This Guide is intended as a starting point for your research and lists a selection of material. You will need to look beyond the resources listed here to identify further reading. Additional material (including more ebooks) can be found in the Education Ebooks Collection, or Sage Research Methods and in scholarly ejournal articles sourced using bibliographic databases.
See the Arts-Based Research Section of the Education Ebooks Collection for additional reading
Chilton, G., & Scotti, V. (2014). Snipping, gluing, writing: The properties of collage as an Arts-Based Research practice in Art Therapy. Art Therapy, 31(4), 163-171.
Currans, E., Heit, S., & Kuppers, P. (2015). Arts-based research sharing and disability culture methods: different ways of knowing. Research in Drama Education, 20(3), 372–379.
Eisner, E. (1997). The promise and perils of alternative forms of data representation. Educational Researcher, 26(6), 4–10.
Finley, S. (2014). An Introduction to Critical Arts-Based Research Demonstrating Methodologies and Practices of a Radical Ethical Aesthetic. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 14(6), 531–532.
Finley, S., & Knowles, J. G. (1995). Researcher as artist/artist as researcher. Qualitative Inquiry, 1(1), 110-142.
O’Donoghue, D. (2009). Are we asking the wrong questions in arts-based research? Studies in Art Education, 50(4), 352-368.
Smithbell, P. (2010). Arts-based research in education: a review. The Qualitative Report, 15(6), 1597-1601.
The following sections of the Library will contain material on this subject:
700/7 - Arts
301/01 – Social science research methodology
370/78 – Educational research
Artist Scholar by
"Artist Scholar: Reflections on Writing and Research" is part history, introduction, and discussion for artists and designers entering, graduating, and employed by the contemporary art academy in the United States. The evolution of art education in the university continues to expand in the 21st century as the variables of craft, skill, technique, theory, history and criticism shift and expand as the perspective of arts-based research is introduced into this professionalized environment. Given this context: what can M.F.A. students do to improve their understanding of writing and research without sacrificing their commitment to their studio art process? Through a series of essays, the text argues for better writing at the M.F.A. level with the purpose of becoming better artists. By contextualizing art practice in the university and providing a foundation for future artist scholarship, it serves as an invitation to artist scholars to push their work further and develop the confidence to situate their art in the university context.
Arts Based Research by 
Arts-Based Educational Research and Qualitative Inquiry by
Awarded QRSIG's Honerable Mention for 2021 2020 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award Winner Arts-Based Educational Research and Qualitative Inquiry introduces novice qualitative researchers, within education and related fields, to arts-based educational research (ABER). Abundant prompts and exercises are provided to help readers apply the concepts and experiment with various applications of the ideas presented. The authors walk the path with novice researchers offering a variety of approaches to the practice of arts-based methods, while providing a guided overview of ABER, and include pedagogical features in each chapter. Exercises are designed to assist educational researchers who wish to expand their repertoire of methodologies. The authors also weave into the discussion the possibilities and limitations of many types of arts-based methods while introducing readers to the growing methodological literature. By offering a tapestry of ways to engage the novice researcher, the book illustrates that it is not always possible to separate cognitive findings from aesthetic knowing. This book will help qualitative researchers to expand their methodologies to include arts-based approaches to their projects and by doing so reshape their identities as qualitative researchers. It also offers some evaluative criteria and tool kits for experimenting with various arts and educational research.
Arts-Based Research by 
Handbook of Autoethnography by 
Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research by
The bringing together of the arts and qualitative inquiry is changing the face of social science research. The increasing shift toward arts-based research has raised complex questions, such as how to evaluate its quality and even whether distinctions exist between what is art and what is research. In this defining work, Gary Knowles and Ardra Cole bring together the top scholars in qualitative methods to provide a comprehensive overview of where arts-based research has come, and where it is going. Through various categories of art and art-based research - namely epistemological, historical, methodological, thematic - will address all the significant issues of conceiving and conducting arts-based or arts-informed research in the social sciences and humanities, as well as the challenges of composing final representations of the research.
Qualitative Inquiry (2nd ed) by 
Research Methods for English Studies by
With a revised Introduction and with all chapters revised to bring them completely up-to date, this new edition remains the leading guide to research methods for final-year undergraduates, postgraduates taking Masters degrees and PhDs students of 19th- and 20th-century Literary Studies.
