Creative Arts Research: A Pedagogical Perspective

This paper emerges from current work related to a number of research projects across several creative arts disciplines. It poses the following questions: What implication does creative arts research have for extending our understandings of the role of experiential, problem-based learning and multiple intelligences in the production of knowledge? How can the application of such understandings influence policy and enhance opportunities for support of creative arts research in the university and the broader arena? In a previous paper examining the function of the exegesis (Barrett, 2004), I referred to the suggestion made by Lauchlan Chipman that: in a knowledge economy, it is necessary for a large number of people to comprehend the creative output of others in order for such output to be sufficiently taken up for the enhancement of society. This paper is an extension of the previous one in its attempt to promote wider understanding of the value of creative arts research. I will focus on the dialogic relationship between the exegesis and studio practice in painting, creative writing, performance and dance, in order to demonstrate that creative arts enquiry can promote a more profound understanding of how knowledge is revealed, acquired and expressed. Four successful research projects will be examined as ‘case studies’ to show how creative arts research methodologies may be applied in the development of more critical and innovative pedagogies and to argue that the role of creative arts research is still to be fully realized and acknowledged in the knowledge economy.