PG Cert – Eden Chahal 2024-2025

A recurring assumption in design education is that technical skills can be delivered through dedicated teaching moments, after which students are expected to independently mobilise these tools in the service of their projects. While some aspects of technique do require focused instruction, this separation risks overlooking the extent to which technical tools actively shape ways of thinking, designing, and making. 

During the first unit of this PGCert, I adapted my own lecture based teaching to align technical demonstrations more closely with project intentions, rather than treating them as self contained skills. This pedagogical shift raised a broader question. If technical teaching benefits from being conceived in direct relation to project work, should ongoing technical support not be approached in the same way? 

Beyond access: what this research brought into focus 

This research initially leaned towards questions of access, visibility, and availability of technical support. These ethical considerations remain important and necessary. However, the data and observations gathered throughout the project suggest that they do not fully account for the difficulties students encounter. 

Learning a wide range of technical tools while simultaneously developing a complex design project places a significant cognitive and emotional load on students, particularly at undergraduate level. Students are expected not only to acquire technical competence, but also to develop the critical distance required to decide when, how, and why to use these tools in service of their ideas. The research confirmed this tension, with tutors unanimously identifying technical gaps as a barrier to project development. 

At the same time, studio tutors are not always equipped, nor expected, to provide detailed technical guidance during tutorials, and often lack the time to do so within existing structures. Technical uncertainty therefore rarely exists in isolation. It intersects with confidence, workload, mental health, and the ability to progress a project meaningfully. In this context, technical support cannot be reduced to problem solving. Ideally, it becomes a form of situated collaboration, helping students articulate how tools can support their intentions, rather than simply how to operate them. 

Technique and design – Bauhaus perspective 

This position is not new. At the Bauhaus, pedagogy was founded on the idea that materials, tools, and techniques are integral to design thinking, rather than neutral means of execution. Walter Gropius argued that teaching and making should be conceived together, with technical processes embedded within creative exploration and conceptual development. 

Although contemporary design education operates in a very different technological landscape, the underlying principle remains relevant. Today, students navigate multiple digital and physical tools at once. Coordinating these modes of thinking and making is demanding, and treating technique as something that runs alongside projects risks fragmenting learning. Even as tools evolve, the need to integrate technique within design thinking persists. 

Institutional context and ethical considerations 

Research on technical roles at UAL supports this reading. In How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education?, Sams describes how technicians understand their work as encompassing pedagogical support, individual guidance, and sustained engagement with students’ learning processes. The study also highlights a sense of misalignment between the educational contribution technicians make and how that contribution is recognised within institutional structures. 

Throughout this research, ethical considerations were approached with care, particularly around not replacing or replicating the work of lecturers. However, the process also brought another dimension into focus. When lecturers on higher grades increasingly deliver technical content and project support, while technicians undertaking comparable forms of guidance remain on lower grades, questions arise around recognition, grading, and labour equity. Within higher education frameworks, roles are differentiated through grade descriptors, responsibilities, and expectations. Yet in practice, the work undertaken across roles can overlap significantly. 

Ethics here does not lie only in avoiding overstepping professional boundaries, but in attending to how different forms of pedagogical labour are valued and distributed. In the current institutional and economic climate, this becomes an everyday ethical concern, shaped through collaboration, acknowledgement, and care in how roles are framed. 

Integration as a pedagogical project 

This blog post functions both as a conclusion and as an opening. While the research began from an intuition about the integration of technical support, the findings strengthened and clarified that position. The question now is not whether technical support should be integrated, but how. What forms might embedded collaboration take, how can responsibilities be shared, and how might technical expertise be recognised as a pedagogical contribution rather than a peripheral service? 

As an outcome of this research, I have also begun to reflect more closely on the institutional structures that shape technical and teaching roles. In particular, I am interested in exploring how role definitions and grading frameworks map onto the realities of daily practice, especially in areas where technical expertise and pedagogy intersect. This line of enquiry would support a more transparent and meaningful alignment between responsibility, recognition, and the work that staff are asked to perform. 

