Learning Returns: Experiences of mature students in art and design captured through YouTube

Broadhead, Samantha ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9469-1233 and Hooper, Sharon ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4538-0193 (2024) Learning Returns: Experiences of mature students in art and design captured through YouTube. In: Adult Education in Times of Crisis and Change: Perspectives on Access, Learning Careers, and Identities. Universidade do Algarve Editora, Algarve. ISBN 978-989-9127-85-2

Abstract

Learning Returns is a practice-based project that aims to capture the experiences of mature students studying art and design. The research team is based in a small specialist arts institution in the North of England. Initially it was devised during 2020 as a response to the dramatic changes that occurred in people’s working, leisure and learning lives due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online learning, fitness classes and crafting sessions were broadcast through free-to-access videos such as YouTube and these showed an increase in the six weeks after lockdown was introduced in March 2020 (Bakhshi, 2020). The research explores the possibility that a video-sharing website could be a fruitful space for developing the Learning Returns project. Broadhead’s (2021) interrogation of film-making as a method for researching mature graduates before the pandemic was a precursor to this work. Learning Returns has an overall, long-term aim to demonstrate the benefits adult learning in the arts have for the individual, their community and for civic societies. However, in this phase of the project there were two objectives, firstly, to investigate the ways in which four people who had previously been art and design students spoke/connected with an audience of imaginary prospective students beyond institutions who were considering returning to education. The second was to evaluate YouTube as a means of conducting research with older people about their learning experiences. At the time of writing the Learning Returns YouTube channel had been established containing four films made with four participants. There is an intention to make more and this project would continue over the next three years. It was found that the participants were very confident telling their own stories to the camera. To some extent they took control of the content of their films and contributed to some of the aesthetic aspects. For example, they chose to wear certain kinds of clothes and drew upon their story-telling skills to make the films engaging. Themes that were identified in their films were, a reflection on their learning journeys, linking previous experiences with their learning, an understanding of their own positionality, encouraging others, and future projects outside of education. When compared with accomplished ‘YouTubers’ (people who have grown large numbers of loyal subscribers) it was seen that the academics were unable to compete with the speed with which they could make and upload content. It was also challenging to grow an audience for the Learning Returns channel quickly. However, the YouTube format has the potential to give additional data through number of views, number of like and dislikes as well as constructive feedback in the chat. In order to exploit these aspects of YouTube fully, time to promote the channel is needed. Thus, the progress was and is much slower than anticipated. Using YouTube as a research vehicle enables the stories told by the participants to be experienced by audiences asynchronously - possibly disrupting some of the pre-pandemic rhythms and episodes of adult learning (Alhadeff-Jones, 2016) and so it also disrupts the linear flow of the research process.

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