Investigating cognitive prosesses within a practical art context

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iJADE 32.1 (2013)© 2013 The Authors. iJADE © 2013 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Abstract

A phenomenological approach was employed in order to record and present the lived experi-ences of three students during a five-hour art-making activity. Theoretical definitions of cogni-tive processes pertinent to art and design were compared with the descriptions gathered from the students. The research was intended to portray as accurately as possible individuals’ experiences in order to ascertain whether there is a possibility for soundly ascribing cognitive functions to art-making processes. The descrip-tions of students’ thought processes reveal the ways with which the selected students approach learning and also offer insights into the possible links between cognition and artmaking. The findings of the study suggest that intuitive and perceptive processes are utilised by the chosen participants in a variety of ways. The consideration of the ordering of visual elements is a process that all participants describe within their art making. The students’ visual judgements appear to be a direct response to the art-work being made.

Keywordspractical art, cognitive processes, phenomenological, case study, secondary art

Investigating Cognitive Processes within a Practical Art Context: A Phenomenological Case Study Focusing on Three AdolescentsRichard Hickman and Lauren Kiss

BW144 Jade 32.1 Text AW.indd 97 14/03/2013 14:22

Richard Hickman and Lauren Kiss

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IntroductionThe research reported here aimed to gain an understanding of the ways in which students learn or apply learning whilst making art-works. In particular, we wanted to find out about the nature of the cognitive processes involved in art-making activities, and the extent to which art making may be dependent upon such processes. In effect, we attempted to make tacit knowledge explicit. Polanyi & Prosch describe tacit knowledge as an awareness of something that becomes indescribable or clouded when it is focused upon. They explain (1975, 38) that if we focus on a word as a sequence of sound, the word loses the meaning it had before: ‘we can paralyse the performance of a skill by turning our attention away from its performance and concentrating instead on the several motions that compose the perfor-mance’. It can be seen, therefore, that investi-gating this area requires great care and sensitiv-ity and an appropriate research method.

In order to examine the issues outlined above, we adopted a phenomenological case study approach, documenting students’ experi-ences of an art-making activity. For conveni-ence, we chose three students, enrolled on a post-16 art and design course at a school in Cambridgeshire, UK, to participate in the study. The collection of data for the case study included observations of these participants during the making process, a student log detail-ing their experience, and an in-depth interview with each participant. It was envisioned that the reflective nature of these methods would also benefit the students by developing their ability to reflect upon and develop the processes employed during art-making activities.

The aim of this article is therefore to provide descriptions of the ways in which particular students approached art-making activities and the processes employed; we focus upon the ways in which individuals’ thought processes can be understood, described and dissemi-nated. The descriptions and subsequent inter-pretations are intended to complement existing research and to suggest possible frameworks for the identification and description of cognitive

processes used within practical art-making activities. We felt it necessary to recognise the processes that could not be developed easily through learning in other areas, in addition to identifying cognitive processes that are most pertinent to art-making activities. Art activities: affective or cognitive? Before exploring possible cognitive processes taking place in practical art making, it is useful to note the discussions surrounding the classifica-tion of any art activity as cognitive (rather than affective). The relationship between art and cognition has featured in the literature for some time and recent papers have continued the debate about the nature of art making and its relation to cognition (e.g. Blatt-Gross 2010 and Tavin 2010). Although most of the literature has been theoretically rather than empirically based, it is now widely believed that art activities can be classified as ‘cognitive’ (Dorn 1999; Efland 2002; Eisner 2002, 2004; Hickman 2010; Perkins 1994; Perkins & Gardner 1988).

Eisner (2002, 75) makes a distinction between recognition and exploration within the perceptive domain which transforms percep-tion into an important consideration: ‘A funda-mental concern for anyone working in the arts ... is to create satisfying and expressive relation-ships among the “parts” that constitute a whole’. This way of perceiving, of the ‘putting together of elements’, can be defined as ‘thinking through looking’ (Perkins 1994, 3) or ‘visual thinking’ Arnheim (1969, 13–14). Noddings & Shore (1984, 129) asserted that the decisions made concern-ing what to keep and what to change throughout the making process involve decisions of increas-ing complexity and abstraction. Dorn (1999, 130) links this to ‘thought in action’, which describes the process of conceptualising ideas during the period of making rather than having an end prod-uct or creation in mind from when the creative act begins. Efland (2002, 159) cites the ‘cogni-tive flexibility argument’, similar to ‘thought in action’, as a process through which judgements, unguided by rules or generalisations, are made. This process does not offer a unique way of thinking, but suggests that art learning can be




99valuable to the development of the individual. Art learning may offer a way to develop flexible working skills both within and beyond the art environment.

