et al., drawing on research from RAND Europe and commissioned by the THIS Institute, developed a resource, entitled “Arts-based engagement: a guide for community groups, artists, and researchers” to guide the development of arts-based approaches. The guide covers six key areas: 1) what is public engagement and why do it? 2) why use an arts-based approach to engagement? 3) choosing the right approach; 4) what affects success or failure; 5) evaluating your project; and 6) what’s the evidence?
In order to increase the likelihood of success of an arts-based research engagement, the guide offers advice on how to run an activity and how to build relationships of trust over time; details the resources and infrastructure that are needed for a project; and explores the importance of planning for impact through robust evaluation.
Sources: Kukkonen and Cooper (2018[25]), “An arts-based knowledge translation (ABKT) planning framework for researchers”, https://doi.org/10.1332/174426417X15006249072134; THIS Institute (2021[27]), “Arts-base engagement: a guide for community groups, artists and researchers”, www.thisinstitute.cam.ac.uk/research-articles/arts-based-engagement/.
What influences how arts-informed inquiry unfolds in research and stakeholder engagement?
The potential value of arts-informed approaches to transform culture and learning for evidence use in schools requires further delineation of what it looks like in practice. Ball et al. (2021[14]), in a rapid review analysing 54 publications, explore arts-based approaches to public engagement with research by asking: What does arts-based engagement with research look like in practice and what influences how it unfolds? The review identifies four stages in how arts-based engagement occurs in practice:
1. conception, planning, establishing collaboration and securing funding;
2. producing the arts-based intervention;
3. delivering the arts-based engagement approach to the intended audience;
4. evaluation (a stage often ignored across emerging literature and empirical work).
Five key influences on how arts-based approaches with research unfold, shape engagement and impact thereof include:
1. Features of the arts-based public engagement approach and its associated interventions: relevance and accessibility of content, complexity of components, and style of delivery.
2. Resource availability and infrastructure: financial resources, time, facilities, and governance and administrative infrastructure.
3. Relationships and collaboration-related influences: the ability to recruit and retain the right stakeholders; the importance of consulting stakeholders on the design of arts-based public engagement interventions, implementation and adoption issues; and context-awareness and context-sensitivity.
4. Skills and experiences of stakeholders: technical and social skills, prior and lived experience, and training and skills-building.
5. Influences related to realising impact from engagement: building in evaluation mechanisms, timely feedback and financial support for uptake-related activities, and stakeholder support for dissemination activities and promotion [Ball et al. (2021[14]), summarised from pp. 33-36].
These five key influences are used below to frame and analyse the examples from the three cases of the use of arts-informed approaches to co-production, joint research analyses and in creative knowledge translation products.
A model to assess principles, strategies and impacts of research partnerships: context + mechanism = outcome
Measuring evidence use in educational policy and practice remains a complex challenge across KMb initiatives and RPPs for large-scale change (Cooper, Shewchuk and MacGregor, 2020[28]; Henrick et al., 2017[12]). Building on the work of Hoekstra et al. (2020[15]), which reviewed principles, strategies and outcomes of approaches to research partnerships, we propose an actionable configuration of context + mechanism = outcomes to measure how arts-informed approaches to co-production were used across initiatives to increase evidence use in educational partnerships and organisations (Table 9.1)
Table 9.1. Actionable CMO configuration to assess principles, strategies and outcomes of research partnership approaches
While we apply CMOs to our three examples of arts-informed approaches to co-production with diverse stakeholders, this configuration has the potential to be used more broadly across RPPs to assess evidence use and research impact.
The conceptual framework guiding this work
The conceptual framework guiding this work combines: (1) CMO configurations to measure co-production and partnerships (inner circle), embedded in (2) the broader key influences on arts-based approaches with research (outer circle) identified by Ball et al. (2021[14]) (Figure 9.2).
Figure 9.2. Measuring co-production and key influences of arts-based approaches within research‑practice partnerships
Note: CMO: context + mechanism = outcome.
