Documentation as a practice-led research tool for reflection on experiential knowledge

Abstract

Practice-led research has been under debate for three decades. One of its major issues concerns how the researcher, who is also the practitioner, documents and reflects on her creative process in relation to a research topic. This article reviews and discusses the processes of documentation and reflection in practice-led research through three cases of doctoral dissertations that were completed at Aalto University in Finland. Through these cases, the article examines the role that the documentation and reflection of creative processes and products performs in these studies. The article concludes that documentation in the context of practice-led research functions as conscious reflection on and in action. Any means of documentation, for example, diary writing, photographing or sketching, can serve as a mode of reflection.