Visual Art Doctorates: Practice-Led Research or Research Per Se?

Abstract

As part of a benchmarking project commissioned in 2002 by ACUADS, the Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools, I conducted a series of focus groups with candidates for higher degrees in Visual Art in Australia in order to gain some insight into how the terminology of research was understood and used by visual art higher degree students. The present paper makes use of that data and examines to what extent practice-led research can engage in a general research debate.