Where the rubber meets the road: Operationalising arts-informed approaches
“Art is the most effective mode of communication that exists.” (Dewey, 2005[16])
A major challenge for increasing evidence use in education is reporting and articulating often tacit dimensions of what factors contribute to effective stakeholder engagement within RPPs between researchers, policy makers, practitioners and the broader community. We illustrate how we operationalised arts-informed approaches to co-production using three examples, each with a unique focus, different approach to the use of the arts, but all grounded in the similarity of working with frontline educational stakeholders to improve schools through the better use of evidence.
Example 1: The Network for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice
In the first example, arts-based approaches supported a developmental evaluation of large-scale, multi‑stakeholder networks to improve research use in education. The Network for Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice (NEIPP) includes four interconnected RPPs focusing on math, equity, well-being and indigenous knowledge. The NEIPP’s purpose is to build, advance and apply robust evidence of effective practices through research use, synthesising state-of-the-art knowledge from existing bodies of evidence and facilitating networks of policymakers, teachers and researchers working collaboratively to apply research to practice. Each RPP is comprised of diverse organisational partners, including schools, universities, community organisations and cross-sectoral partners. Developmental evaluation engages stakeholders to co-produce research priorities, generate useful data relevant for practitioners and policy makers, and interpret emerging findings with a focus on using the evidence generated from developmental education to improve relationships, processes and outcomes for stakeholders (Patton, 2010[29]).
We used arts-informed approaches to break free from conventional thinking about their networks during a full-day capacity-building event held with 60 participants, including policy makers, funders, researchers, network leaders, and school and community partners. Participants were organised into eight groups. The event was organised as follows:
We opened by explaining the purpose of the evaluation and invited networks to share operational updates.
Second, we used an activity to create a dialogue of how networks were engaging with communities, how they were (or were not) connecting with researchers, and asked how the government’s role and policy-making landscape were influencing their work (facilitators/obstacles).
Third, we facilitated two arts-informed activities (audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim): 1) inviting each small group to create and discuss a visualisation of their network’s goals; and 2) inviting them to develop concept maps of barriers and facilitators for their networks using large poster paper to show connections between ideas and potential entry points to improve research use for change.
Finally, we concluded with open brainstorming on hopes and hesitations, and how researchers could support diverse participation across future work without creating undue burden to practitioners and partners.
The co-produced artefacts emerging from arts-informed activities within the NEIPP
The arts-informed approaches resulted in collaborative visualisations from the RPPs involved. To model an arts-informed approach to thinking differently about our collaborative networks for research use, we shared an image conceptualising our role as researchers in the developmental evaluation and described our image to the group (Figure 9.3).
Figure 9.3. Visual conceptualisation of developmental evaluation
Transcribed description: Developmental evaluation is a continual, interactive, data-informed process to influence decision making in emerging, rapidly evolving, innovative programmes. Developmental evaluation frames learning as a form of accountability and asks: How do we translate our new understandings into programme action? Our drawing shows evaluation as a bridge between diverse multi-stakeholder networks (left) and the developmental evaluation team facilitating reflective processes through holding up a mirror back to the networks (right) and engaging leaders and participants in dialogue about change and improvement. The evaluative bridge becomes the umbrella, under which the knowledge networks exchange ideas in a non-linear, multiple directional flow of strategies.
Source: Amanda Cooper (reproduced with permission).
After discussing our role as researchers and its potential contributions to the NEIPP’s innovative efforts, we invited each group to create their own visualisation of their network (encouraging them to think of metaphors, analogies and unconventional ways to think about their professional work to apply evidence in their priority areas). We then asked each group to share and describe the creations with the larger group (which we recorded and transcribed verbatim).
The equity RPP created a multi-coloured tent with many pathways to represent their work in schools regionally on diversity and inclusion (Figure 9.4).
