Racing tracks

To my surprise the image of a racing track was drawn by a couple of my research participants. They were asked to reflect on their involvement in the obstetrics curriculum. One drawing was created by a doctor educator and the other by a student who had recently completed the obstetrics’ eight week rotation in his fourth undergraduate year. These two drawings have produced an affect and effect on me as I continue thinking about them, their differences and the effect of these differences. I wonder about the tracks and about the pertinent connections made to the medical curriculum and student learning.

The clinician educator pointed out the curriculum as a clearly structured track designed through evidence-based practice, yet interrupted and mediated at measured and defined points by evaluations and assessments. Student resilience was central, marking its overriding importance in student performance and achievement.

This drawing reminds me of the competitive, individualistic nature of much of the medical curriculum. The obstetrics rotation is just a small chunk of the larger curriculum that aims at a speedy throughput to fill the national need for more doctor graduates. The starting point for the Health Sciences Faculty is at the first year orientation session and the endpoint at graduation from where students embark on their challenging career as interns, community service practitioners, medical officers, then possibly leading on to registrars and specialist consultants. It is a structured path set out for students and mediated by accreditation standards.

The other racing track drawn by a student participating in one of my focus group discussions showed a different perspective. He drew his car on the track with flags at different points indicating caution. The central area was filled with the distinct branding logo of the car he proudly drives. He explained how he considered his learning as a race to achieve the curricular requirements. During his obstetrics block, this was facilitated by his speedy driving (well over accepted limits) to reach an unexpected night time delivery that enabled him to attain the required number of deliveries. He did reflect on the irresponsibility of “driving like a lunatic”.

I wonder how differently the curriculum plays out for less privileged students who do not have their own transport or opportunity to make an extra trip at night. What about the positionality of students in terms of different forms and access of transport in relation to their curricular needs?

Through my engagement with the materiality of the data emerging from the drawings of these two research participants, new insights are emerging. My own connection with these images and resultant inquiry and curiosity is opened up through my personal limitations imposed by a visual impairment that prevents me from being a driver.  The image above (created using the 53 App on my iPad) foregrounds a car tyre and its tread. The shape and size of the tyre indicate the status of the car while the pattern of the tread gives the finer detail that can add insights into the relationship of the vehicle and the driver. The flag denotes the marked segments of the curriculum or the warning signs for danger.

MacLure (2013) points out the value of wonder in research methodologies. As I wonder with and through these two drawings, I feel the material forces, and sense how affect is constituted by the intra-active entanglements between the data and myself (Barad 2007).

MacLure (2010) refers to Massumi’s (2002:17) “exemplification”, a writing method where details in examples are important as they provide “microexamples” which can open up connections to inform theory.  MacLure (2010:277) states that “theory’s capacity to offend is also its power to unsettle – to open up static fields of habit and practice”. She asserts that “theory in educational research has not interfered enough” (MacLure 2010:281).

Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

MacLure, M. 2010. The offence of theory, Journal of Education Policy, 25:2, 277-286.

MacLure, M. 2013. The wonder of data. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 13:4: 228–232.

Massumi, B. 2002. Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.