Current modes of technical support 

Technical support for digital design and fabrication is currently delivered through multiple channels across the courses my team supports. These include one-to-one bookable appointments, lectures embedded in the curriculum and optional refresher sessions (outside of timetabled teaching).   

At the start of this academic year, several measures were introduced to increase the visibility of this support, including in-course presentations, slide decks, QR codes displayed in teaching spaces, and links embedded within Moodle environments. Despite these efforts, questions remain regarding how this support is accessed in practice, by whom, and at what moments in the academic year. 

This blog post presents an initial state-of-play analysis of one aspect of current provision, with the aim of identifying tendencies and structural limitations rather than evaluating effectiveness in absolute terms. 

Mapping booking activity over time 

To begin exploring patterns of access, I analysed booking data for one-to-one technical appointments over a one-year period (January to January). The purpose of this analysis was to identify broad trends in usage over time, and to reflect on what booking data can and cannot reveal about engagement with technical support. 

The first visualisation maps each recorded booking as an individual point distributed chronologically across the academic calendar. Read in this way, the data highlights clear temporal patterns rather than uniform use. Two periods of increased activity emerge consistently, with pronounced peaks in February and again between May and June, broadly aligning with key assessment and project development phases. Outside of these moments, booking activity remains comparatively sparse.  

While these observations are indicative rather than conclusive, they suggest that one-to-one technical support is primarily accessed during moments of heightened academic pressure, rather than as a resource used consistently throughout the year. 

Reading the numbers critically 

Among the 195 appointments analysed, 91 individual students accessed the service. This makes visible the extent to which repeated bookings by a small number of students contribute to the overall figure. While the majority attended only once, patterns of repeat bookings reveal a small core of returning users who contribute disproportionately to overall activity. Read critically, this demonstrates that the aggregate number of bookings risks overstating reach, as repeated use inflates the total figure without necessarily reflecting broad uptake across the student population.

Several limitations shape this analysis. The dataset aggregates bookings across six courses, making it impossible to isolate patterns by year group or programme, including the Year 1 and Year 2 cohorts that form the focus of this research. The data does not include manually arranged bookings, spontaneous technical support delivered in studios or workshops, nor does it account for non-attendance or cancellations. In addition, while booking data spans two cohorts, only a one-year snapshot was available. As such, these figures should be read as partial indicators rather than comprehensive measures of technical support provision. I have intentionally used the data of the whole team to enhance readability of patterns of booking. 

Conclusion 

Alongside one-to-one appointments, the technical team delivers optional refresher sessions outside the curriculum. While valuable for some students, these sessions raise accessibility concerns. Being optional and scheduled outside timetabled teaching, they implicitly favour students who can afford additional commuting time and cost, who do not hold part-time employment, and who are able to attend campus on additional days. For students already experiencing academic overload or logistical constraints, this mode of provision may remain effectively inaccessible. 

Despite extensive communication efforts at the start of the academic year, booking uptake remained limited and uneven. This suggests that the issue may not lie primarily in awareness, but rather in how technical support is structured and positioned within students’ learning journeys.  

The next stage of this research will therefore focus on examining the impact of embedding technical support directly within scheduled studio teaching, delivered in relation to ongoing project work, in order to reduce structural barriers and better align support with students’ working realities. 

Mapping current practices and gaps in technical teaching

As part of my Action Research Project, I circulated a survey to the 13 tutors teaching across Year 1 and Year 2, and received 10 responses.  

My intention was to understand how technical skills, support, and studio teaching currently intersect.  

The survey was structured around three areas:

1-Mapping tutor expertise

2– Understanding the impact of technical skills on design development

3- Reflecting on time management (at the scale of tutorials, throughout the year, accross years)

Mapping tutor’s technical expertise 

The first section aimed to map existing expertise across the teaching team, focusing on technical tools that students are required to use and are formally assessed on. 

While tutors are not expected to teach software, identifying tools that sit outside their practice highlights gaps that cannot be resolved simply by allocating more tutorial time. 

Results show that a large majority of tutors are not confident supporting students in Rhino, with 70–90% reporting low confidence, alongside similar findings for 2D CAD drawing in AutoCAD. Only one respondent felt confident in each software. This is notable given that both tools are required as part of the curriculum. 

