CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.5 The Draw-and-tell Technique
Previous studies on conceptions of learning have predominantly been carried out using phenomenography (Marton, 1981). The phenomenographic structure of these studies has been quite similar, although most have been carried out in different contexts and independently of each other (Eklund-Myrskog, 1998). Within the phenomenographic structure, studies are aimed at describing conceptions of learning as experienced or understood by groups of students.
According to Dockrell, Lewis, and Lindsay (2000), there are various ways to assess children’s perspectives. Both direct and indirect measures can be used. As they explain, “direct measures involve asking the child or significant other about the child’s views and understandings of a situation or getting the child to solve a task that is known to address certain key developmental achievements” (p. 49). Indirect
measures include the use of particular methods and techniques in order to measure the variable of interest. The use of indirect measures requires a high degree of inference
and interpretation of the instruments and techniques employed, which implies a
greater risk of misinterpreting the collected data (Dockrell et al., 2000). Interviews figure among prominent direct measures of children’s perspectives (Lewis, 2002).
This method can be useful, particularly with young children who are not fluent readers and writers. Michel (1994) points out that by listening carefully to what children say about literacy, we can understand things that we cannot learn in other
ways. However, there are some concerns with respect to the validity and reliability of children’s responses to interviews (Lewis, 2002). Thus, researchers need to take into
account the practical difficulties and implications involved in conducting and using children’s interviews to assess children’s ideas and understandings. There are important considerations regarding the appropriate examination of children’s
perspectives through interviews. The interview format is very important, especially with young children (Dockrell et al., 2000). Thus, it should be carefully planned. In considering the most effective ways in which to put questions to children, Dockrell et al. emphasize using open-ended questions, avoiding yes/no questions, and using appropriate language. The use of open-ended questions allows young children to answer in their own terms and to extend their responses (Lewis, 2002). Closed questions (e.g., yes/no questions) tend to inhibit children’s full expression, which is crucial to obtain valid responses about their understandings and ideas (Lewis, 2002).
Moreover, appropriate wording of the interview questions, congruent with the child’s
developmental level, would contribute to the validity of the information provided
through the interview.
Another consideration related to the validity of young children’s responses is the
interviewer. Lewis (2002) describes the appropriate role of the interviewer as
“facilitative and non-intrusive.” This is particularly relevant in the case of young
children. Children have demonstrated a tendency to agree with the interviewer and to be very vulnerable to leading questions or comments and to recurrent probing for
details (Dockrell et al., 2000).
Certainly, a valid and reliable interview is critical in assessing children’s ideas
and understandings. Therefore, piloting interviews are a necessary condition to obtain
“reasonably unbiased data” (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2007). By piloting interviews it is
possible to test both questions and procedures. Among other things, researchers should be alert to communication problems, the wording of the questions, evidence of inadequate motivation of the participants, ambiguous questions or statements, and questions that can be interpreted differently by different participants (Gall et al.,
2007).
In conclusion, previous research on children’s conceptions of learning literacy
has relied on interviews. However, interview protocols should be evaluated
individually in order to determine the validity and reliability of these instruments.
Moreover, interviews to be conducted with young children have to be carefully planned and tested considering aspects such as the nature of the questions, the complexity and structure of the language employed, the appropriate role of the interviewer, and the developmental characteristics of young children.
It is also important to acknowledge the limitations involved in research based on children’s perspectives. Lewis (2002) states, “accessing children’s views can never be achieved ‘perfectly.’”
Moreover, learners’ conceptions of learning have been measured through both
qualitative and quantitative methods (e.g., Lee et al., 2008). Among these approaches, drawing has been recommended as a useful method for probing students’ ideas (Ehrlen, 2009; Selwyn, Boraschi, & Ozkula, 2009). Moreover, researchers have indicated that drawing is a more adequate approach to assessing young children than other tests (Dove, Everret, & Preece, 1999; Finson, Beaver, & Cramond, 1995).
Drawing is one of the many languages which children use to 'talk' about their world, both to themselves and to others (Gallas, 1994; Lindqvist, 2001). Through drawing, children can re-present action, emotion, ideas or experiences (Malchiodi, 1998).
