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Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education Volume 5 Number 2.
Evaluation. English language. doi: 10.1386/adch.5.2.131/6. © Intellect Ltd 2006.
Drawing on assessment: using visualrepresentations to understand students’experiences of assessment in art and design
Chris McKillop Robert Gordon University
AbstractThis paper discusses research that is being conducted using visual representa-tions as a method for understanding students’ experiences of the assessmentprocess in art and design. The preliminary analysis of drawings has highlighteda number of factors including: a negative reaction to assessment; the use ofmetaphor and simile in drawings and the effectiveness of using visual represen-tations to successfully convey experience.
Using visual representations is proposed as a means of furthering our under-standing of the student learning experience; and as a method for students toreflect on their experiences, such as within a Personal Development Planning(PDP) process. The drawings have highlighted an overwhelmingly negative reac-tion to assessment and this paper suggests that the prejudicial effects of assess-ment need further investigation, due to potentially detrimental consequences onstudents’ creative abilities.
IntroductionTraditional approaches of understanding student experiences largely con-sist of end of module surveys, focus groups or interviews. These forms mayencourage a rationalization of experience and the resulting comments maybe influenced by concerns about who will see them.
This paper proposes that visual representations can provide furtherinsight into the student experience. In predominantly visual subject areas,such as art and design, it is worth investigating whether we can draw on thecreative abilities of our students to improve our understanding of theirlearning experiences.
This paper presents a preliminary analysis of students’ drawings of assess-ment and explores some key issues arising from the analysis, predominatelythe images depicting a negative reaction to assessment. The paper concludesby proposing further work in this area based on the findings of this research,namely: the use of visual representations as a means of understanding thestudent learning experience; the use of visual representations of learning as areflective tool and the implications of extreme negative reactions to assess-ment on the learning process.
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Keywordsassessmentstudent experiencevisual representations
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Students’ experience of assessment Rowntree (1987) proposes that to investigate the state of education weneed to look at its assessment processes. The literature on assessmentconcentrates on its more functional and technical aspects, such as con-structive alignment (Biggs 1999) while research into students’ experiencesof assessment looks at experiences of different types of assessment (deFreitas 1996); and how assessment influences students’ approaches tolearning (Gibbs and Simpson 2002; Rust 2002).
In art and design there are particular issues for assessment. Gordon(2004) highlights these as being the ‘wow’ factors, qualities which are noteasily reducible to quantifiable and defined components. Nevertheless, theyare important qualities which comprise the creative worth of an artwork ordesign.
A student in art and design often brings considerable personal experi-ence into the subject matter of their work and can often find it difficult tostep back and view their work objectively, so it is important to understandhow they feel about having their work assessed. Do tensions between objec-tive measurement and the creative, subjective and personal qualities of thework affect their experience? Research has already highlighted the negativeeffect assessment has on students through investigating the stories they tellabout assessment (McKillop 2005). Boud (1995) also highlights the negativeeffect assessment has on students’ experiences and suggests that students’prior experiences affect the way they perceive their current assessment. Thispaper will examine what we can learn about those experiences through thestudents’ own visual representations and how we can use this knowledge.
Using visual representations to understand experienceUsing visual representations is more commonly used to understand children’scognitive development (Karmiloff-Smith 1990) or for therapeutic reasons(Malchiodi 2002) and use in the educational setting has been largely con-fined to children (Haney et al. 1998). However, Bracher (2003) asked firstyears, from a variety of subject areas, to construct group posters of theirexperiences of university. She identified that social experiences preoccupiedthe first years’ university life and categorized a number of areas accordingto their images: for example, time management was illustrated by a clockwith wings or without hands; relationships with smiling stick figures andhearts; study issues with open books, equations or money signs.
Ludlow (1999) explored the use of drawings after concluding that thestandard end of course evaluation surveys offered little insight into the stu-dent experience in his statistics classes. He found that drawings provided arichness of information that could not be conveyed using standard courseevaluation techniques. The way in which students conveyed negative experi-ences and moments of learning (often difficult to communicate in a survey)enabled him to think more about what he did in the classroom and theimpact this had on his students. Many of these drawings represented theclassroom with rows of desks and the teacher as an authority figure atthe front. They often reflected the ‘aha’ moments of learning which Figure 1illustrates. This drawing also gives insight into how the student perceivedthe role of the tutor and student, as demonstrated by the tutor beinglabelled ‘Yoda’ and the student ‘Luke’, in reference to the Star Wars films.
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The drawings also represented how students interacted with their peersand how they perceived each other in the classroom, for example, studentswho were baffled by the lesson being shown with ‘!!!!???’ above their heads,and lines of arrows representing communication amongst students.
Visual representations of assessment in art and designThe student experience in art and design is largely visual and consequentlythere are high levels of visual literacy amongst students. This research hasinvestigated whether taking a visual approach to understanding the studentexperience of assessment could be an appropriate and effective method.