Research Methods in Theatre and Performance by
How have theatre and performance research methods and methodologies engaged the expanding diversity of performing arts practices? How can students best combine performance/theatre research approaches in their projects? This book's 29 contributors provide hands-on answers to such questions. Challenging and debating received research wisdom and exploring innovative procedures for rigorous enquiry via archives, technology, practice-as-research, scenography, performer training, applied theatre/performance, body in performance and more, they create a focussed compendium of future research options. Key Features* Created in association with TaPRA, the leading UK Theatre and Performance Research organisation, with chapters produced by specialist groupings.* Provides many detailed project case studies and examples - including successful practice-based PhDs - plus analysis of dynamic couplings between methods, methodologies and skill-sets. * Introduction interrogates crucial qualities of performing arts research that constitute theatre and performance as, variously, single-, multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary.* Contributors include: Maggie B. Gale (Chair of Drama, University of Manchester); Steve Dixon (Professor of Digital Performance, Brunel University); Joanne 'Bob' Whalley and Lee Miller (University Lecturers and founders Fictional Dogshelf Theatre Company); Simon Ellis and Rosemary Lee (independent performance/dance makers); Roberta Mock (Professor of Performance, University of Plymouth).
The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts by
The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts is a major collection of new writings on research in the creative and performing arts by leading authorities from around the world. It provides theoretical and practical approaches to identifying, structuring and resolving some of the key issues in the debate about the nature of research in the arts which have surfaced during the establishment of this subject over the last decade. Contributions are located in the contemporary intellectual environment of research in the arts, and more widely in the universities, in the strategic and political environment of national research funding, and in the international environment of trans-national cooperation and communication. The book is divided into three principal sections - Foundations, Voices and Contexts - each with an introduction from the editors highlighting the main issues, agreements and debates in each section. The Routledge Companion to Research in the Arts addresses a wide variety of concepts and issues, including: the diversity of views on what constitutes arts-based research and scholarship, what it should be, and its potential contribution the trans-national communication difficulties arising from terminological and ontological differences in arts-based research traditional and non-traditional concepts of knowledge, their relationship to professional practice, and their outcomes and audiences a consideration of the role of written, spoken and artefact-based languages in the formation and communication of understandings. This comprehensive collection makes an original and significant contribution to the field of arts-based research by setting down a framework for addressing these, and other, topical issues. It will be essential reading for research managers and policy-makers in research councils and universities, as well as individual researchers, research supervisors and doctoral candidates.
The Routledge International Handbook of Intercultural Arts Research by 
"Sage Research Methods provides access to more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences and includes the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher."
Art Practice as Research by
Art Practice as Research, Second Edition continues to present a compelling argument that the creative and cultural inquiry undertaken by artists is a form of research. The text explores themes, practices, and contexts of artistic inquiry and positions them within the discourse of research. Sullivan argues that legitimate research goals can be achieved by choosing different methods than those offered by the social sciences. The common denominator in both approaches is the attention given to rigor and systematic inquiry. Artists emphasize the role of the imaginative intellect in creating, criticizing, and constructing knowledge that is not only new but also has the capacity to transform human understanding.
Artistic Research Methodology by
Artistic Research Methodology argues for artistic research as a context-aware and historical process that works inside-in, beginning and ending with acts committed within an artistic practice. An artistic researcher has three intertwined tasks. First, she needs to develop and perfect her own artistic skills, vision and conceptual thinking. This happens by developing a vocabulary for not only making but also writing and speaking about art. Second, an artistic researcher has to contribute to academia and the «invisible colleges» around the world by proposing an argument in the form of a thesis, a narrative; and in so doing helping to build a community of artistic research and the bodies of knowledge these communities rely on. Third, she must communicate with practicing artists and the larger public, performing what one could call «audience education». There is no way of being an engaged and committed partner in a community without taking sides, without getting entangled in issues of power. Consequently, the methodology of artistic research has to be responsive both to the requirements of the practice and the traditions of science. Here the embedded nature of the knowledge produced through artistic research becomes evident. Artistic Research Methodology is essential reading for university courses in art, art education, media and social sciences.
Arts-Based Research in Education by
This text introduces readers to definitions and examples of arts-based educational research, presents tensions and questions in the field, and provides exercises for practice. Each artistic example is accompanied by a school artist's statement.