Figure 9.4. Visual representation of equity research-practice partnership from arts-informed co‑production approach
Transcribed description: Our work in terms of the equity network is really trying to build our capacity and establish a structure. So we chose the tent and it was a collaborative effort. If you trace the etymology of “tent”, it means to extend or stretch. So we are inviting people to come and join us in the tent. We are inviting them to stretch and extend the way in which they might imagine equity within their own communities. But also in terms of the tent, we have different paths to the tent and if we look at the etymology of “paths”, it means to suffer from. So if we are talking about systematic barriers, several different communities within the schools like students and teachers are going to have systematic barriers that cause a certain amount of suffering for those individuals or communities. So we have five different paths to get to the tent, which represent the five themes of the network. But also thinking of the tent in terms of some of the conversations we’ve had today about sustainability and building capacity… Relationality is one of our key principles and so... is the kind of relationship you have outside of the tented place, similarly to what you have inside.
Source: Amanda Cooper (reproduced with permission).
We learnt very different things than the traditional data collection methods (interviews with leads) had elicited. The equity network was facing barriers to access within some school districts due to hesitation around confronting some of the equity issues (racism, etc.). We also learnt the network had an abundance of resources to employ and had thrived in working with local communities outside of the schools (a pathway they took when access within schools became a barrier).
The math RPP faced the opposite challenges. Their visualisation showed three pillars of activities: needs, inclusion, and changing teacher and student attitudes (Figure 9.5).
Figure 9.5. Visual representation of math research-practice partnership from arts-informed co‑production approach
Transcribed description: We wanted to listen to what teachers were saying to us from the classroom. So it wasn’t a model where we were going into the school and saying “here’s what we think you should try”. We didn’t want to come in and be proposing anything external to the school or methods for fixing the school… So a very key principle was this idea that… we wanted to engage in practices that were needs-based, based in schools and being incredibly inclusive… French communities… indigenous knowledge and mathematics community of practice. We wanted to broaden the idea of participation both in gender and diversity in race and ethnicity. And finally, we wanted to change attitudes. We wanted something where mathematics was being celebrated with teachers and classrooms and families and it was a topic of discussion and interest rather than a struggle. And so those have been the three principles that have been guiding all of our work from the onset. Inclusion, attitudes and needs-based.
Source: Amanda Cooper (reproduced with permission).
The image depicted a chasm between needs and inclusion, highlighting that equity considerations such as socio-economic status often drove differential outcomes for students, schools and communities. Unlike the equity network, they had easy access to schools; in fact, they had more schools and classrooms interested in their programmes and initiatives than they could support and fund despite millions of dollars from the government. Their resources were quickly outstripped by the high demand of the number of schools wanting to be involved, which they attributed to the policy context and the government’s focus on improving math instruction and student outcomes.
A third group asked facilitators if they could change the format of the activity and, rather than draw, find an online image to depict the importance of communication across the four networks in sharing both best practices and failures to learn across priority areas and partnerships (Figure 9.6).
Figure 9.6. Visual representation of communication across research-practice partnerships within the NEIPP from arts-informed co-production approach
Transcribed description: There were two faces looking at each other and that symbolised… a willingness to communicate and try to learn from each other. And not necessarily faces looking away… it could be outwardly, but I thought that inwardly was an image that showed tentativeness and opportunity to try and listen… The image of the mouth shows possibilities for voice – not that voice always is present but there is a possibility in something that we hope to support and actualise… The things going back and forth are actually birds in the trees and we thought that this was the sharing of ideas back and forth… The notion for us to reflect. The two trees don’t have leaves on them, so an understanding and thinking about reciprocity and growth will spring forth leaves and possibly other smaller trees as we move forward. We also talked about the community piece. And how sometimes communities are… No not sometimes… A lot of the time, it is difficult to define because communities do have boundaries, but those boundaries are not necessarily hard boundaries. It may be difficult to talk about who may be in and who may be out of a community, and who may be in and out [repeatedly], and you know these things are dynamic. So as you see, both faces of the trees don’t have defined edges and that gives us an opportunity to keep evolving and growing, which is what has happened to our network moving forward.