In The Arts and the Creation of Mind (2002, 37), Eisner discusses the importance of students becoming reflective about their own thinking processes and conceptualising their aims in the art-form with which they are work-ing. Reflective discussions can be a valuable method for uncovering the processes students use during making and provide insights into the nature of individuals’ art making. One concern would be the student’s ability to verbalise the cognitive processes employed; this is consid-ered within the findings of the study. Although the method of reflective discussions may be limited to some extent by this constraint, Kolb & Kolb (2005, 194) suggest that developing the ability to reflect upon and understand processes that take place during learning can enhance subsequent learning. Therefore, by using this method, not only could any possible cognitive processes be uncovered of which the student is aware, it may also contribute towards the devel-opment of the student’s learning abilities.

Rasanen (1999) used experiential art under-standing in a study with a group of 16-year-old students during a two-month project in a Finn-ish school. The descriptions of learning provide more revealing data as to how students’ learn-ing was affected by incorporating experiential learning. The descriptions are not intended to be generalised and although that project was based upon art appreciation, the format of utilis-ing experiential learning and using student descriptions as a data source is relevant to the current study. Rasanen’s study concentrates upon linking student experiences to art analysis in order to make the work meaningful and includes student descriptions of their responses to the art-works. The descriptions illustrate the ways in which students clearly made links between the art-works and their own experi-ences, but these descriptions do not appear to be representative of the entire group, as Rasanen acknowledges that many students had difficulties in conceptualising the links. Rasanen

(1999, 204) believes that the art-work produced by the students as a response to the original work indicates a ‘much deeper understanding of the art work studied than can be read in their writings’. The method for analysing written and visual data is not described and so it is difficult to verify these claims. However, it is indeed possi-ble that the art-works made by the students could reveal a deeper understanding which may have been hard for the students to put into words; we must bear in mind that cognitive processes themselves may be unconscious acts or ones that are hard to describe or identify. Research design and overview of the phenomenological enquiryOur theoretical stance was informed by constructionism, where meaning is said to be constructed from the interactions between subject and object: in this case the interactions between the participants and the art-works they produce. Descriptions of these interactions are those that are of most interest to the study; we believe phenomenological research to be particularly suitable for cognitive studies as it can give researchers the ability to uncover ‘inner’ processes. Three participants, two girls and one boy, all 17 years old, were chosen for the research study; they were in the same art class in year 12 of a large comprehensive school. We argue that selecting participants who can offer detailed descriptions of the processes they have undertaken is more beneficial for the study, from which student descriptions are purposely non-generalisable, than selecting a random sample of participants.

The research is based around the experi-ences of the participants during a five-hour art ‘mock’ formal examination. The student partici-pants had completed four weeks of preparatory studies in their sketchpads and had been taught by two teachers during that time, including one of the authors, acting as a teacher-researcher. During the mock examination, advice was given by teachers as and when it was required and any intervention in this form was recorded in obser-vation schedules and discussed with the partic-ipants during interviews in order to ascertain the



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effects of this on the making experience. Partic-ipants were observed during the examination period. This fulfilled three purposes: firstly, as a validation data source for subsequent inter-views; secondly, in order to build up an under-standing of the observable behaviour displayed by each respondent; and thirdly, to use this infor-mation to structure the interview questions. Information from the observation was used to prompt a respondent who may have forgotten their behaviour or events during the making activity; it also served to verify descriptions given in interviews.

The field researcher acted as a participant-observer during observations, where ‘research-ers enter a field setting with an openly acknowl-edged investigative purpose’ (Lindlof & Taylor 2002, 147). As an ethical consideration, the students were provided with full details of the purpose and use of the observations before-hand. This approach was adopted rather than that of the complete participant (where the researcher is not known to be acting as such) as the latter method could be said to violate the participants’ legitimate right to know. Although it has been acknowledged that as a teacher-researcher, the divisions between these roles for both participants and researcher were blurred, the role of participant observer may have reduced ‘reactivity effects’ (Cohen et al. 2007, 404) as all participants appeared comfort-able with the presence of the field researcher during the activity. Rather than planning a struc-tured observation which typically quantifies behaviour, naturalistic observations were used to build rich descriptions. In order to take into consideration the differences between record-ing observable behaviour and recorded inferred meanings of this behaviour, different types of observational notes were categorised.

