The Digital Sabbath and the Digital Distraction: Arts-Based Research Methods for New Audiences

Abstract

Despite the known affordances of Arts-Based Research Practice within the international education environment, its use remains relatively uncommon in Western Australia. The reasons for this are likely the contested nature of quality criteria by which Arts-Based Practice is evaluated as well as the challenges associated with the dissemination of research findings. Mixed-methods research is increasingly recognised as an appropriate and practical approach for education phenomena, and within this domain, inquiry that combines traditional qualitative and arts-based strategies offers the education researcher advantages that are not readily available through other approaches. As professional artists and researchers we share our experiences in employing our visual arts specialism within a qualitative approach. Our focus for inquiry was a “Digital Sabbath” intervention (a practice of regularly unplugging from all technology/devices with the aim of increasing social connectedness and mitigating stress) with seven early career visual arts teachers whose voices and experience of the digital disruption might otherwise have remained silenced. The importance of the study was both that we trialed a well-being intervention, but also that we innovated our methodological research repertoire by combining traditional and contemporary elements of the Qualitative paradigm.