MethodUndergraduates and postgraduate students were asked to visually repre-sent assessment, whether an actual experience or how they felt generallyabout assessment. As the study aimed to obtain an overview of how stu-dents felt about assessment in general, the term assessment was not dis-cussed with them in order not to influence how they approached the task.Students were asked not to think too much about it, but just draw whatcame to mind. This approach enabled students’ more instinctive responsesto assessment to be gathered. An earlier phase of this research had identi-fied students’ concerns about discussing their assessment experiences sostudents submitted their drawings anonymously. Future work will involvestudents at differing stages of their degrees and will investigate how theirexperiences differ through their drawings.
This paper is based on the preliminary analysis of 86 visual repre-sentations which were analysed using a Grounded Theory approach(Glaser and Strauss 1967). This form of analysis enabled drawings tobe grouped according to similar features and for categories, and links
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Figure 1.
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between categories, to emerge. A number of common themes emergedwhich include: the assessment process; time management; frustrations;being marked/measured/judged; feeling uncomfortable; perplexity andthe method of representing these. Many students used figures of peopleand facial expressions to convey their feelings about assessment. Theuse of exclamation marks and words in thought bubbles served to rein-force initial impressions of drawings and clarify what the student wasexpressing. For example, drawn facial expressions can have ambiguityand students appeared to be ensuring that there was no doubt as towhat they meant.
This paper will now explore the most frequently occurring themes.
The drawingsThe drawings ranged from abstract images requiring careful interpreting toones which were more literal representations. Images of students predomi-nated, ranging from stick figures and full-body representations to facialexpressions. Students or examiners were occasionally represented by anempty chair. In some cases, the examiner’s face was not represented, perhapsreflecting the depersonalized nature of assessment.
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Figure 2.
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Process of assessmentThe process of being assessed was frequently represented, portrayed by anexam layout of rows of desks, a student sitting at a desk or an artworkbeing ‘judged’. Students used the drawings to indicate areas of concern byusing grades, question marks above the student’s head, facial expressions,clocks, etc. This may illustrate that assessment is still being thought of asa formal, summative process, rather than an ongoing formative processincluding self- and peer assessment. The possible unfairness of theprocess was also represented, as illustrated in Figure 2 where examinersare judging a perfect sunflower, but not giving high marks as it is ‘lackingin imagination’.
The notion of the individual, rather than the work, being assessed isshown in Figure 3 where two anonymous people measure a student who isnot enjoying the process. This could be more common in art and designwhere the student may be more likely to include a considerable amount ofpersonal experience into the subject matter of their work.
The lack of transparency in the process was illustrated throughimages such as a rat in a maze and a lucky dip with a blindfolded studentjumping in.
Emotional contentAround half of the drawings represented a negative emotion and only fivedrawings expressed any form of positive feelings about assessment, how-ever, each of these drawings had another aspect to them – a negative viewof assessment. For example, Figures 4a and 4b show two of these images.Figure 4a shows a student climbing a steep staircase to be rewarded with
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Figure 3.
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the trophy of assessment, but there are dangerous edges to be careful of,plus clouds obscuring the way. Figure 4b shows a hanged student on a gal-lows to represent exams, but on the other side of the wall a happy studentwith flowers and an ice cream cone represents coursework. There were nounambiguously positive images.
Assessment was often shown as being something uncomfortable orpainful being done to you. Figure 5 shows a student crying with pain, yetsmiling, and the pain is represented though a series of acupuncture nee-dles. This student shows her insight into the process by stating next to theimage that the assessment, whilst painful, was also ‘joyous’ and that thiswas only evident, on reflection, afterwards.
Two similar drawings, which also reflect this are shown in Figures 6aand 6b. Figure 6a shows a darkened room with a chair in the corner, illumi-nated by the metaphorical ‘spotlight on you’.
Figure 6b has a student cringing in the corner holding onto their workand looking very small in comparison with a number of shaded in figureswho are laughing at them, one of whom is pointing at the student. Theseoppressive feelings have also been identified by Meldrum (2002) whoexplores issues of trust and power between student and tutor.
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Figure 5.
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139Chris McKillop: ‘Drawing on assessment…’
Figure 7.
(a)
(b)
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Some of the extreme images that were used, especially those with deathimages, were particularly surprising. Figure 7a is quite disturbing as itshows a student, gun in mouth, with a thought bubble showing a grave-stone (coursework) with the caption ‘join me in death’. Figure 7b illustratesa frustrated student wearing a T-shirt stating ‘Kill me!’, grimacing in front ofa book screaming ‘AAAAAAHH!’.
Other extreme images included images of the devil, of a student plung-ing a knife into an assignment and a brain filled with TNT explosives.
Metaphor and simileStudents used a number of metaphors and similes in their drawings tohighlight how they felt about assessment: being measured, in the spotlight(see Figure 6a), brain exploding, being made to feel small (see Figure 6b),a lucky dip, a rat in a maze, a seal balancing a ball on its nose, carrot andstick, the weight of the world on your shoulders, climbing a steep staircase,an ECG/EEG trace and the devil. These are very expressive and succinctways for a student to convey their experiences and not the usual type ofinformation that is gathered through course feedback systems.