Subsequent to the art-making activity, the students were asked to record their experiences of the activity and were given advice about how this might be done. This account was desirable in order for the participants to be able to record their experiences while the processes remained fresh and clear in their consciousness. The inter-viewer and respondent read through the

account prior to the interview, both to refresh the respondent’s memory and to give added points of reference to the interviewer. The completed art-work, and any preparatory work that the respondent thought would help them to explain the processes they used during its making, were also present during the interview. The work gave both the interviewer and respondent points of reference when discuss-ing processes used and helped to both verify respondent statements and help them to remember the way in which they worked.

Respondents were encouraged to discuss the work and processes used chronologically, in order to recall as much about the experience as possible. The emphasis within the interviews was identical for each respondent, to gain in-depth descriptions of their experiences and processes they used during their art making. The structure of prompts used was similar for each respondent and the same opening ques-tions were employed for all interviews. However, in order to gain insight into each of their own life worlds, it was necessary to allow the interviews to progress as the respondent determined; following rigidly set questions could have narrowed the responses to the ones expected by the interviewer, hence risking a possible increase of bias.

In this type of interview situation, where not all questions are predetermined, extra vigilance is needed, we were careful therefore not to ask questions that might make the respondent feel under pressure to give the ‘right’ answer, thus risking bias. Prompts and probes were used, such as repeating a respondent’s last sentence when there appeared to be a block on their thoughts. When participants began to general-ise about their experiences, questions were asked, such as ‘What was this experience like?’, that helped to lead the dialogue back to refer-ence to actual lived experience.

The interviews, approximately an hour in length, were audio-taped and participants were made aware that this audio data would be stored until full transcription and interpretation was complete. We acknowledge that transcriptions inevitably lose data from the original encounter;




101this difficulty was minimised by recording and transcribing interviews in their entirety; empha-ses on words, pauses, silences and interrup-tions were all transcribed.

Explication and interpretation of dataThe general issues outlined in the introduction were formulated as a response to the existing literature and research surrounding cognition in art, and served as a starting point. Drawing on a grounded theory approach, where theories emerge or are generated from the data, more focused avenues of thought and understanding appeared as the data were being collected. Consequently, research questions were devel-oped to become more consistent with the phenomenological aims of understanding a lived experience and describing cognitive processes that can be identified as special or unique to art activities. The research questions that emerged were as follows:

• What is the nature of art making for students? • How do cognitive processes special to art

manifest themselves in art-making activities? The descriptions and interpretation of data focused on answering these questions in order to gain a deep understanding of art making, and the ways in which cognitive processes are apparent within the making process.

Hycner (1985, 280) suggests ‘bracketing’ one’s own interpretations in order to enter the respondent’s life-world and ‘approach [the data] with an openness to whatever meanings emerge’. So, guided by this, in order to gain an increased awareness of any subjective views held by the field researcher, presuppositions were written down before analysis began. The transcripts and subsequent units of meaning and summaries were validated by the respond-ents in order to clarify meaning and check for inconsistencies in interpretation.

Central concerns and emerging themesIn response to the research question, ‘What is the nature of art making for students?’, several themes emerged, and each respondent had

different emphases, as follows.For student 1 (‘Alan’), the following themes

were identified as important:

• enjoyment as a guiding factor in choosing techniques and ways of working;

• using art making as a form of learning;• experimentation and openness to new ways

of looking and working;• using compositional and colour techniques to

create realistic impressions;• energetic techniques and way of working.

Student 2 (‘Laura’) was focused on a different set of concerns:

• getting it ‘right’ requiring an immaculate or perfect finish;

• eye catching and bold ‘in your face’ art;• lack of planning leading to difficulties with

realising a personally acceptable outcome; • distinguishing making and visual perception

from thought processes;• importance of flow, composition, proportion

and balance.

