Going Against the Grain: EdD students’ engagement with arts-based research in the United Kingdom

Despite growing interest in the potential value of arts-based research (ABR) for educational inquiry in the UK, limited consideration exists regarding its accessibility, and relevance, to practice-based professional doctoral researchers in this field. In response to this, this paper reports on the first phase of a study which aimed to explore the contexts, perceptions and experiences of professional doctorate in education (EdD) students’ decisions to engage with aspects of arts-based research (ABR) in their studies. Informed by narrative interviews with 9 EdD students in the UK, this paper utilizes a series of short vignettes to illustrate the students’ stories, capturing the potential tensions perceived and/or experienced in relation to engagement with ABR. The findings consider: how conflicting methodological expectations may be reflected through key audiences and structures, the tensions between methodological choices and sense of self and identify, and the potential role of ABR in terms of promoting action and agency.