Experiences of transformative learning in fashion design education

Abstract

This exploratory study identified aspects of transformative learning in fashion design and teaching practice. These aspects enabled fashion design graduates to distinguish transformative experiences retrospectively through the lens of reflection. The guiding research question in the study investigated how fashion design graduates make meaning of their learning experiences while students, on later refection in their work environment. The question is supported by three sub-questions: What are the components of transformative learning that can be identified in the reflection of the graduate? To what extent did participants engage with the phases of transformative learning? How did the graduates make meaning of their learning experiences with specific reference to aspects such as personal and emotional transformation, social adaptably, and disciplinary knowledge in use? The seminal works underpinning the research were those of King (Handbook of the Evolving Research of Transformative Learning Based on the Learning Activities Survey), Mezirow (Perspective Transformation) and Kolb (Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development), all of which formed the scaffolding for the development of the Learning Activity Narrative or LAN. The LAN advances King’s Learning Activities Survey (LAS), to include narrative data, which fashioned a significant modification of the LAS model. A further adjustment to the approach was that this study focused on graduates, while previous studies were conducted with students. In this exploratory study, I adopted the dual role of researcher and student. As student I had a journey of personal growth during engagement with participants’ storytelling and narrative contributions. At the same time, I could identify with the personal development and growth that the participants experienced through interaction with one another. A methodological approach that drew on elements of narrative and numeric data was applied. Data sources included a pilot study, online questionnaires, and face-to-face individual interviews with graduate participants. Participants in the study reported that their traditional perspectives of personal and emotional transformation, social adaptably and disciplinary knowledge acquired during their study period, were shaped and changed considerably in the context of interactions with peers and lecturers, and in specific class activities. The graduate participants’ narratives reveal how interaction with peers and educators served as a means for transforming the ways in which they prepared for life in the work environment, and subsequently in the work environment which contributed to making them more resilient and adaptable in various professional and interpersonal circumstances. The value of the study is located in the domain of diffraction, an advanced, iterative and methodological expansion of the reflective model, which resulted in resonant narrative data. Diffractive analysis necessitates the engagement in the experience of reading data, rather than reading the data as separate or independent. The diffractive analysis process engages the data as a co-constructive force that works with the researcher. The study contributes to the conceptual discussions of the connections and interruptions between diffraction and reflection.