Source: Amanda Cooper (reproduced with permission).
Their different approach showed the importance of allowing participants flexibility to take up arts-informed activities in different ways that make them more comfortable. The image itself spoke of the fluidity of learning and communication across the broader initiative. It highlighted hope in the willingness to collaborate with diverse groups and engage in meaningful dialogue and iterative and reciprocal processes for the initiative to increase research use to succeed at scale across large-scale systems involving thousands of schools and many school districts.
What we learnt: Emerging lessons across CMO configurations from the NEIPP
Different priority topic areas for research contributed to accessibility and gate keeping within school districts
We learnt that networks based on different priorities that were more (math) or less (equity, well-being, indigenous knowledge) aligned with the policy landscape and government’s priorities were grappling with highly divergent socio-historical experiences with their partner organisations, the funder, and the broader education sector in their jurisdictions (context). To introduce arts-informed approach, we modelled the process (mechanism) by sharing and explaining an image our team created to conceptualise developmental evaluation (see Figure 9.3)
Research-practice partnership success was influenced by trust and the length of the relationship (new networks versus emerging or established networks)
During discussions of the imagery for each network (mechanism), we learnt of the different facilitators and barriers each network was facing in large-scale implementation efforts. These activities unearthed network differences based on the age of the initiative and the strength of relationships with new versus partners they had worked with before (outcome).
Arts-based approaches elicited different data and perspectives than traditional research methods
Through the artistic representation of networks, participants developed a better sense of unity across networks and the broader NEIPP initiative, understanding one another’s experiences and perspectives in ways not previously captured through annual reports, administrative meetings or interviews with network leads (outcome). For instance, interviews with network leads tended to elicit similar types of language and rhetoric based on the policy initiatives, whereas the metaphors such as tents that emerged from arts-based approaches encouraged the networks to think divergently about their partnerships and work.
Some stakeholders were uncomfortable using arts-based approaches
Many groups conveyed how different this activity felt (and some communicated deep discomfort with drawing or working in this way), but ultimately the research took on a unique narrative (in contrast to surveys and interviews we had conducted), and contributed to a better understanding one another’s experiences and perspectives in ways not previously well articulated through annual reports and administrative meetings.
Using arts-informed approaches to research and discuss equity issues is particularly promising
The RPPs involved in the NEIPP articulated (through comments and reflective data collected during the day‑long session) that arts-informed approaches might be especially salient to promoting diverse types of engagement and learning and capturing different perspectives from stakeholders, especially those from historically marginalised communities.
Example 2: Supporting youth mental health and well-being
In our second example, arts-informed approaches supported understanding student experiences and school‑wide engagement with a youth MHWB initiative in a school district. The work, using collaborative approaches to evaluation (CAE) (Shulha et al., 2016[30]) explored the role of new mental health professionals in schools to improve youth MHWB. The CAE team included 33 stakeholders representing district leadership, school leadership, teachers and mental health professionals, student‑leader researchers, community organisations, and the evaluation research team.
Our arts-informed approach focuses on data generated by more than 70 teachers and 400 youth participants during two full-day sessions in one school district. The arts-informed engagement unfolded as follows:
First, we trained student-leader researchers (including students from the school district and graduate students working together) and set up stations the day before the event. Set up included establishing an 8 x 20 foot (approximately 2.5 x 6 m) graffiti wall, a large art-making area for group collages, and setting up costumes, whiteboards and screening for a photo booth (Figure 9.7).
Second, students were greeted by members of the CAE team (school leaders, student-leader researchers and external team) who supported data collection throughout the day in classrooms and through arts-informed engagement.
Once classes began, student-leader researchers visited classrooms for 20-25 minutes with a CAE member to host a group interview (recorded and transcribed verbatim). Students also had postcards where they could anonymously record ideas, doodle or ask questions.
