Research and Design
Methodology of the Project
Journaling, literature and interviews
The project is based on different research methods. It consists of primary and secondary design research. The secondary research is all about already existing work and literature. A lot of readings, discussions (webinars) and some exhibitions have influenced my work, and will be summarized in the following part of this workbook. Especially Ivan D. Illich, Paulo Freire and John Holt have influenced my work significantly as well as Ken Robinson and Stephen Sterling. Furthermore Helen E. Less, who works with a similar approach as I do towards education and Eve L. Ewing, who looks at the inequalities, are key comparators too.
In that case secondary research didn´t seem to be enough for the module. Therefore primary research has been done too, which is original and new research, done through various methods by the researcher. The first step was the inclusion of a questionnaire into an exhibited artefact at the work in progress show at the University of Brighton in February 2020. Additionally, interviews with children and adults (schooled and unschooled) have been conducted which led to a qualitative research of information.
Categories of the WIP Poster analysis and quantitative analysis
The questionnaire at the Work in Progress exhibition of the whole Master´s course was designed as a poster and was only asking one question: What do you think about unschooling?
Including a short description of what unschooling means, the audience should engage with the poster and write their answers for this question on a post-it and stick it onto the poster. Together with a tiny flipbook about my previous research and what this project is about they could dig deeper into the field if they were interested. Through this short “questionnaire” I gained some data about what people have in mind when they think about unschooling. Answers like “Children would end up all having different levels by the time they finish.” What about the social aspect? When children are @ home in their own neighbourhood, they will not be exposed to different kinds of people and Freedom of school. We can learn anything by myself and complete personal idea to help each other and our society” have influenced my further work and have motivated me to actually talk to people who experience home education themselves.
“One of the simplest and quickest ways of eliciting information from individuals is by asking them directly.” (Milton, Alex, and Paul Rodgers. Research Methods for Product Design, 2013. Page 69)
Interviews are a great way of gaining information and knowledge about a certain topic. Especially in design research. In that case it was mandatory to get in touch with people who are experiencing unschooled or schooled system. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak the interviews had to be done online, which affected the output of the research minimal. But Covid-19 affected and influenced the project in general, and not necessarily in a negative perspective. This issue will be addressed later in this workbook. Through Skype, Microsoft Teams and Zoom it was possible to interview in total 13 people about their opinion on school, the current situation and their suggestions and ideas for a valuable and sustainable education. The interviews
were basically semi-structured, only some core questions were asked but other than that it was more like a conversation between the interviewer and the participant. The participants were Austrian and British and recruited through personal contacts. Core participants included children who are schooled and unschooled, parents who are home educating, parents with schooled children, teacher and former home educated adults.
Coding categories of the interviews