According to the drawing theory, Lowenfeld (1947) argues that there are six clearly defined stages of artistic development and that these stages can be witnessed
in the artworks of children. In the scribble stage (1-3 years old), children are engaged in the physical activity of drawing, but there is no connection made between the marks and representation during most of this stage. Children at the preschematic stage (3-4 years old) are beginning to see connections between the shapes that they draw
and the physical world around them. Circles and lines may be described as people or objects that are physically present in the child’s life. It is in this stage that a child first
makes the connection to communicating through their drawings. Children at the schematic stage (5-6 years old) have clearly assigned shapes to objects that they are attempting to communicate. They often have developed a schema for creating drawings. There is a defined order in the development of the drawing. Drawings at this stage have a clear separation between the sky and the ground. Often the sky is a strip of blue at the top of the paper, while the ground is a strip of green at the bottom.
Objects are often placed on the ground instead of floating in space. Objects of importance are often drawn larger than objects of lesser importance.
Therefore, children’s drawings have been utilized for purposes such as information gathering, clinical diagnosis, and intelligence testing in the behavioral and cognitive research areas (Thomas & Jolley, 1998). However, so far, children’s drawings have seldom been analyzed within educational contexts (Haney, Russell, &
Bebell, 2004). Therefore, the drawing method merits further investigation.
Diem-Wille (2001) noted that, “pictures, drawings, and metaphors show a person’s emotional state of mind much better than verbal definitions or descriptors”
(p. 119), suggesting that drawings may be a particularly powerful way of accessing information about students’ affective experiences. Moreover, children with low literacy, English language learners, and pupils with certain special needs (e.g., intellectual impairment, speech-language impairment) may particularly benefit from expressing their viewpoints through drawings (Wheelock, Bebell, & Haney, 2000b).
Additionally, Thomas et al. (1998) cited studies showing that drawing pictures helped children recall and express more detail about the events they depicted. They also
noted that children are generally receptive to drawing, making it a useful
‘icebreaking’ activity and a potential way of mediating student shyness.
Drawing is considered a valuable means of providing multimodality learning opportunities for young children as a way to express meaning in different ways (Pahl, 2001). Children have a natural disposition to use symbols, such as drawings, to represent their thinking and to process information. For Tversky (2008), children's drawings represent their mental images, recollections, or reconstruction of what they have been thinking. Moreover, drawings can omit and distort things that actually exist, and add things that are not there. In Taiwan, Hsieh (2012) also employed drawing as one of the methods to understand children’s perspectives on learning
English in a partial English immersion and a single-period English class in Taiwan.
The children’s descriptions and drawings truly revealed the instruction and activities
in the two English classes. Accordingly, children are capable of providing valuable information about curricula. For the purpose of the current study, therefore, our focus is the representation of children's thinking, rather than presentations of reality.
The draw-and-tell technique
The draw-and-tell technique is used in order to determine the perceptions of the children (Brackett-Milburn, 1999; Shepardson, 2005). This technique involves the drawings of the children and the explanations of these drawings. This technique is a diagnostic method that is used in order to understand how children construct thoughts
and concepts (McWhirter, Collins, Bryant, Wetton, & Bishop, 2000). The children are asked to draw a picture of what comes to mind when they hear the words “learning science” and “literacy,” and then to explain their drawings.
Wright (2007) combined the visual channel (what can be looked at) with the verbal channel (what is said) in the technique she calls draw-and-tell. In this technique, the researcher asks children to draw something in relation to a specific subject and then asks them to explain what their drawing means to them. This method is usually used to keep a focus on the lived experiences and on the perspectives of children. For example, it was used by MacDonald (2009) to investigate how children
experience their first day at school. The study highlights the nature of children’s experiences as they start school, and how both oral and visual narratives can be effectively combined to access the lived experiences of young children. Stafstrom, Goldenholz and Dulli, (2005) used the same technique to investigate headaches
experienced by children. Therefore, the draw-and-tell technique could be appropriate to investigate children’s perspectives.
