As the Research Strategies in Design class prepares to send out surveys on our final research project, I thought the blog post for this week would be a good opportunity to fill everyone in on the project goals, methods, and outcomes.
Based on suggestions from class instructor Erik Evensen, we decided to focus our research on investigating how we could improve the MFAiD community here at Stout. The low-residency and interdisciplinary nature of our program offers some unique challenges and we hoped our initial research could identify directions to move forward in, perhaps through future design and research projects. We’re at that “fuzzy front end” where we’re looking to find if a problem exists, and its nature, if so.
Along with some secondary research into existing MFA programs and looking at some previous surveys of MFA students, we’re conducting new research into the community needs and dreams of current students through an online survey utilizing both quantitative and qualitative inquiry. We’re also surveying School of Art and Design faculty for data regarding community in their graduate school experience and how that might translate for our program, looking for trends and suggestions in those highly qualitative responses.
After we’ve gathered and analyzed our data, we will organize and present the findings and conclusions to faculty and our fellow students, providing insight into areas needing more investigation and possible solutions to create an improved sense of community in the MFAiD.
Thank you to everyone contributing data to this project. If you would like to participate, please contact Erik Evensen or me, Michelle Mailey Noben. Any class member is a great resource for more info!
Design Denizens 