The day culminated in a two-hour data party (Rogers and Newhouse, 2021[31]) where student‑leader researchers and members of the CAE team collectively analysed data to provide perspectives, explanations and implications for action.
The co-produced artefacts emerging from arts-informed activities within MHWB
Engaging in a range of arts-based activities to capture diverse perspectives of students, teachers, principals, school district leaders and community partners – our team set up graffiti walls, art-making areas for group collages and more (Figure 9.7).
Figure 9.7. Images of arts-informed set-up for mental health and well-being activities
Source: Michelle Searle (reproduced with permission).
This range of creative stations encouraged wide and diverse participation from stakeholders on a variety of issues, including how students and teachers conceptualised mental health; what supports they needed; what barriers existed to mental health initiatives; and how relationships between school leaders, teachers, students and community groups contributed positively and/or negatively to student and youth mental health across schools within the district. A second arts-informed approach was employed for stakeholder mapping to show roles and proximity for supporting student MHWB. These maps illustrated diverse understandings of how different roles in the system were working in practice through tangible connections, and also areas where gaps between stakeholders and supports existed. A third arts-informed approach was used during collaborative data analysis sessions between the 33 members of the CAE team (teachers, leaders, student-leader researchers, community organisations and the evaluation team). At the end of each day, we met to collectively analyse data, interpret themes, and identify areas for improvement and action to further integrate evidence-based approaches to MHWB across the school district, schools and partner organisations.1
What we learnt: Emerging lessons across CMO configurations within MHWB
Need for system alignment across research initiatives to address data collection fatigue
During this inquiry, we learnt that students were experiencing survey fatigue and wanted to be part of the MHWB conversations to develop strategies and contribute to stigma reduction (context).
Arts-based approaches need to provide a continuum of levels of engagement for different stakeholders across research initiatives
A subset of seven stakeholders collaborated with the five-person evaluation team for ongoing decision making while other stakeholders flexed their involvement depending on the evaluation stage and activity (context). Co-production took place through shared ongoing communication focused on questioning, instrument development, arts-based activities, data collection and joint analysis (mechanisms).
The use of new mechanisms for research can capture diverse experiences and provide a systems view of different perspectives
Through arts-informed approaches, we increased our understanding of students’ lived experiences and strengthened relationships by offering multiple pathways for contributions (outcome). The participatory process for data analysis across the day’s events and activities also used an arts-informed approach and provided insights that would not have been possible from researchers or the evaluation team alone. The rich perspectives provided by diverse stakeholders from their positions in the education ecosystem contributed to a whole-systems view and perspectives that illuminated many potential opportunities to move the district initiatives and goals in relation to MHWB forward.
Co-production and involving teachers and students in research improved uptake and the applicability of findings for their unique contexts
Stakeholders reported that incorporating the arts into their CAE offered the opportunity to gather new information and increase understanding of mental health professionals’ role and MHWB more broadly while also contributing to seeing the applicability of research and evaluation in other contexts (outcome).
Example 3: Rural Artists-in-School partnerships – Creating an innovative game for research dissemination and knowledge translation
The third example uses arts-informed approaches to research and knowledge translation from a study of how five intermediary organisations operate to support rural artists-in-schools partnerships (professional artists partnering with schools to deliver arts education) in two provinces (Ontario and Quebec) in Canada. Arts-informed approaches were used differently from our first two examples to mobilise findings to study participants, rural arts education stakeholders and broader audiences in dynamic and engaging ways. The researcher conducting this study was also an artist, who brought a unique capacity to analyse data and create artistic renditions of themes emerging across cases. The research and creative arts-informed processes were carried out as follows:
Twenty-three interviews (recorded and transcribed verbatim) were conducted with organisation leaders, team members and partners (for example, teaching artists, community partners, organisational partners) focused on functions and contributions to rural artists-in-schools partnerships and programmes.