Draw-and-tell gives children the opportunity to create and share meaning using two modes, which embrace distinctive features in the following ways: (a) non-verbal:
graphic depiction (stemming from imagery and visual-spatial memory); bodily-kinaesthetic communication through enaction and expressive gesture (stemming from motor memory); (b) verbal: telling the drawing (talking about the drawing's
characters, objects, events, sequencings, graphic details or other relevant
characteristics, which often includes onomatopoeia [i.e., the use of a word or vocal imitation of the thing or action designated]).
In very young children, we need to look for another vehicle of expression beyond verbal explanation. Because children begin to draw at a young age, we decided on drawing as the representational tool. For young children, even their scribbles
represent something. Browne and Woolley (2001) found that children as young as 2 are intentional in their naming of drawings, and that among 5- to 6-year-olds their
ideas about their drawings remained the same when they revisited them a few days later and even after 3 months.
Drawing alone is not enough to make children's thinking visible, so it is
necessary that the children describe their drawings. "Draw-and-tell" gives children the opportunity to communicate their thoughts by combining the medium of drawing with the medium of telling. As Wright (2007) noted, children's artistic communication is the literacy par excellence of the early years of child development. Research
(Kendrick & McKay, 2002; Salmon, 2008) suggests that while drawing, children verbalize or show evidence of mental activity; particularly because the drawing event engages children in language use and provide an opportunity for them to create stories.
In sum, the advantages of using drawings in research interactions with children include: (a) providing a non-verbal focus for expression, which can then be supported with verbal information; (b) children can change drawings as they choose and as they work through the process of drawing; drawings can be added to or altered over time;
(c) children may be familiar with the activity of drawing; and (d) drawings can take time, so that a quick response is not demanded.
CHATPER 3
METHOD
This chapter includes the research purpose, research questions and a description of the research design. The latter includes the sampling procedure and population, instrumentation, and procedures for data collection and analysis.
3.1 Research Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of the study is to probe, describe, and examine Taiwanese young children’s conceptions of learning science.
The study seeks to answer the following specific research questions:
1. To what extent is the draw-and-tell technique beneficial to producing Taiwanese young children’s conceptions of learning science?
2. According to the drawings elicited from Taiwanese young children and the follow-up narrative phase, what are their conceptions of learning science?
3. Conceptions of learning science are a composited conception; therefore, what are the relationships among the Taiwanese young children’s conceptions of learning
science?
4. What kind of patterns of the conceptions of learning science can be categorized among Taiwanese young children?
3.2 Research Design
The mixed method research is utilized for the study. In the study, quantitative content analysis and the following analysis were conducted. The young children’s
drawing and telling data are also analyzed qualitatively.
3.3 Participants and Sample
In order to perform a large-scale investigation of Taiwanese young children’s conceptions of learning science, 597 young children aged six were recruited to participate in the study. These young children were from 15 kindergartens including public and private kindergartens located in northern Taiwan (Taipei City, Northern city of Taiwan, Taoyuan county, Hsinchu county, and Miaoli county). The
participants were from northern Taiwan because these cities have the biggest population of young children and preschools (Ministry of Interior, Taiwan, 2009).
Snowball sampling (Gall et al., 2007, p.185) was used to find potential
participants. The preschool superiors whom the researcher knew and kindergartens involved in the pilot study were asked to refer the current study to potential
participants.
Table 3.1 The demographics of the participants
Preschools Location Private/Public Young children #
A Taipei City Public 17
Young children of six years of age (e.g., kindergarteners) were chosen to participate in the study because they have almost completed their early childhood education in Taiwan. The reason that these participants were chosen is that six-year-olds have developed the schema for creating drawings and possess more advanced narrative ability to express their conceptions of learning science.
3.4 Instrumentation
Data for this study were collected using the draw-and-tell technique.
Draw-and-tell is a technique whereby children draw pictures and talk about the meaning of their pictures. Moreover, in consideration of young children’s focusing ability and the fact
that both science and learning might be abstract concepts for them, a circle time
discussion was conducted before the draw-and-tell technique to help the young children to illustrate their conceptions of learning science.