Student 3 (‘Olivia’) was concerned with the following:

• noticing changes in the appearance of colours when juxtaposition or scaling occurs;

• mixture of keeping to original design and accepting or liking changes, mistakes and accidents;

• changes and mistakes producing unex-pected but successful results;

• colour and composition techniques used to create or identified as creating depth;

• avoiding visual confusion in the image whilst attempting to create confusion of senses

With regard to the second question – ‘How do cognitive processes special to art manifest themselves in art-making activities?’ – there were several themes that emerged; these are discussed below.



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Making changes during the making processThe respondents’ attitudes to making changes to their art-work during the actual art-making process were varied. Olivia made changes to her work whilst making, when her aim of creat-ing bright, bold colours was not being realised as fully as she wished. She employed unplanned techniques during the making when she felt that the juxtaposition of colours, or the scale of an area of colour, affected the brightness: ‘I thought the colour was done but once I’d put all the black on, the colours didn’t stand out as much as I wanted them to ...’. She put ‘more bright colours over’ to maximise the brightness. Alan also made decisions and changes in his work. He would ‘paint it on and see, does that look how I, expected it to look and if not I’d add more blue, or green’. Alan used media in unplanned ways in order to enhance an effect in his work. He had not tried all the techniques before but he ‘kind of knew’ which was the best type of effect he could get. Laura did not volun-tarily make changes during the art-making and was very uncomfortable about doing so when advised by a teacher, saying

at first I was really, really against that coz I’d planned it out, I have to do it that way coz that’s just how I planned it coz like changing a piece of art work, like one of the final pieces? Like half way through once I’d painted the background was really hard to do. Experimentation and planningAlan and Olivia described a conscious lack of planning for ways in which they would work on certain aspects of their piece. Alan was happy to use the art-making experience to experiment with materials and see what they could do. When given advice by a teacher, he ‘thought I’ll try that. I think it’s because this was just, just, well not just a mock but it was just like a ... exper-imentation’. He was told if it went wrong, ‘then I could just improve it later’. He had a vague idea of what he wanted to do before the exam and had made a number of preparatory drawings and media experimentations but ‘hadn’t really thought about how it would look and what was

going in the background and the kind of colours I’d use...’. He had consciously decided ‘to feel what, which colours – I would sort of feel like using on the day’.

Some of Olivia’s work was not planned beforehand, but resulted in positive outcomes:

it wasn’t a colour I was planning on using but once I put it on, it kind of worked for me. So I’m not sure if there was a complete aim in sight, I’m not sure if I wanted it to look three-D. But I just, once it was done it looked a bit more like it stood out a bit.

During painting, Olivia ‘tried not to control, what colours it made like when it was mixing coz I liked what it was doing by itself’.

Olivia and Alan both describe instances of consciously approaching an aspect of their art-work without planning, both of which pertain to the use of colour. Alan wished to see which colours would feel right on the day and Olivia tried not to control the way the paint colours were mixing. This could be interpreted as a lack of thought as to how the piece would be completed, but could also suggest that the two respondents were responding intuitively to the way that they felt or to the processes they were using during the making.

Alan appeared to see the art making as a chance to experiment with ideas and processes in preparation for his end-of-year examination piece and was told by a teacher that he could make changes to the work at a later stage. This seemed to make him more open to experiment-ing and trying out techniques and ideas which may have encouraged him to employ a more intuitive approach, experimenting, making deci-sions whilst working and refining ideas, without a fear or failure.

Laura had a carefully laid plan for her art-making which she wanted to follow, and was not aware that the art-work could be changed after the set time period. Laura described the design of the shapes of the small leaves as being less important, as she was focusing so heavily on the overall composition. She described the shapes of these leaves as being completely random.




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This indicated that these were drawn with no thought at all due to Laura’s preoccupation with the overall layout. She frequently described them as freehand drawings and could not describe what she was thinking whilst drawing them, as she gave it no conscious thought. This could imply that Laura found intuitive ways of working either difficult to employ or an unwanted way of working. However, she described the way in which she manipulated the shapes of her leaves during her planning and referred to this as random due to not copying the shapes. In her log, she described improvisation as making decisions about what she thought looked good. This suggested that either Laura was referring to randomness in a different way to the way in which it is traditionally understood, or that she perhaps felt that making judgements during making were not relevant or important. It could also indicate that improvisational deci-sions, or those not realised through a coherent thought process, were hard for Laura to describe, being a form of tacit knowledge, or perhaps were difficult for her to acknowledge as decisions.