Key informants were encouraged to articulate a metaphor that, in their view, described the role of their organisation.
Phase 1 data analysis included typical cross-case analyses.
Phase 2 data analysis expanded creative possibilities or what might emerge from looking across cases, through the creation of composite vignettes (that is, synthesising the authentic words of participants into a unified narrative) for each case (Coholic et al., 2020[32]).
Phase 3 employed a further arts-based approach to create a KMb game for research dissemination inspired by themes and vignettes, with illustrations and design to identify relationships across the cases and represent the findings.
The KMb game emerging from arts-informed activities within Rural Artists-in-School partnerships
A dynamic knowledge translation product was created from the research data – a board game that used direct quotes and themes from data and cases – entitled Rural Arts Intermediaries: A Game of Partnership Brokering (Figure 9.8). Players take on roles of each case study and organisation and aim to partner artists with rural schools. Stakeholders get an organisation card (Figure 9.9) that shows the composite vignette associated with the five cases, including five distinct knowledge brokering roles: The Cultivator, The Weaver, The Bridge Builder, The Connector and The Spark Maker. Players must gather different key resources and partners, and use strategies to overcome obstacles. The game presents a new way of engaging stakeholders in discussions about their unique contexts and sharing strategies and obstacles to partnership work in schools to expand the collective knowledge of improved evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning in collaboration with artists and communities.
Figure 9.8. Rural Arts Intermediaries Board Game
Figure 9.9. Organisation Card for the Rural Arts Intermediaries Board Game
This example presents new ways to think about analysing case study data and translating research findings using KMb games for dynamic use within diverse stakeholder communities.
Emerging lessons across CMO configurations within Rural Artists-in-School partnerships
Games based on research findings offer an interactive mechanism for research dissemination
Making a KMb game from research findings provided a new arts-based approach to research dissemination. Co-production processes included key organisations and informants from stakeholders (community members, teaching artists that work with schools) engaged in connecting artists to schools using evidence-based practices (context).
Involving stakeholders in data analysis enriches interpretations of research findings
Consistent communication with participants (community members, teaching artists, rural arts organisations that partner with schools) occurred throughout the research process and assisted in interpreting findings and creating vignettes for each case (mechanism). The vignettes consisted of the participants’ own words, but the artist-researcher chose which words to use and how to assemble them. Similarly, the participants’ words informed the board game design and are infused in the content. For instance, the metaphors articulated during the interviews inspired the different organisational roles players can adopt in the game (i.e. The Cultivator, The Weaver, The Bridge Builder, The Connector, The Spark Maker). Interviews also allowed identifying the obstacles, resources, partners and strategies in the game. The artist-researcher then presented aspects of the game to members of the Supporting Performing Arts in Rural and Remote Communities network, which generated interest among rural arts stakeholders (community organisations, schools, teaching artists) (mechanism).
Arts-based approaches to data analysis and research dissemination can influence how a researcher understands unique contexts
In terms of immediate outcomes, the processes involved in making the game had a profound influence on the artist-researcher’s own understanding of arts education partnerships and rural arts education. For instance, weaving together participants’ words in the vignettes allowed for a more holistic picture of each organisation to emerge.
Games represent tangible ways for stakeholders to work with and discuss emerging research findings and compare them with their unique local contexts
The relationships between partners, resources and obstacles in arts education collaborations became clearer as these dimensions were envisioned as cards with implications for how well the game is played. The game highlighted and summarised particular obstacles involved with rural arts education (e.g. costs, stakeholder buy-in) in an accessible format and provided innovative approaches organisations are using to overcome them (e.g. sourcing local artists, fostering community ownership over projects). This example of KMb games to help stakeholders engage with research findings and data and apply those lessons in their own unique educational organisations expands the vision of what co-production can mean using arts‑informed approaches (e.g. participant voices infused into creative research processes and products).
What lessons emerged from CMO analyses across these three examples?
