ABSTRACT
This chapter examines what counts as arts-based research in education related to performance. Interpretation and reflection are twin pillars of performance and offers different ways in which the two can be evoked and expressed. Performance is a key component of arts-based research in education. The use of performance in arts-based educational research has emerged from qualitative researchers posing critical questions relating to the representation of data. Qualitative research methods in education that are arts based expand the limits of reflective practice to incorporate the potential for collaboration, create a pedagogical space where hierarchies of teacher and student are disrupted, and help to create aesthetically rich environments for learning while also questioning issues of inequality. Performance art allows for the recovery of nuances often lost in translation or transcription between the actual interaction and the transcribed page. Arts-based educational research has included performances of puppetry.
