Using Student Generated Freehand Drawings to Understand Civic Engagement

• In Event: Civic Learning and Civic Engagement: Implementation and Outcomes

Abstract

The role that higher education institutions (HEIs) can play in developing civic engagement has been under increasing scrutiny in recent years, with most HEIs developing formal linkages to community and civic groups in the wider society. This paper will address how using student generated freehand drawings can create a learning environment where students develop a meaningful association with active engagement in society, and enables them to develop a better appreciation of how they might realise their full potential to contribute to wider society in more meaningful and holistic ways. As such, this will examine the contextual drivers towards deepening civic engagement in Irish higher education. Interestingly, students pursuing their studies in different disciplines show completely different understandings of what civic engagement is.
These contextual drivers, which are rooted at local, national and sometimes European and international levels, have enabled a deeper understanding of civic engagement in Ireland. They can be categorised in terms of the context of disciplinary differences for each of the drawings. The study includes drawings from students pursuing humanities, engineering, science, tourism and business. In-class discussion of drawings further facilitates students engaging in the critical exchange of ideas, as well as their perceptions of different, or multiple, ‘realities’.
Our study offers additional contributions to the literature on developing student capacity for independent and critical thought by applying their analytical skills outside of their chosen field of study and into a wider societal context. The technique of freehand drawing itself, in bypassing, or sidestepping, our cognitive, verbal processing routes, tends to lead students to produce clearer, more holistic images than they do with words.

Authors

• Sharon Mary Feeney, Dublin Institute of Technology

• John W. Hogan, Dublin Institute of Technology