Description of visual outcomesAlan felt that certain techniques or visual elements looked right in his work: ‘Yeah the river went, met half way with the sky. It’s just what I felt looked ... well, when I stood back and looked, and is that right. Where I thought the ... the, er the sky and the water should meet’. He used a technique to achieve a certain effect but found it quite difficult to describe it: ‘I used a paintbrush for [the river] and ... I’m not quite sure why, I think it was coz I wanted the, the river to be a lot more sort of flowing and, um, kind or rhythmic than the sky’.

When he was not happy with some of his work, he occasionally ‘stepped back and looked at it and didn’t really look ... how I wanted, how I’d imagined it...’ (see Figure 1).

Similarly, Olivia described that ‘Straight away the black just worked for me. I just assumed that it would work. And then it like luckily did work.’ She refers a number of times to the difficulty of explaining thought processes or her lack of clear explanation: ‘It’s not making sense [laughs]’; ‘this is really hard to explain’. Laura referred to gut feelings in her interview and log, and explained that during selection of images when planning, she ‘went with my gut feeling and kept it the same as I imagined what it would look like if I had have changed it and in my head it didn’t look right, so I stuck to my plan’. She described knowing instantly if something was going to work or look right; ‘none of them stood out like, apart from when I saw that one ... my eye goes straight there so I always knew that one would be the one I did’.

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Figure 1 Alan’s finished piece

Figure 2 Olivia’s finished piece



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Visual techniquesAll participants used visual techniques within their work. Alan was concerned with creating a main focus using boldness and colour, he described making Big Ben bold and therefore the ‘main image that people are looking at’. But he also felt that ‘bits that weren’t in keeping, and sort of drew your eye ... to that bit, I wanted to give it all, all the same’. He asked himself, ‘Is there anything I could add to this to make it look more in keeping with the rest?’. Olivia was concerned with making all of the parts within her piece connect, and considered this when designing her composition: ‘if I moved that too far that way it wouldn’t be touching the line at all. And I wanted it all to connect, in some way.’ She described creating balance without random-ness and explained that she felt ‘that the yellow bit fits because it, like, it, the bits of yellow kind of echoed on the edges of all the other shapes’. Olivia’s work evolved into a purely abstract piece but she was still interested in creating a three-dimensional element to some of the shapes by

using a technique known to create this effect. Visually, it was most important to Laura that one’s eye flowed around the piece of work; this was her primary concern when choosing a composition for her final piece. Shift of focusLaura appeared to concentrate mainly on her final piece from early on in the art-making process, rather than using visual stimuli, although her sketchpad with preparatory drawings remained open on the table through-out the exam.

Olivia and Alan made a transition from work-ing primarily from their original stimuli to concentrating more upon the look of their final piece. When Alan painted the sky in his work, he stood back and looked at his art-work and was observed adding colours to sky with downward strokes, stopping and looking at the sky and adding white, not looking at the photograph. He described this experience by saying ‘I tried to avoid using, um, horizontal strokes, tried to get,




105it all flowing up and down ... working with the, the shape of the building, of Big Ben ... going in the same direction’.

The harmony, visual coherence and connect-edness of the respondents’ work required the adaptation of the original visual stimuli that was used to inspire and guide their art-works. Olivia and Alan were both observed to switch their main focus away from the stimuli during the making process and appeared to concentrate on creating the visual coherence they required solely by assessing the ways in which the elements of their final piece came together or worked visually. Laura appeared to adopt this strategy earlier in the exam than the other two participants.

All three participants were seen to shift their attention from being equally split between the visual stimulus and their art-work, towards focusing mainly on their art-work. The partici-pants appeared to become focused upon satis-fying relationships between the parts in order to form a harmonious and coherent overall effect. All respondents expressed concern with some type of flow or connectedness within their work. By transferring their attention away from the stimuli in order to concentrate more closely on the final piece, it would appear that rather than copying a planned image throughout the art making, the students were focused upon bring-ing together the visual components of the final piece, using perceptive and intuitive processes. Alan and Olivia both used techniques in order to describe three-dimensional space and all three participants considered their use of colour both in terms of realism, effect and in relation to creating harmony within the work. The descrip-tions provided by the respondents indicated that they used visual and perceptual techniques that have been taught. Laura expressly described the visual flow she was trying to create as one that had been described by a teacher the year before. However, each applied the techniques that they have been taught in individual ways to their own work. They each described how they manipulated their work in order to achieve the desired visual techniques. This suggestion of transfer of learning and,