In contrast, tutors tend to share confidence in other areas. All felt able to support portfolio layout, and most were confident with graphic tools such as Photoshop and InDesign. This reveals an uneven support landscape, where some forms of help are widely available while others depend on which tutor a student happens to have. 

Technical skills as a barrier to design development 

All tutors agreed that a lack of technical skills impacts students’ design development, with most reporting that this occurs often. When asked how this manifests during tutorials, tutors unanimously highlighted students’ difficulty in translating ideas into drawings or models. 

This reinforces the idea that design development and technical skills cannot be meaningfully separated. Without the ability to translate ideas into visual or spatial outputs, students struggle to communicate and develop their projects. This strongly supports the value of embedding technical support within studio time, where design thinking is already being discussed. 

How barriers shift across the course 

When tutors identified which technical areas most commonly act as barriers, all selected 2D CAD drawing, followed by hand sketching and 3D modelling.  

While 3D appears less prominent overall, a closer look by year reveals that all tutors teaching Year 2 identified 3D modelling as a barrier, alongside 2D CAD. Year 1 tutors, by contrast, focused mainly on 2D drawing and hand sketching. 

This suggests that technical barriers evolve in line with curriculum progression, reinforcing the need for year-specific and staged technical support. 

Time, confidence, and access 

Tutors felt that students would benefit from additional time or perspectives during tutorials, particularly when trying to translate ideas into drawings or models. They also highlighted that students may feel less confident asking for help, supporting the case for visible, embedded technical support that reduces the need for students to actively seek it out. 

At the same time, it is important that technical support complements, rather than replaces, studio tutoring, and does not blur ethical boundaries around teaching roles. 

As part of my Action Research Project, I designed and distributed an online questionnaire to tutors teaching across Year 1 and Year 2. The purpose of this blog post is to document the design of this questionnaire as a data collection tool, outline the ethical considerations that informed its structure, and highlight the limitations that shaped its final scope.

The questionnaire was conceived as a mapping exercise rather than an evaluative one. Its primary aim was to build a clearer picture of current tutor practices, confidence levels, and constraints in relation to technical and digital support, to better understand how technical resource interacts with design development in the early years of study.

Ethical considerations and anonymity

Several ethical decisions significantly shaped the final structure of the questionnaire. Initially, I considered including questions about tutors’ contractual status and working patterns, with a “prefer not to say” option. However, given the small size of the teaching cohort, I ultimately removed these questions. Even with anonymity options, combining contract type, teaching year, and specific responses would have made deductive disclosure likely. I therefore decided that full anonymity should take precedence over collecting potentially useful contextual data.

The only contextual question retained was the year group taught. In hindsight, I underestimated how identifying this could be, as only one tutor teaches across both Year 1 and Year 2. This reinforced the importance of caution when collecting even minimal demographic data in small institutional settings. To mitigate this, a “prefer not to say” option was included and explicitly referenced in the deductive disclosure and consent note accompanying the questionnaire.

Mapping current practices and confidence

The core of the questionnaire focused on understanding tutors’ confidence in supporting students across the different technical areas covered by the technical team. This was not intended to assess competence, but rather to identify where tutors feel confident intervening for themselves and where they rely on specialist support.

An important consideration here was time. Tutorials are typically limited to around 20 minutes, and even when tutors possess technical knowledge, this format may not allow for meaningful technical support alongside design discussion. The questionnaire therefore, aimed to surface where technical barriers begin to interfere with design development rather than to attribute responsibility.

Another area of focus was signposting. I was interested in whether tutors felt confident directing students toward additional technical support, including one-to-one tutorials and workshops. Signposting is currently fragmented across platforms, and for tutors working limited days and unpaid outside teaching hours, navigating these systems can be challenging. While some questions around this were ultimately removed for ethical reasons, the issue remains central to understanding patterns of resource use and underuse.