Understanding the student experienceThe use of visual representations provides a further method of understandinghow students in art and design feel about assessment. Whilst there is nodoubt that there can be difficulties involved in interpreting such qualitativedata, there is something persuasive about these representations that is diffi-cult to ignore. They convey, at a glance, a gestalt of the assessment experiencewhich would be difficult to obtain through other methods. It is as if by lookingat them we are vicariously experiencing some of what the students have gonethrough. They succinctly and rapidly convey a richness of experience thatwould be difficult to put into words. Perhaps the old adage is appropriate herethat a picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Using visual representationsof learning could be used as a course evaluation technique in art and design tounderstand the effect it is having on students. Understanding the studentlearning experience is key to improving the quality of assessment methods.Visual representation may be a more expressive medium for some groups ofstudents, for example, students who have higher levels of visual literacy or apreference for the visual medium or students with dyslexia.
Enhancing the student experienceStudents are encouraged to keep reflective logs and sketchbooks as part oftheir learning process, so asking them to visualize their learning as part ofthis process would seem a natural extension to this. Schön (1983) encour-aged learners to engage in a reflective conversation with their designs andperhaps we should be encouraging students to reflect and engage withtheir learning in ways more suited to the subject area. Visual representa-tions could provide the focus for reflective conversations, just as studentsare well used to having conversations about their work through, for exam-ple, the ‘crit’ (Oak 2004). This could be one way of adding to PDP processesin art and design, by moving towards multiple media formats more suitedto students’ visual learning styles (James 2004) and the experiential andpractice-based nature of the subject (Malins and McKillop 2005).
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Figure 8.
(a)
(b)
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Assessment experienceThere was a lack of positive images of assessment, either indicating thatmost experiences had a negative aspect or that there was a need to expressthe negative experiences, perhaps as a form of catharsis. Also lacking wereimages representing the role of assessment in learning. Only two imagesseemed to attempt to convey some aspects of this (see Figures 8a and 8b).
The overwhelming negative emotions and extreme nature of the draw-ings are worth pursuing as it may explain the lack of cohesion betweenassessment and learning in the drawings. Negative feelings can be a barrierto reflective thinking leading to a fixedness of thought (Boud et al. 1985).Assessment can lead to students feeling oppressed by their assessors(Meldrum 2002) and Freire (1998) warns of the dangers of using methodsbecause of their efficiency at the expense of the freedom of the student. Ifwe are producing such a negative experience of assessment for students,then we must bear in mind the consequences this has on their creative abili-ties in an assignment. Gordon (2004) calls for students to be rewarded inthe assessment process for their creative abilities and warns that not doingso will lead to students who simply work to the assessment criteria.
Rowntree (1987) suggests that there are many stereotypes in assess-ment which can lead to its prejudicial nature. This may be mirrored in theimages in this study which frequently depicted a formal exam setting with astudent sitting at a desk or with rows of desks. In an art and design context,this setting is less common, yet was frequently drawn, suggesting it is astereotypical image.
ConclusionsThis study has shown that the use of visual representations of students’experiences of assessment in art and design is a promising method. Therichness of the content of the drawings has provided a unique insight intothe way students perceive assessment.
There are three key areas raised by this research which are worth investi-gating further. First, that visual representations can be used as a method ofunderstanding the student learning experience. Second, that visual repre-sentations of learning could be used as part of the reflective process andincorporated into PDP systems. Third, that we should be aware of potentialdetrimental effects of assessment on students and their learning experience,such as the language we use when assessing students (Boud 1995).
ReferencesBiggs, J. (1999), Teaching for Quality Learning at University, Buckingham, UK: Open
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Bracher, E. R., An Investigation of the Efficacy of Analyzing Student Drawings as anAdjunct to Interviews Aimed at Researching the Contexts of Student Life, Ph.D.Thesis, Boston College, Unpublished 2003.
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de Freitas, N. (1996), Did They See it the Way I saw it? A Case Study in Peer and SelfAssessment, paper presented at the HERDSA Conference 1996, 8–12 July, Perth,Western Australia.
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Suggested citationMcKillop, C. (2006), ‘Drawing on assessment: using visual representations to under-
stand students’ experiences of assessment in art and design’, Art, Design andCommunication in Higher Education 5: 2, pp. 131–144, doi: 10.1386/adch.5.2.131/6
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Contributor detailsChris McKillop is currently a Ph.D. Research Student at Gray’s School of Art whereshe is investigating the role of narrative in learning by using storytelling to facilitatethe reflective process. Her research aims to give a deeper understanding of howstudents perceive and use the assessment process in art and design by usingstorytelling and visual representations of assessment; to develop storytelling as areflective method; and to investigate the extent to which this process can be medi-ated in an online environment – www.storiesabout.com.
Her research interests lie in the areas of student learning, online technologiesand evaluation. She has conducted research in a diverse range of disciplines, includ-ing psychology, computing, business and management, and art and design. She hasdegrees in Artificial Intelligence and Human Computer Interaction and designs andevaluates interactive learning environments. Contact: Gray’s School of Art, RobertGordon University, Garthdee Road, Aberdeen, AB10 7QD, UK.Tel: 01224 263646E-mail: prs.mckillop@rgu.ac.uk
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