Further Commentary: Response to Burton's Survey of Current Research in Art Education

Abstract

This year the National Art Education Association (NAEA) celebrated its 50th anniversary. As an educational organization, NAEA is relatively young and now has a history that can be reflected upon and a research agenda poised on the brink of moving into the mainstream of recognition in the field of educational research. In the first issue of Studies in Art Education, Jerome Hausman (1959) wrote: The teaching of art, as we know it, is a relatively recent phenomenon. There is, for example, a much greater tradition for an artistapprentice relationship. Only in recent years have we moved to a point of identifying a profession concerned with the theory and practice of teaching art. (p. 5) His observations appear to be as true today as 39 years ago. Much has happened in the intervening years, yet research in art education is still viewed by some in the larger educational research community as nonexistent or less rigorous than that practiced in other academic disciplines. I teach as a member of a faculty in a school of education that is recognized as a major research institution. I often have been asked by colleagues if there is a body of research in art education, and if there are issues discussed and studies conducted in art education in a similar manner to studies in other more academic areas. It always amazes these colleagues when art education doctoral students receive national and state research awards; they are especially astonished when these students are recipients of awards from the faculty of education. Burton's survey of current research in art education challenges the notion that there is a paucity of research by demonstrating that from 1995 to 1996 higher education faculty, independent scholars, and doctoral and masters' studies, as self-reported by 75 art educators, were conducting 254 research studies. Burton's survey and analysis focuses on eight categories of research identified in 1994 by the NAEA Research Commission. He has attempted to answer the question, is the current state of research in art education? This question poses more questions than are addressed in this survey. A number of unanswered questions occurred to me when reading Burton's study. How many of these researchers were eventually presented in public arenas and/or later published? Are studies identified by art educators' idiosyncratic, one-time events or are they part of ongoing research agendas? What kinds of methodologies were utilized in these studies? How many of the studies employed several researchers working in collaboration and at a variety of sites? Were studies conducted in national and/or international contexts? Were studies based on the work of art education researchers and/or scholars from other fields? Burton's survey is a beginning venture that adds to demographic knowledge in art education. Answers to the questions just posed should be addressed in future studies so that this beginning knowledge base is extended and expanded. The current emphasis on educational reform in the United States and other countries has highlighted the need for research and information in all school subjects including the arts. In 1994, an Arts Education Research Agenda for the Future was published (NEA and USDOE, 1994) that outlined a need for research in curriculum and instruction, assessment and evaluation, and teacher education and preparation. A year earlier NAEA (1993) had published Art Education: Creating a Visual Arts Research Agenda Toward the 21st Century, followed by Briefing Papers (Zimmerman, 1996), Implementing a Visual Arts Education Research Program (NAEA, 1996), and Research Methods and Methodologies in Art Education (LaPierre & Zimmerman, 1997). …