Will Grant Presents at British Educational Research Association Conference: Risk and Reward

Will Grant presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference 2025 at the University of Sussex. His paper, entitled ‘Risk and reward: Employing creative visual methods during doctoral studies’, explored how the dynamic of doctoral research can discourage risk.

Abstract:

As an assessed qualification the instrumental goal – arguably ahead of ensuring the quality of research outcomes – is meeting the expectations of examiners. This understandable self-interest is held in tension with the requirement for doctoral work to demonstrate originality and is heightened by the perception of highly individual assessment criteria in the circumstances of a confidential viva (Houston 2018). I began this paper discussing a threshold moment in my own EdD journey that resulted in novel methodological design, required to meet my research intent regardless the risks at appraisal. Here, I drew together traditional auteur approaches typical in sociological studies, dialogic components to reflect my commitment to critical pedagogy, and a postmodern polysemic conception of the visual common to contemporary art practice. In so doing, I was required to overcome the anxieties associated with creative transgression from normative methodologies.

I latterly discussed the extent to which adoption of untested methods of data conceptualisation and collection could be considered a high-risk strategy in the pursuit of an assessed qualification. To conclude, I asked some critical questions of academic conventions that might discourage doctoral students from making creative methodological choices and suggested a more open system of ongoing assessment to expediate diversification and advancement of doctoral methods in educational research.  

For more information about the paper, click here.

For more information about VAMP member, Will Grant, click here.