Creative Practice as Research: Discourse on Methodology Main Menu Contents Introduction The Practitioner Model of Creative Cognition: A Potential Model for Creative Practice-Based Research Model research methods relevant for creative practice-based research projects Application of the Practitioner Model of Creative Cognition Community Discourse: Your Practice Research Models Resources for Conducting and Teaching Practice-Based Research About the Author The Disrupted Journal of Media Practice

Step 4: Conduct Empirical & Contextual Research

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Do the practice!  Write the story, create the film or game or painting.  This is your empirical research.  You may want to keep research logs, drafts, revision notes, etc., depending on what is relevant to your research question (here are some useful research tools for doing so).

Contextual research is a continuation of your background research.  As you conduct and complete your practice, you will make discoveries about the process, the narrative, the themes, the characters, the structures, etc.  If you are going to discuss those discoveries and provide some form of insight or argument, it is important that you ground that discussion in the relevant critical field, and use critical theory to support your arguments.

It is important to continue this contextual research during and/or after your empirical research, as you will be able to narrow your focus, and do more targeted readings based on your increasing knowledge and understanding.

Example: The researcher discovers that writing in a crowded space makes him focus more intently on his work, so it progresses much more quickly.  To explore this discovery, he conducts critical research into psychology and attention, anthropology and human spaces, in order to understand why working in a hectic environment was more conducive to his normally isolated and quiet composition activity.

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  1. Outline of Practice-Based Method Lyle Skains