The significance of conflicting discourses in a professional degree: assessment in undergraduate fine art practice

Abstract

This paper expands on empirical research which revealed that, whether or not an institution's interpretative community was explicitly informed by outcomes-based assessment, the more powerful and implicit discourses that emerged in assessment practices were those of their professional practice and academic traditions. Tensions, between the emerging dominant discourses, had their roots in academic perspectives and traditions; professional practice(s) and ways of being; and the more recent educational development discourses. The significance of these tensions for the discursive positioning of staff and students is discussed, with suggestions made for possible ways to negotiate these problematics more purposefully

KEYWORDS:

• Professional
• practice-based
• assessment
• interpretative communities
• objectivity
• educational development

Notes

1 The informal learning of the workshop guild predated fine arts inclusion into the academy. In addition to approaches to learning, much of the traditions of learning, particularly the master-apprentice relationship, come from this context.

2 This term relates to constructions of what informs the meaning or significance of artworks. Intentionalist models consider aspects of authorial knowledge, including the artist's original intention. Many contemporary notions include the artist's cognisance of readership, in how s/he conceives the work will be received and its significance once it has become ‘public’. Neither of these deterministic nor reflexive models are given as much credence as the authority of the reader in anti-intentionalist models, which dominate contemporary art and literary criticism.

3 For more on the interpretative approaches adopted, and the information referred to when making such decisions, please see Belluigi (2015).

4 S1 was located in the United Kingdom. This is the only significant finding relating to the national context in terms of dominant discourses. For more in-depth discussion, see Belluigi (2015).