Can Visual Arts Learning Improve Geometric Reasoning?
Lynn Goldsmith, Education Development Center, Inc. (presenter)
Lois Hetland, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Ellen Winner, Boston College
Craig Hoyle, Education Development Center, Inc.
Candace Brooks, Education Development Center, Inc.
Abstract below is 484 words:
We represent a team of cognitive psychologists, art educators educational researcher
(mathematics education, research design and methodology), and designers. We have been
exploring connections between STEM thinking and artistic envisioning—the formation
of images (often mental) which can then guide actions, problem solving and problemforming (Hetland et al., 2007).
We propose a 60-minute discussion session for the conference, 20 minutes for describing
our study of whether studying visual arts improves geometric reasoning and 40 minutes
for a discussion with attendees about connections to their own work, implications for
both drawing and mathematics instruction, and possible areas for future investigation.
The session would require an LED projector.
Our study was motivated by the desire to find new ways to keep students in the “STEM
pipeline:” given the importance of visualization for STEM disciplines, strong visualizers
are likely to be more successful in STEM studies and therefore more likely to continue to
pursue them. We’ve reasoned that developing students’ visualization skills could help to
enlarge the segment of the K–12 population with access to, and success in, higher-level
mathematics and science. We tested the hypothesis that intensive study in the visual arts
contributes to geometric reasoning, comparing the performance of three groups of high
school freshman on measures of geometric reasoning, artistic envisioning, and spatial
visualization, as well as two control measures (verbal ability and empathy) in a quasiexperimental study. The visual arts (VA) students attend an arts-based public high
school; half their day is devoted to core academic studies and half to arts instruction,
including a year-long drawing class. The theater students (T) attend the same school; the
sports students (S) participate in an intensive after-school squash program. We tested
students at three points in time: beginning of 9th grade, end of 9th grade, and end of 10th
grade.
Data collection has just ended; results reported here are therefore preliminary, based on a
complete sample of 108 cases (41 VA, 35 T, and 32 S) and the two 9th grade data points
(see Table). Analyses indicated:
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The VA group had a statistically higher mean score on both pre- and posttest1
geometry than did the other two (control) groups (p<.05).
The VA group demonstrated greater pre- to post-1 gains on geometry (p<.05).
When controlling for pre-test differences, membership in the VA group remained
a significant predictor of post-test1 geometry scores (p<.05).
When controlling for pretest geometry scores, scores on the art pretest were a
significant predictor of post-1 geometry scores (p <.05).
This study, which uses arts education as a naturalistic intervention to study a possible
relationship between artistic envisioning and geometric reasoning, has yielded intriguing
results and has raised as many questions as it has answered. In the future, we plan to
unpack both “artistic envisioning” and the visual components of geometric reasoning in
order to look for clearer connections between visual ways of thinking in the two domains.
References
Hetland, L., Winner, E., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K. (2007). Studio thinking: The real
benefits of visual arts education. New York: Teachers College.
Walker, C.M., Winner, E., Hetland, L., Simmons, S., & Goldsmith, L. (2011). Visual
thinking: Art students have an advantage in geometric reasoning. Creative Education.
2(1), 199-202.