The potential of the CMO model is the ability to apply it to analyse similarities and differences in co‑production and stakeholder engagement across diverse RPP contexts. As Table 9.2 illustrates, two CMO configurations emerged across these three examples of the use of arts-informed approaches to co‑production in RPPs. The first maps how co-production and the arts enabled new ways of building mutual understanding among partners, leading to more positive attitudes about co-production. At the same time, it appeared that the practical costs of co-production using arts-informed approaches (e.g. the financial costs and time requirements of in-person meetings to create visual displays) could also result in a negative outcome of stakeholders feeling overburdened or having critical perspectives about the processes. The second CMO configuration shows how arts-informed approaches throughout different phases of the co‑production process (planning, conducting, disseminating and applying) simultaneously ensured findings were relevant and useful while promoting interest in future collaboration. However, once again, the contextual factors and mechanism could also induce negative outcomes, particularly the potential for co‑production activities to appear tokenistic if organisational structures and norms crowded out meaningful engagement.
Table 9.2. CMOs from the cross-case analysis of co-production using the arts
Note: The table presents three contextual factors that were particularly influential in the CMO patterns observed, yet it must be stressed that many contextual factors were at play in each case.
We used arts-informed approaches in an attempt to change conventional perspectives in knowledge production, mediation and use to achieve more substantive contributions, equal partnering and better explore equity issues across research and evaluation processes from the perspectives of stakeholders involved in evidence use initiatives. The lessons are described in detail below.
There must be trust within research-practice partnerships for arts-based approaches to be successful
Regardless of how co-production took shape, we found that positive outcomes hinged on a sense of trust among partners, as well as the skill of the facilitator in alleviating discomfort by engaging in different and arts-informed ways. Our cases highlighted the need for a coherent co-production praxis that can integrate scholarship and practice when addressing issues such as trust in research and evaluation, particularly when using methods with limited consolidated and systematic evidence, such as arts-informed approaches.
Arts-based approaches can be usefully applied at different stages of research to influence learning from evidence
Our cross-case analysis further illustrated how arts-informed approaches can traverse different phases of co-production processes, including planning (Case 1), data collection and interpretation (Case 2), and dissemination (Case 3). As Ball et al. [(2021[14]), p. vii] highlight, researchers often choose an arts-informed approach “to find more effective ways of engaging stakeholders – particularly when a broad and diverse audience needs to be engaged with on complex or sensitive topics or when specific communities who may not find traditional research outputs accessible need to be reached”. Indeed, the desire for more effective stakeholder engagement motivated our use of arts-informed approaches, yet our cases demonstrate that such efforts need not be circumscribed to research outputs.
Arts-based approaches value different forms of knowledge being integrated into research processes and collaborations
Our cases illustrate that arts-informed approaches can promote artistic expression throughout co‑production processes as well as enable different forms of knowledge and experience (making implicit knowledge explicit) to shape learning processes for school improvement. For instance, while Case 3 calls attention to how interactive dissemination products, such as board games, may help the broader public engage with research findings, Case 2 illustrates how the research process itself can transform through artistic expression by assuaging the limitations of traditional methods. However, in all cases, skilled facilitation was crucial and required building relationships to effectively engage the arts in ways that would not be perceived as tokenistic or haphazard.
Conclusions: The value of using arts-informed approaches within research‑practice partnerships
“Scientific principles and laws do not lie on the surface of nature. They are hidden, and must be wrested from nature by an active and elaborate technique of inquiry.” (Dewey, 1920, p. 32[33])
Creativity and imagining new innovative approaches to inquiry and working with diverse educational stakeholders are needed for the field of evidence-informed education to evolve and reach its full transformative potential in schools and with diverse community partners. This chapter explored how the arts might unleash creative expression that provides new ways of seeing and engaging in co-production to achieve system changes in culture and learning with researchers and practitioners in schools. We advance four propositions about the value of using arts-informed approaches to co-production to transform culture and learning for evidence use in public school systems.