Timing, scale, and limitations

Questions about timing were included to identify whether there are particular moments in the academic calendar where technical support is most needed. This was important given the impracticality of embedding additional technical staff into all sessions. I also asked tutors to estimate how many students they felt would benefit from enhanced support, to test whether isolated interventions would be sufficient or whether more structural changes might be required.

Actions and next steps

Initial findings have already informed practical actions, including the escalation of mental health training needs through the union and the cross referencing of technical deliveries with Year 1 and 2 timetables to develop a clearer support map.

Future research could extend this work to Year 3. However, this cohort was deliberately excluded, as technical provision operates differently, with students expected to work more independently and tutors typically holding less technical and more theoretical expertise. This distinction suggests that a separate investigation would be needed rather than a direct extension of the current questionnaire.

Acknowledgement

Mental health is broad and complex, and students experiencing psychological distress do not represent a single or homogeneous group. Their needs, coping strategies, and thresholds for seeking support vary widely. Any approach to accessibility in relation to student mental health must therefore be grounded in care, humility, and an acknowledgement of this diversity.

Ethical Rationale for Embedded Support

At the root of this action research are ethical concerns related to mental health and access. Embedding support within studio time is not intended as a pastoral intervention, but as an ethical response to inequalities of access. Some students may avoid optional or external support services due to anxiety, mental health difficulties, barriers related to commuting, or external commitments such as care responsibilities or part-time work.

Locating support within existing studio structures allows engagement to remain informal and voluntary, without requiring students to self-identify or take additional steps. It also enables in-person support to be linked directly to design tutorials, helping tutors guide students towards more targeted forms of technical support and reducing the burden on students to articulate complex needs.

Training, Preparedness, and Institutional Gaps

My role within the university is not pastoral. However, as a visible and embedded technical staff member, I am often more accessible than formal support structures. During the Year 2 ARP intervention, a student approached me in significant distress, requiring immediate support.

Rather than detailing the incident itself, its relevance lies in what it revealed: technical staff can become first points of contact in moments of crisis, despite not being positioned or trained as pastoral support. This raises ethical questions around preparedness, responsibility, and the emotional labour embedded in technical roles.

Following earlier incidents, I completed a mental health awareness training session, which proved useful. Since starting in this role, I have repeatedly requested Mental Health First Aider training. Although supported by my line manager, these requests have been delayed or cancelled at the institutional level, highlighting a gap between expectations placed on staff and the training provided.

The incident also revealed limitations within existing support systems. While Mental Health First Aiders are listed, only email contact details are available, making effective action difficult in acute situations. Being directed to a general front desk first aider did not meaningfully resolve the situation, exposing a disconnect between policy and lived practice.

Action Taken as a Result of the ARP

As a result of this action research, and following the incident, these concerns were shared with the union, particularly the lack of clear pathways for supporting students in crisis and the absence of formal support for staff. Staff wellbeing provision was found to be outsourced and difficult to access, raising further ethical concerns (UCU, 2022).

Drawing on Brookfield’s Four Lenses, this incident prompted reflection on my own practice, institutional expectations, peer experiences, and student perspectives (Brookfield, 2017). This ARP has reinforced that accessibility must be accompanied by boundaries, appropriate training, and institutional responsibility. Ethical practice in this context requires care not only for students, but also for the staff who support them.

References

Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. 2nd edn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Universities UK (2015) Student mental wellbeing in higher education: Good practice guide. London: Universities UK. Available at: https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk (Accessed: 10 January 2026). 

University of the Arts London. Student mental health and wellbeing: Guidance for staff. London: UAL. Available at: https://canvas.arts.ac.uk (Accessed: 10 January 2026). 

University of the Arts London. Counselling and health advice service. London: UAL. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/student-services/counselling-health-advice (Accessed: 10 January 2026). 

University and College Union (UCU) (2022) Mental health and workload in higher education. London: UCU. Available at: https://www.ucu.org.uk (Accessed: 10 January 2026). 

English is not my first language, and I have used AI tools to support the proofreading of my written work, particularly to improve grammar, clarity, and sentence structure. This support was used after drafting, and the content, arguments, and reflections remain my own.

