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Selected Development Project
 
Project Title An Investigation of the Use of Group Dialogue and Questioning Strategies with Primary School Students Learning Visual Arts in Museums and Schools

在展館及教室學習視覺藝術 : 小學師生對話及提問策略研究
 
Principal Investigator Dr Tam Cheung-on
 
Area of Research Project
Teaching and Learning
 
Project Period
From 1/1/2018 To 30/06/2020
Objectives
  1. To identify and describe the ways in which teachers translate group dialogue and questioning strategies into practice in the art museum and classroom context.
  2. To field test and refine the group dialogue and questioning strategies at the senior primary school level.
  3. To develop and propose effective group dialogue and questioning strategies for primary school students learning visual arts.
  4. To investigate the effectiveness of group dialogue and questioning strategies in enhancing student learning of visual arts.
  5. To evaluate the impact and outcomes of group dialogue and questioning strategies on student learning of visual arts.
Methods Used
The study adopted Design-based Research as the primary methodology. Seven teachers and 187 primary five students (age 12) from different primary schools were invited to participate in the study. Five workshops on effective dialogue and questioning strategy were conducted for the teacher participants. For the sake of comparison, each teacher conducted a classroom teaching and a museum visit before the workshops. After the workshops, each teacher implemented the strategy for three times of classroom teaching and two times of museum visit. All the teachings and visits were video-recorded and transcribed for analysis. Four independent raters were recruited to review the video recordings along with the transcripts and evaluate them using the rubric developed by the investigators. A comparison was made between the data collected before the workshops and those collected after the implementation of the strategy.
Summary of Findings

A series of paired-samples t-tests were conducted to compare the classroom dialogues before and after the implementation of the dialogue questioning strategy. The mean scores of that dialogues were rated for the six domains, namely Personal Connection, Observation, Visual Analysis, Context, Interpretation and Evaluation. In the first implementation, no statistical significance was observed. In the second implementation, there were statistically significant increases in the total score and the two domains (i.e. Personal Connection and Evaluation). In the third implementation, there were statistically significant increases in the total score and the three domains (i.e. Observation, Interpretation and Evaluation). In summary, the overall scores of the classroom dialogues had improved significantly except the first implementation. But the improvements of each domain varied in each time.

A series of paired-sample t-tests were conducted to compare the museum dialogues before and after the implementation of the questioning strategy. The means scores of that dialogues were rated for the six domains. In the first implementation, there were statically significant increases in the total score and the two domains (i.e. Interpretation and Evaluation). In the second implementation, there were statistically significant increases in the total score and the two domains (i.e. Visual analysis and Interpretation). In summary, the overall scores of the museum dialogues had improved significantly in both of the implementations. But the improvements of each domain varied in each time.
Impact
  • Teachers began to adopt a more interpretative dialogue approach and a more comprehensive way to conduct art classroom dialogues.
  • Teachers were concerned on the ways to connect students’ feelings, impressions and views to an artwork.
  • Students became more patient for at criticism activities and were more interested in exploring the meaning of a work.
  • Students were able to make connection between different fields of knowledge.
Selected Output
  • Tam, C. O. (2019). Development and analysis of dialogue and questioning strategies with primary school students in learning about artworks. Australian Art Education, 40(1), 48-66.

  • 譚祥安和劉仲嚴（2019）：學習視覺藝術的對話及提問框架，《藝術教育研究》38，頁35-68。
    (Tam, C. O. & Lau, C. Y. (2019). A Dialogue and Questioning Framework for Learning Visual Arts. Research in Arts Education, 38, 35-68.)
Biography of Principal Investigator
Dr Tam Cheung-on is currently working at the Education University of Hong Kong as Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts. Dr Tam’s research interest includes museum education, aesthetics and art appreciation, phenomenology, and qualitative research methods.
Funding Source

General Research Fund