3.5 Data Collection
The researcher contacted the principal of the kindergartens in March, 2013 via
phone. Permission to work with the young children in their kindergartens was obtained. The material given to each child’s parents was a Chinese version parental
consent form, which they were asked to complete and return to the kindergarten. They could decide whether or not they would like to let their child participate in the
research by filling out the form and returning it to their kindergarten. After the return of the parental consent forms, the researcher arranged the time to collect data from the young children. Most of the parents agreed that their children could participate in the current study, with only one or two per class who were not permitted to join in. Those children who did not participate in the study were assigned to do other work by their teachers.
First, the young children were invited to share their early experiences of learning science. During the circle time, I asked them, “What is learning science?” “What do
you understand by learning science?” “How do you know when you have learned something about science” and “How do you learn science?” “What is your experience
of learning science?” “What did you do in learning science?” “What is your
impression of your science teacher?” These questions, which were mainly modified from the studies carried out by Tsai (1998b) and Marshall et al. (1999), and which were discussed with two experienced preschool teachers, were used in the circle time to help the students illustrate their conceptions of learning science. However, the
questions were not asked in any specific order, but served as an outline, and arose depending on the children’s discussion. Nevertheless, the previous questions were all
discussed with the participants.
Then, the draw-and-tell technique was adopted. It has only been within the last 30 years that qualitative researchers have given serious consideration to the use of images as a viable way of understanding aspects of humanity. Image-based research includes both moving forms such as films and videos and still images such as photographs, drawings, graffiti and cartoons (Prosser, 1996). As mentioned in the literature, the draw-and-tell technique is used in order to determine the perceptions of young children (Brackett-Milburn, 1999; Shepardson, 2005). This technique involves young children drawing pictures and then explaining their drawings. First, each child was given a piece of paper (A4 size), and was asked to draw a picture of his or her thinking about learning science. The young children spent about 30 minutes drawing their pictures. After drawing, they were asked to describe their work individually in
order to ensure the appropriate interpretation and understanding of their drawings. At
the beginning of the telling phase, the researcher asked each child, “Could you please tell me about your drawing?” The researcher asked the child to explain every segment
of his/her drawing. For the segment of the drawing which the children did not explain, the researcher asked, “Could you please tell me what this is?” The narrative phase
was stopped when the children demonstrated that they had finished their talking or by the question, “Is there anything else about science learning you want to say?” asked
by the researcher. In both the drawing and telling phases, the children were reminded that there were no right or wrong answers in either their drawing or narration.
Moreover, the telling phase of the draw-and-tell technique for understanding the children’s conceptions of learning science in their drawing was conducted in Chinese
and audio-recorded. The researcher then fully transcribed all of the narrative data to verbatim text in Chinese form.
3.6 Data Analysis
The analysis of the data was carried out using content analysis and the IBM SPSS Statistics 19 program. The treatments of the data were divided into the
following analyses: descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and cluster analysis.
For Research Question 1: the draw-and-tell technique was determined using the
content analysis to determine its adaptability to producing Taiwanese young children’s conceptions of learning science.
For Research Question 2: Based on the data from the draw-and-tell technique, content analysis was conducted for this question. Content analysis is a method that may be used with either qualitative or quantitative data and in an inductive or deductive way (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008). Content analysis is a method of analyzing written, verbal or visual communication messages (Cole, 1988). It was initially used as a method for analyzing hymns, newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements and political speeches in the 19th century (Harwood & Garry, 2003). Today, content analysis has a long history of use in communication, journalism, sociology,
psychology and business, and during the last few decades its use has shown steady growth (Neundorf, 2002). Quantitative content analysis (QCA) is a systematic and objective means of describing and quantifying phenomena and analyzing documents
(Berelson, 1952; Sandelowski, 1995; Elo et al., 2008).
In the study, the content analysis included: segments of the young children’s
drawing and their explanations of the drawings. These indicators were determined by two experts, and were viewed as important and easy to process via quantitative analysis.
For the category of learning location, research about science learning location has received more attention in recent years (Falk & Storksdieck, 2005; Barab &
Kirshner, 2001). The coherent and significant relations between learners’ situated conceptions of learning, approaches to learning, perceived learning environments and
Kirshner, 2001). The coherent and significant relations between learners’ situated conceptions of learning, approaches to learning, perceived learning environments and