furthermore, students’ ability to explain the indi-vidual processes they have used to realise the technique, indicate that visual perception can be learnt. However, it must be taken into considera-tion that the students received support during the planning of their art-work from two art teach-ers. There is a possibility that the students may have been advised as to how to create these visual techniques into their specific work. Further studies would have to be carried out to verify this, including a more controlled study which ensured students received no direct instructions or advice. Perception and intuitionThe literature concerning the arts and cognition (e.g. Dorn 1999) indicates that the cognitive processes of perception and intuition are two that are often associated with art activities. Each of the participants had an end idea in mind from the planning of their work. Each described aspects of their work that were not fully planned before the making, and expressed regret that they had not planned more fully. The students may have been reacting to a perceived notion that the researcher would hold certain expecta-tions of their planning process which under the scrutiny of the interview would show deficien-cies. This highlights an issue regarding the teacher acting as researcher and must be taken into consideration when interpreting their descriptions. Although each respondent was working towards an imagined or predetermined end product, Alan in particular described his wish to wait for the day to make a number of decisions such as choosing colours that would feel ‘right’ on the day. This could again have been an excuse for lack of planning but it appeared that he had consciously made this decision. Olivia also described some aspects of her work as being consciously unplanned, such as consciously trying not to control the way the paint colours were mixing. Choosing to make decisions whilst working suggests that the two respondents were responding intuitively to the way that they felt or to the processes they were using during the making.

The perceptive process of concentrating

Opposite page:

Figure 3 Laura’s finished piece



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upon the success or coming together of the final piece, rather than the direct copying of stimuli, could suggest that perceptive decisions can lead to intuitive responses. Noddings describes the work of Whitehead (1967), an educational theorist interested in the relationship between knowledge and intuition, who believed that ‘intuitive judgement may differ very little from conscious perception’ (Noddings & Shore 1984, 32). This similarity appears to manifest itself in some of the respondents’ descriptions. Olivia, in response to her perception of her work not being as bold as she would have liked, took action to improve this without having consid-ered this step during her planning. This set of considerations could suggest that her percep-tion of the work led her to intuitively making changes. Alan described assessing his work to see if it looked as he had imagined and made changes accordingly. He seemed to have been responding to his perception of the visual effect by making intuitive changes. However, it also became apparent in the analysis of data that this method appeared to be one which Laura consciously tried to avoid.

Laura described a less intuitive approach to her work, and found it important to follow a predetermined plan in order to realise her aims. This could be partly due to the fact that she was unaware that she could work on the image after the eight-hour time period. Alan was aware of this and this may have encouraged him to work more freely without a fear of failure. However, it was also seen that judgements Laura described as ‘random’ and ‘improvisational’ were defined as ones requiring manipulation or personal decisions in order to achieve visual success within the work. These definitions, indicative of intuitive decisions, might suggest that Laura felt that judgements made during making are not relevant or important. This is an area which may require more probing; it is also possible that the processes Laura described were done without conscious thought and were areas that were given no consideration. However, it could also indicate that improvised decisions or those not realised through a coherent thought process were hard for Laura to describe or even

recognise, suggesting that the way in which she manipulated some visual elements was tacit in nature.

The respondents appeared to have difficul-ties putting into words the way in which their work looked ‘right’ or as they imagined. Laura referred to ‘gut feelings’; Olivia described the way in which she made visual considerations lucidly but often felt she has having difficulty explaining the processes; Alan described the act of making elements look ‘right’. These diffi-culties could indicate that the respondents lacked the vocabulary to describe decisions, or alternatively, they may suggest respondents are attempting to find ways in which to describe tacit knowledge or understanding.

Conclusions This study attempts to build our understanding of art making from the students’ perspective in order to understand some of the reasons for decisions made during the making process. The focus upon describing the way in which perceived cognitive processes special or unique to art manifested themselves gives focus to the contextual description of the respondents’ experiences, and offers sugges-tions as to the ways in which processes were approached and used during their making.

