Drawing Out Benefits: Leveraging Student Drawing as Educational Research Data

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-22 - Arts-Based Research: Moving Beyond Spoken Words in Qualitative Research

Abstract

The act of drawing benefits both students and educators alike. However, there is apprehension among educational researchers regarding the validity and reliability of student drawings (Mavers, 2009, p. 264). For example, the selection of visual subject matter within a complex image is difficult, more complicated than simply looking at a drawing.

Ideally, allowing students the opportunity to draw within traditional educational environments will give them the opportunity to explore in ways not normally utilized during typical school instruction. Also, ideally it will allow researchers to gain insights that may otherwise not be observable through other, more text-based, methods that are normally used when studying students as research subjects.

This session examines issues related to drawing within an educational research context.

Author

• Dino Sossi, Teachers College, Columbia University; NYU; Columbia SIPA