Arts-informed approaches can address equity via context specificity and sensitivity
These approaches encourage different modalities to better capture the lived experiences of diverse stakeholders, especially in relation to complex equity issues. RPPs must consider a range of contextual factors, such as the goals researchers aim to achieve (e.g. to influence and inform the direction of the initiative and project), the types of facilities that “must be fit-for-purpose”, as well as governance and administrative infrastructure (e.g. clarity of contractual arrangements, the roles of different stakeholders, and data ownership and security) (Ball et al., 2021[14]). Context awareness is critical to success, and as Ball et al. [(2021[14]), p. xi] note:
… the design and delivery of arts-informed approaches for public engagement with research need to be done with sensitivity to the cultural, political and socio-demographic context in which a research topic is being explored and stakeholders engaged.
The diversity of the three examples given in this chapter shows how arts-informed approaches can transcend and are applicable across diverse contexts. Stakeholder composition will influence the strategies needed and feedback/feedforward loops to assess and adjust during the implementation of evidence-based initiatives to encourage reciprocity between researchers, practitioners, policy makers and community members.
Arts-informed approaches promote engagement
Creative tools and processes provide relationally focused experiences for joyful exploration that generates access to different ways of seeing. Engaging in playful processes can strengthen relationships by capturing a broader array of diverse stakeholder experiences. Arts-informed approaches invite responsiveness, sensitivity and vulnerability within research and co-production. The use of the arts deepens understanding by creating broad spaces for dialogue, where people take shared risks during a new collective activity and embodied experience (Leavy, 2009[34]). Embodied experiences are a learning mechanism to unite the head and heart to know ourselves better, make visible these connections and have new experiences that amplify our commitment to inquiry (Stolz, 2015[35]). Our examples showed uses of different arts-informed approaches to promote engagement by deepening and discovering new relationships and offered diverse entry points to encourage reflection and communication as part of co-production within and across groups in RPPs.
Arts-informed approaches enhance and intertwine skills related to the arts, research, evaluation and partnerships
Our examples showed how new skills can be fostered through hands-on training and practice (e.g. training student-leader researchers to collect data), exploration of diverse modes of representation (e.g. drawing mind maps and visualisations, writing composite narratives) and the creation of shareable art/research products (e.g. designing a board game for KMb and research dissemination).
Arts-informed approaches broaden thinking about impact
These approaches positively influence relational and process aspects of co-production among diverse stakeholders in RPPs. However, empirical evidence evaluating the impacts of arts-informed approaches remains limited due to four challenges [cited by Ball et al. (2021[14])]: 1) the aims for collaborative efforts can be difficult to establish; 2) intentionally emergent approaches can elude a priori evaluation planning; 3) impacts can take months or years to emerge; and 4) methodological guidance on reliable evaluation methods remains limited. These challenges were present in varying degrees across our examples. Addressing them requires researchers to consider the timing and staging of arts-informed approaches; how the methods and approaches are tailored to the context and stakeholders involved; the range of potential impact and outcome types on a variety of stakeholders; and the support researchers or evaluators with a background in, or understanding of, arts-informed approaches might offer (Ball et al., 2021[14]). This chapter argues, similarly to Kukkonen and Cooper (2018[25]), that the impacts of arts-informed approaches in co-production within RPPs require expanded notions of impact beyond metrics or indicators, to consider how processes and relational factors underpin co-production and evolve across stakeholders in RPPs. Our work, and the broader field, is in its infancy and only beginning to explore how arts-informed approaches can generate visible, dialogic, evocative and embodied knowledge for culture and learning about evidence use in schools. However, it nonetheless contributes to new understandings of diverse approaches to co‑production within RPPs, and how notions of creativity and imagination might inform inquiry processes to link knowledge with action and better represent diverse voices of lived experiences of marginalised communities.
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Note
← 1. Ontario has many evidence-based resources for school mental health. For more information, see: https://smho-smso.ca.