It has been proposed that perceptive and intuitive processes were apparent and further-more that these processes manifested them-selves in a variety of ways and situations within the making. Respondents not only incorporated visual techniques into their work but were also able to assess the visual harmony of the work as a whole. We argue that perception and intuition can be closely linked; perceptive decisions appear to sometimes lead to intuitive leaps. The descriptions also suggest that skills in visual perception could be taught; the learning appears to have been transferred by the students to their own work and translated to fit the personal aims of the individual. Lastly, it has been seen that some processes, decisions or knowledge may be tacit in nature, making it difficult for respond-ents to describe their art making fully.

This article does not attempt to offer a general




107hypothesis of the way in which art students use cognitive processes, but rather suggests ways in which students’ practice may be investigated and the types of learning which may be observed or described. It is hoped that the methodology and analysis can offer some avenues of explora-tion for teaching practice and illuminate both existing and future research studies.

We began by seeking to understand what a student’s experience of art making actually entailed in order to be able to approach learning and teaching from the individual student’s perspective. The research revealed that peda-gogically useful knowledge of students’ learn-ing can be gained through in-depth conversa-tions about the work they have produced. It became evident through the data collection method that the selected students, when encouraged to explore and describe their thought processes involved during art making, were realising their intentions using highly personal and complex processes. The discus-sions were illuminating from a teaching perspec-tive, as it was clear that the art making had encouraged individual realisations that incorpo-rated visual learning and personal expression based upon individual preferences. It also became evident that the taught process of visual perception appeared to be incorporated into the students’ art practice, which suggests that this is a vital aspect of art teaching.

By using the methods of enquiry adopted in the research reported here, it could be possible to develop the students’ own learning abilities and encourage the development of abstract concepts. Students within this study were encouraged to reflect upon the processes they had used whilst creating their art-work and, during subsequent class critiques, these students were seen to be able to describe and explain how and why they were making deci-sions about their art-works. It is noteworthy that their reflective practice appeared to have been enhanced through the questioning methods used during the interviews.

The wider implications of the study may lie within the reflective nature of the methods employed during the research. New avenues of

exploration for the way in which art making is assessed may be considered. The cognitive processes which have been identified within the study are ones which could be given deeper consideration by educators when designing course structure and the ways in which analysis of students’ own work is approached.

Finally, it has been discussed that the identi-fication of cognitive processes special to art making could enhance the importance of art within the curriculum. Perceptions of the intel-lectual demands of practical art making are widespread amongst art theorists and educa-tors, but a wider body of research must be completed in order to explore these claims more fully. The research reported here suggests that perceptive and intuitive processes were used by the participants in a variety of ways which relate directly to art education. However, the ways in which these skills may be trans-ferred to other subjects and situations will need further investigation along with the completion of larger-scale studies. Currently the literature concerning cognition within the arts is largely either theoretical, or based upon research stud-ies that are completed on a large scale using data collection methods which endeavour to prove transfer of skills from the arts. This research presents an in-depth investigation which is intended to illuminate current literature. In order to suggest a framework for identifying cognitive processes being used in art making, it is suggested that further qualitative studies are necessary; these could concentrate both upon what is being taught and how the students experience art making in order to enable researchers to build a bank of words, phrases and themes that indicate cognitive processes being taught and used. This would enable researchers to begin to understand the ways in which learning is transferred to individual art practice and how this learning may be extended beyond the art classroom.



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Richard Hickman is Reader in Art Education in the University of Cambridge Faculty of Educa-tion where he is course leader for PGCE Art & Design. His teaching experience includes 13 years as a teacher of art and design and as a lecturer in art and design education since 1985, including time at the University of Reading and the National Institute of Education, Singapore. Richard is author of The Art & Craft of Pedagogy: Portraits of Effective Teachers (Continuum, 2011) and Why We Make Art and Why it is Taught (Intel-lect, 2005); he edited Research in Art Education (Intellect, 2008), Art Education 11–18 (Contin-uum, 2004) and Critical Studies in Art & Design Education (Intellect, 2005). Contact address: University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Rd, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK. Email: [email protected]

Lauren Kiss teaches art at secondary level in Cambridgeshire, having previously worked with young people in a variety of contexts. She has contributed to iJADE, the Times Educational Supplement and the NSEAD publication A’N’D. She is currently working on further cross-curric-ular research projects. Contact address: c/o University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, 184 Hills Rd, Cambridge CB2 8PQ, UK. Email: [email protected]

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