Transmitting craft

This site documents the AHRC Transmitting Craft research project at Sheffield Hallam University, showing the background to the research, the work that was undertaken and the project outcomes.

Research background:
This research brings a designerly approach to the problem of capturing and passing on the skilled knowledge of expert craft practitioner. It brings together experienced practitioners, learners and designer in hybrid activities that provide an arena for generating understanding of skilled practice, embodied in learning materials rather than stated explicitly in formal conclusions .../more

Folding knife project:
This project sought to elicit the expert knowledge of traditional Sheffield knifemakers and develop learning materials to support a new generation of creative metalworkers whose interests lie in adapting traditional skills to new craft practices. Working with a group of enthusiastic amateur knife makers as learners, we developed an online resource to disseminate the skill of making folding knives .../more

Research evaluation:
This project has shown that we can use new methods to transplant skills outside the industrial setting into the hands of people who have the motivation to innovate. This understanding of craft learning could have applications not purely in the immediate area of the crafts, but also in any area where a tacit understanding needs to be developed. It leads people to attend to the tasks and activities of professional work not purely as a means to a practical end, but as bridges to a richer understanding of the practice .../more

Craft knowledge - craft learning

The skills involved in craft practice involve a large degree of tacit knowledge; the principles governing a skilled craft practitioner’s actions are often only known through undertaking those actions. This internalised nature of craft knowledge makes it difficult for expert practitioners to communicate their knowledge to others, presenting a barrier both to transmission and to knowledge elicitation.

Traditionally such skills were learned through some form of apprenticeship, where novices gradually subsumed craft practice over a period of time by working alongside more expert practitioners. However, many craft practitioners nowadays work alone and have insufficient work and / or money to take on apprentices. With little or no experience of training others, practitioners tend to be defensive about their skills. The reasons behind this are not fully known, but in part they seem concerned their explanations will over-simplify the complexity of their skill, and additionally they simply seem uncomfortable with not knowing how to explain what they do.

Elicitation and the role of the Expert Learner:
As the previous stages of this research developed it was seen that the presence of learners in the elicitation process often had a valuable effect in helping practitioners articulate their knowledge, especially where the learner had developed some self-confidence in their relationship with the craft master. The most recent research has employed an "expert learner" as an intermediary between the craft master and the designer. This demonstrated that such a learner had the ability to learn new skills with minimal instruction then, as the knowledge was recently acquired and the expert learner was consciously engaged with the elicitation process, she was able to rapidly adapt her understanding of it to improve transmission to the learners.

A key part of this process is the expert learner’s interaction with the designer and the developing learning resource. Through a process of video recording and summarising events using drawings and flow charts, the designer/researcher can assist with articulation of the knowledge and develop interpretation suitable for transmitting the knowledge.

Further reading:
Wood N & Horne G (2008). The new journeyman; the role of an expert learner in eliciting and transmitting skilled knowledge. Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference, Sheffield. PDF
See also sections on craft knowledge and learning from Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF

Learning from interactive media

Video has become a ubiquitous medium and is regularly used in educational settings, but previous stages of this research demonstrated that in many circumstances it is not an effective method of teaching complex skills. It provides too much dynamic information for a novice learner to easily retain and they struggle to relate what they have seen to their own experiences. Our learning materials make extensive use of video, but text and graphics also play an important role and their development is a key part of our research.

The learning resource framework we have developed uses a layered approach to support learners during different phases of their learning. During the initial introductory phase, learners are given an overview of what is to be done and introduced to any key skills or strategies. A short, carefully edited video is often used to deliver this phase. During the second, guidance phase the learner is guided step by step through the basic process and gains an understanding of any common errors. Line drawings and text are central to this phase, providing the learner with concise information that enables them to gain some positive experience. During the third and final development phase repetition is necessary to gain mastery of the skill and this is supported by encouraging the learner to evaluate their outcome, identify and solve problems, and offering them a greater depth of material to explore. More extensive use of video can be made for this phase as the learner should now how sufficient experience to form their own interpretation.

Drawing: So, whilst video forms key parts of the learning resource, the vital, central portion is delivered through static illustration, providing an interpretive layer which gives the learner a firm basis upon which they can develop their own interpretation of any subsequent video watched. Line drawings have been found to be the most effective method of delivering this interpretation as they cut out the extraneous detail photography brings and enable the designer to focus the learner's attention on key points.