I also experience ophthalmic migraines, during which working on a laptop or screen for extended periods is not always possible. In these instances, I drafted my writing by hand on paper and used AI-supported transcription tools to convert this handwritten or dictated content into a digital Word document that I could then edit directly. This use of AI supported accessibility and continuity of work rather than content generation.

In addition, I used AI as a supplementary research support tool. By outlining a specific topic or referencing articles I had previously read, the AI suggested potentially relevant academic resources. I then independently accessed, read, and evaluated these sources to determine their relevance and academic validity before incorporating them into my work.

Throughout the ARP unit, I used ChatGPT primarily for language support, transcription, and exploratory research guidance, and Grammarly for proofreading and stylistic corrections. AI tools were not used to generate original academic content, reflective analysis, or assessed material, but rather to support accessibility, clarity, and efficiency within my academic practice.

Methodology 

• Martin, B. and Hanington, B. (2019) Universal Methods of Design: 125 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions. Beverly, MA: Rockport Publishers. 

Used as a methodological framework to identify appropriate research methods for the project. I will be referring to Behavioural mapping (p.6), Contextual inquiry (p.20), and Questionnaires (p.67), and to understand how these methods can be triangulated within practice-based research. 

• Creswell, J. W. and Plano Clark, V. L. (2018) Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research. 3rd edn. London: SAGE Publications. 

Chapters 3, 6 and 7 on survey design and integration to inform the use of adaptive questionnaires and the interpretation of how responses unfold across diverse teaching practices. 

• Whyte, W. H. (1980) The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Washington, DC: Conservation Foundation. 

Whyte’s approach to behavioural mapping through situated observation informs analysis of student engagement with embedded technical support in studio spaces and supports triangulation with questionnaire data. 

Technical integration in studio contexts 

• Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Wenger is useful here because it frames learning as participation in a shared studio practice, where technical and academic roles contribute different but complementary forms of expertise. 

• Droste, M. (2002) Bauhaus, 1919–1933. Cologne: Taschen. 

Bauhaus is used here as historical context, to show that integrating technical and creative learning is not new, and that clear role distinctions can still be maintained. Mainly used for discussion of workshop-based teaching and the distinction between form masters and craft masters, this is also useful in terms of ethical boundaries between roles.  

• Sams, C. (2016) How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education? Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, 1(2), pp. 62–69. Available at: https://sparkjournal.arts.ac.uk/index.php/spark/article/view/18 

A UAL Spark article on technicians’ self-perceptions highlights that, in art studio contexts, technicians engage in technical support and instructional practices alongside academic staff.  

To explore how similar forms of embedded support might be adapted to courses where technical provision remains separate from studio teaching. 

Ethical considerations: wellbeing and mental health 

• BERA (2024). Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, Fifth Edition. British Educational Research Association. 

Particularly sections on responsibilities to participants, wellbeing, and power relationships, which emphasise duty of care, minimising harm, and maintaining clear professional boundaries. 

• Mental health and wellbeing guidance for staff. London: University of the Arts London. 

UAL mental health and wellbeing guidance supports my ability to welcome students in studio and to respond appropriately when additional care or support is needed, informed by relevant training I have undertaken 

Link to online Word document of the Ethical Action Plan

Link to download a copy:

Ethical Action Plan (500-750 words)* 

This document is a chance for you to begin shaping your project while thinking through its ethical considerations, implications, and responsibilities. We know this might feel early in your action research journey, but this short plan is here to help pin down your ideas and work-in-progress.  

Use whatever writing format that suits you – lists, bullet points, statements or paragraphs – and follow the suggested links stated alongside some of the questions for guidance.  

A good starting point is the BERA Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition (2024) alongside the ‘Ethics Files and Resources’ on Moodle.  

When you’re ready, email your draft to your allocated tutor 48 hours in advance of you first group tutorial in the week commencing 6 October 2025, so it can help guide the focus of discussions and support your project development.  

Name: Eden Chahal 

Tutor: Carys Kennedy 

Date: 16.12.25 

The consent form is included at the top of the Microsoft Form, followed by a prompt to consent to participate in the research. Due to the limited number of participants, a deductive disclosure note has been included.