DIAGNOSTIC REPORT – Led by SWPS
NEEDS ANALYSIS
The last few months have prompted the publication of numerous articles and surveys assessing the impact of COVID-19 on teaching and learning across Europe. However, there has not yet been a systematic attempt to assess the impact specifically on art and design teaching or the experiences of art and design students. Online learning struggles to replicate the experiential nature of these practice-based subjects, whose pedagogies are frequently dependent of modes of materiality, embodiment, and situatedness in ways that more traditional ‘book-based’ subjects are not. ACCELERATE posits that immersive technology has the capacity to address this experiential ‘gap’ in art and design teaching and learning but it recognises that to do so effectively, the partners need first to understand the pedagogical expectations and experiences of students, lecturers, and technical staff in art and design, and how this has been impacted by the shift to online/blended learning during 2020/21. It is important that the assessment considers a full year of enforced online/blended study rather than focus on the exceptional experiences of March-June 2020 when the institutional goal was primarily to mitigate the impact on the conclusion of the 2019/20 academic year. Drawing on questionnaires aimed at students, lecturers, and technical staff and structured discussions with students through focus-group, this diagnostic report will therefore provide a detailed qualitative and quantitative assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on the undergraduate teaching of art, design, and related practice-based subjects during 2020-21, identifying the ways in the enforced shift to online/blended learning diminished and/or enhanced individual experience of teaching and learning; it will also gather examples of good practice from across the partners.
TARGET GROUPS
The diagnostic report sought responses from art and design lecturers, technical staff, and undergraduate students at the five art and design partners (i.e. BSU, UAL, IADT, SWPS, and CHNU). The diversity of partner institutions in terms of size, location, character, facilities, and subject-focus will allow for a broader set of responses.
Particular attention was paid to the student learning experience, especially for students with different personal, physical, cognitive, and social characteristics. The student questionnaire asked respondents to self-declare their gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and physical, sensory, and cognitive functional diversity; it will also identified their preferred learning styles. In addition, each partner convened student focus groups for structured discussion. Each focus group comprised of eight students (known as ‘Accessible Learning Student Ambassadors’) with self-declared physical, sensory, and cognitive functional diversity, different learning styles, technical inequalities, and complex personal circumstances.