Further reading:
Fisher T, Wood N & Keyte J (2008). Hands on - hands off; on hitting your thumb with a virtual hammer. Proceedings of Design Research Society conference, Sheffield. PDF
See also section on interactive media in Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF

Transmitting craft - methods

Video observation is central to our research methods, based on experience developed over several previous cycles of inquiry into a variety of craft practices and learning activities. Careful selection and use of equipment and techniques ensures that recording does not intrude on the activity but does result in a useful record, often in locations that are highly compromised by bad lighting, difficult sight lines and shifting objects of attention.

During primary work with experienced craft practitioners, the expert learner provides a focus of attention, working alongside the practitioner to learn new skills. Then, through collaboration with the designer/researcher who produces summaries of events based on the video observation, the expert learner develops means of articulating the knowledge initially based on their own experience as a learner. The designer/researcher then develops prototype interpretation suitable for transmitting the knowledge and this material is used to mediate interactions between the expert learner and more novice learners, thus developing the learning materials.

In the most recent research project - the folding knife project - a wiki was used, initially as a collaborative medium for the co-researchers, then it was developed into a prototype resource accessible to learners. Our working assumption was that eventually we would produce professional quality multimedia resources, but eventually it became clear that the more basic wiki was very effective and had some benefits over more “designed” approaches. So, a wiki was used as a means of delivering the final version of the learning resource, a public version of which can be seen here.

Further reading:
Wood N (2010). A good record? The use of video in practice-led design research. Reflections 13 (Research Training Sessions 2009) pp114-125. Brussels: Sint Lucas School of Architecture. PDF
See also the methods section in Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF

Knife blade grinder: Brian Alcock

A blade grinder puts the bevel onto knife blades, thinning them towards the cutting edge which will be sharpened only once the knife is complete. Before industrialisation, blades were roughly shaped when they were forged, but nowadays they are cut or stamped out of sheet steel leaving more of a task for the grinder.

Brian had begun working as an apprentice in 1957 when he was fifteen years old, apprenticed to his father who was the Gaffer in charge of a large industrial workshop. At that time the emphasis of the work was moving towards more mechanised approaches but, in his spare time, he was allowed on the grinding wheels and would hand grind. After three years he set up a grinding workshop on his own and continues hand grinding a wide variety of tools using large, circular stones which run in water, one of few remaining craftsmen practicing this trade in the city.

Work with Brian came at the start of the project and formed a pilot study which was used to deal with a number of problems. It was necessary to develop the partnership between the designer/researcher (Nicola Wood) and the expert leaner (Grace Horne) and to gain experience with the particular recording equipment/techniques and the environments that would be encountered. The pilot study also allowed the role of the expert learner to be explored and developed.

Knifemaker: Trevor Ablett

Trevor began knife making as apprentice to his uncle, in 1957 when he was fifteen years old and at that time his uncle had ten workers. He worked there for ten years before moving to another folding knife manufacturers doing more specialised work; gimping and glazing open razors. When his uncle died in 1975, he took over the business with his brother and continued making working folding knives with two or three men that had worked with his uncle. In 1980, he started working on his own, in the manner that he still does today.

Folding knife making in Sheffield has now largely become a semi-industrialised process constructing knives from pre-stamped parts. As stamping the parts is an inaccurate process and making the internal mechanism run smoothly requires accuracy, some considerable customisation is still needed to make the knives. This aspect is of particular interest to the new generation of knife makers who are focused on producing very individual custom knives where the integration of mechanism and form is fundamental to the success of their design and subtly different for each product.

The trend in this field is for craftsmen, especially in the USA, to produce individual beautifully made knives that command high prices. By contrast the industrial tradition in Sheffield has focused on relatively cheap standard products that, arguably, do not justify the level of craftsmanship employed. One of the main aims of this research has been to assist with the transmission of skills to a new generation interested in more innovative or artistic work.

Knifemaker: Jeff Durber

Jeff Durber was formerly part of a professional knife making partnership (Featherstone & Durber), producing very high quality folding knives that were sold through events such as Chelsea Craft Fair and through galleries. He had ceased knife making in 2001 for personal reasons and currently teaches Metalwork & Jewellery at Sheffield Hallam University.

Jeff and his knives:

Work with the traditional Sheffield knife makers only allowed interpretation to be developed for constructing a knife from given parts, which was a useful part of the learning process but lacked any significant creative input which the learners desired. In response to this, further interviews and observations were carried out with Jeff. He took the expert learner (Grace Horne) through the process he used to design knives from first principles; from sketching to making prototypes to finishing the knife.

Some of the video from the project: