Autonomous Artists: Second Graders' Perspectives on Their Artwork

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Art Education
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Autonomous Artists: Second Graders' Perspectives
on Their Artwork
Leslie Gates & Brittany Bard
To cite this article: Leslie Gates & Brittany Bard (2021) Autonomous Artists: Second Graders'
Perspectives on Their Artwork, Art Education, 74:4, 28-32, DOI: 10.1080/00043125.2021.1905433
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2021.1905433
Published online: 11 Jun 2021.
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28 Art Education
Brittany: I did not intentionally choose a teacher-centered
way of teaching, but rather, I found myself teaching art the way I
had been taught without much critical analysis of what was best for
the students or most aligned to my philosophy. During graduate
school, I reected on and began to question my teaching practice.
I encountered the work of others, including Marilyn Zurmuehlen
(1974), who wrote, “e person who is making the decisions is the
person who is learning” (p. 9).
Regretfully, for the rst few years I was teaching, I had put
limitations on my students to get the work that I wanted from
them. Upon this realization, there was a slow but steady change to
my teaching practice. In the spring of 2019, I enacted a student-
centered, choice-based pedagogy1 with 2nd-grade students as part
of my capstone research project. I wondered what students would
think about their work when it was not teacher directed. I engaged
in a research project that explored the questions, “How do students
describe the merit of their artwork in a choice-based art education
classroom?,” and “How do students feel about their artwork?”
I used a survey to assess students’ views about their work.
e ndings from the surveys (N = 165) indicated that students
enjoyed making their choice-based projects. e survey also
asked students to identify reasons they believed their work had
Second Graders’ Perspectives
on Their Artwork
Leslie Gates and Brittany Bard
Figure 1. The survey given to
2nd graders asked them to choose
one thing they liked best about their work.
Autonomous Artists:
In this article, we present the results of a collaborative research venture between Brittany, an art
educator of 645 students in a rural K–2 school, and Leslie, an art educator of undergraduate and
graduate students. is research began as Brittany’s capstone research project in her master’s
degree program, with Leslie serving as her advisor. Brittany was interested in students’ rationales
for determining the quality of their artwork. Aer the capstone research was completed, Leslie continued
the research as the primary investigator, based on her continued interest in all that could be learned and
theorized from what 2nd graders told us in interviews. is article outlines a short history of the research
project, describes an important discovery about the role autonomy plays in students’ assessment of their
work, and oers implications for art education practice.

July 2021 29
merit (Figure 1). ere were signicant limitations of the research
methods. First, despite my eorts to design a survey appropriate
for 2nd-grade students to complete independently, students’ varied
levels of reading comprehension likely aected their understanding
and thus the quality of the data. Second, I had limited
opportunities to engage in extended conversations about these
questions with the students, given my teaching responsibilities
during the school day and student schedules.
LesLie: We recognized that Brittany needed to access students’
rationales to answer her research questions. Compared to surveys,
I have found qualitative interviews to be more developmentally
appropriate as a research method for soliciting young learners’
ideas. Brittany’s research design initially included qualitative
interviews, but conducting these interviews proved challenging
for a variety of reasons. Recognizing the time-intensive nature of
research with young learners is an important consideration for
teacher–researchers when designing qualitative research studies,
but this is also an exciting opportunity for collaborative research
ventures. We chose collaboration as a means to overcome the
barrier of time Brittany faced while serving the simultaneous roles
of teacher and researcher.
I visited Brittany’s classroom when she was teaching back-to-
back 2nd-grade classes. I conducted interviews with 17 students
from those two classes by pulling students out of art class. e
interviews lasted approximately 5 minutes each and were audio-
recorded. I interviewed students aer reviewing the surveys they
completed previously. During the interviews, the students and I
looked at the artwork we were discussing. Brittany listened to the
interviews, interpreted the data based on her research question,
and successfully completed her capstone research project. Since
then, we have wondered about what we heard from students
during these interviews, identied the need for a dierent
theoretical framework, and considered the implications for K–12
art classrooms, which we oer here.
Learning From Interviews
e most striking realization from the interviews was the
rationale oered by a majority of the students for why their
artworks had merit. e reason given by students was not one of
the options we had provided on the survey (Figure 1). e survey,
in part, asked students to select the primary reason why their
work had merit from a list of choices that were based on aesthetic
theories2 (Stewart, 1997), presented in more developmentally
appropriate language. Table 1 provides an example of how we
simplied the descriptions of each theory into a short phrase to
use in the survey. While students complied with Brittany’s request
to choose one answer to this question on the survey, we learned
through interviews that the survey had not appropriately captured
the primary reason students believed their work had merit.
Second Graders’ Perspectives
on Their Artwork
Table 1. Our Attempt to Translate Five Aesthetic Theories Into Developmentally Appropriate Language
Original text (from Stewart, 1997) Revised text for survey
Formalism: The essence of art is “signicant form”—lines, shapes, colors, and
other formal properties of the work; representation, expression, and other
subject matter are irrelevant. Good art uses formal elements to trigger an
“aesthetic emotion” in sensitive observers.
I think the best things about my work are
the lines, shapes, and colors.
Expressionism (emotionalism): The essence of art is expression of the inner
emotions, feelings, moods, and mental states of the artist. Good art eectively
and sincerely brings these inner states to an external objectication.
I think the best thing about my work is the
way it makes me feel.
Instrumentalism (pragmatism, experience): The essence of art is its usefulness in
helping us to comprehend and improve our overall life experiences. Good art is
always a means to some important end.
I think the best thing about my artwork is
how it will make my life or someone else’s
life better.
Institutionalism: Value of the art is placed on the social practice associated with
the art or what designates a piece as art by members of the art world.
I think the best thing about my artwork is
that my teachers and friends like it.
Imitation (representation, realism, mimesis): The essence of art is to picture or
portray reality. Good art is an accurate mirror on the world, imitating nature or
some ideal form.
I think the best thing about my artwork
is that it looks real, and everyone can tell
what it is.
“How do students describe
the merit of their artwork in
a choice-based art education
classroom?,” and “How do
students feel about their
artwork?”

30 Art Education
In the interviews, we heard over and over that students believed
their artworks had merit because the content of the works was
something that was important to them. In other words, students’
autonomy to determine the content of their artwork was directly
tied to why they valued the work.
e aesthetic theories, most commonly used as frameworks
to critically consider the work of others, may not be adequate for
students to evaluate all aspects of their work. Child-generated
reasons for determining the merit of a work, such as “it’s about
something I like,” are absent from these theories. In addition,
aesthetic theories may not have the utility for assessing one’s
work as they do in assessing the work of others. Young learners
may decide the artwork has merit because the process itself was
enjoyable. e aesthetic theories do not capture the maker’s lived
experience, which is a central consideration in early childhood
education and art education.
Given these limitations of the aesthetic theories to serve as a
framework for interpreting what we heard from 2nd graders, Leslie
abandoned the aesthetic theories as a framework for interpreting
student responses and employed a dierent approach to make
sense of the interview responses. She used a constant comparative
method, borrowed from grounded theory methodology (Strauss,
1987), to identify themes within students’ descriptions about why
their artwork had merit. We hoped the themes would point us to a
more appropriate theory to help us make further sense of the data.
ree themes emerged from students’ reasons for why their
work had merit: e content of the work was important to them (n
= 11), the work looked realistic (n = 5), or they were not sure why
the work had merit (n = 2). Given the majority of students who
cited their personal relationship to the content of the work, Leslie
sought out theories that could help us further analyze this theme
specically. We found self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan,
1985) to be a useful framework for considering whether and how
students value their artwork.
Self-Determination Theory and Education
e self-determination theory of motivation (Ryan & Deci,
2017) focuses on competence, relatedness, and autonomy as three
central psychological needs and the basis of intrinsic motivation.
Self-determination theory has been used as a framework for
many research studies since it was rst published in 1985 (cf.
Deci et al., 1991; Evans & Boucher, 2015). Self-determination
theory purports that people are intrinsically motivated when their
behavior is driven by their own pleasure and satisfaction with the
task. Intrinsic motivation is desirable given the empirical evidence
suggesting its positive eects on motivation, performance, and
development (Deci et al., 1991). If intrinsic motivation is so
benecial for these reasons, and if autonomy is a key component of
intrinsic motivation, providing students with meaningful choices
about their work must be an essential aspect of K–12 classrooms.
Deci et al. (1991) pointed out, “Opportunities to satisfy the need
for autonomy are necessary for people to be self-determined rather
than controlled” (p. 328).
When people are not intrinsically motivated to complete a
task, especially in school contexts, teachers and others oen use
external measures of control. External controls are used with
the goal of compliance to expectations (standards, outcomes,
behaviors) about which the students are not intrinsically
motivated. External measures of control do not create sucient
opportunities for autonomy but are pervasive in K–12 school
contexts. e accountability climate present in the U.S. education
system creates external pressure on schools, teachers, and students.
is pressure can lead teachers to be more controlling and thus
“counterproductive for the goals of… understanding and personal
growth” (Deci et al., 1991, p. 341).
Self-Determination and Merit
e following short selections from the interviews show that
students identied the personal importance of the content as
the reason their work had merit. Brittany gave these students
autonomy over the content of their work, and students responded
by making artwork about the things that had personal importance.
When I asked the students why their work had merit (I used the
word “good” most oen when asking this question), most students
identied the personally relevant content rather than other
characteristics of the work.
Leslie: Why do you think the unicorn was a good work of art?
Student: Well, it’s one of my favorite animals in the whole
world.
In the interviews, we heard
over and over that students
believed their artworks had
merit because the content of
the works was something that
was important to them.
Figure 2. The baseball stadium by a 2nd-grade artist.

July 2021 31
L: So tell me why you think this is a good work of art.
S: Because I play baseball and it’s like my, like, sport. And that’s
pretty much the only thing I do. Play. (Figure 2)
L: Can you tell me what you like about this work? Why is it a
good work of art?
S: Because I love city. I was a tiny baby. I lived in the city. And
so. New York City. Then I moved. And then I came to here for
kindergarten. (Figure 3)
L: What makes that a good artwork, according to you?
S: It’s really special to me because it’s very, very like, you know,
I like sh a lot. And every time I see sh, I get a lot happy.
So that’s why I thought for this to be my artwork.
Intrinsic motivation is behavior driven by one’s own pleasure
and satisfaction with the task (Deci & Ryan, 1985). During the
interviews, students told me as much about themselves as they did
about the work. eir artworks and lives intertwined. is suggests
the work was self-determined (i.e., intrinsically
motivated).
L: You made this work during your choice
project, right? Can you tell me about it?
S: So, I really like farms and my Pappy has a farm.
So I just made a little, um, picture of sort of
me standing by the milking parlor. [Pointing]
This is the milking parlor. This is where the big
cows stay, and this is another barn where the
cows stay, and this is where the baby calf stay.
L: Are there any baby calves right now?
S: Yes, in fact, I am going to get one for this thing
called 4H.
L: I know about 4H.
S: It’s going to be my own.
L: Wow!
S: This Saturday, actually.
L: Does she already have a name?
S: Petunia. (Figure 4)
Other students identied the merit of the work based on how
realistically they rendered the subject matter. Even in the ve cases
in which students cited realism, students highlighted the subject
matter of the work and the ways in which it connected to things or
people they cared about.
S: Well I drew an Eiel tower… since I really like Paris. I’ve
always wanted to go there. And, um, I really want to go. My
cousin went there. She got reposed [sic] to in Paris! So I am
pretty jealous about her. And she sent a picture of the Eiel
tower to me.
L: Are you happy with the way it came out?
S: Yeah. I really like it.
L: What do you think makes your Eiel tower artwork a good
piece of art?
S: Um, part how I like it is how I drew the Eiel tower. How it
really looks like the real one.
e 2nd-grade students in Brittany’s class had
completed teacher-directed art projects for almost
3 years prior to their rst choice-based experience
at the end of 2nd grade. In one way, it seems like an
unremarkable nding that, when given their rst
opportunity to control the content of their work,
students chose to make work that had personally
meaningful content. However, the interviews
demonstrated that personal, self-determined
content was also the primary reason students
believed their work had merit. is cannot be
overlooked. Students’ autonomy was so valued that
it was also the reason the objects they created had
worth in their eyes.
Whether students would continue to use the
autonomy to create equally personal works over
an extended period of time is beyond the scope of
Figure 3. Unnished artwork representing New York City by a 2nd-grade
artist.
Figure 4. Pappy’s farm by 2nd-grade artist.

32 Art Education
this research. is research does, however, suggest a relationship
between an opportunity for self-determination and what
2nd-grade students value in art.
Implications
Engaging in qualitative research with young children is time-
intensive. Our research demonstrated the value of collaboration
among teacher–researchers interested in early childhood research.
Working together allowed us to gather multiple types of data
and share the data with one another. Not only did this aord us
a richer understanding of primary students’ beliefs about their
artwork; doing so also exposed initial weaknesses in our original
research design and theoretical framework. We were able to make
adjustments as a result of what we learned through this process.
is research is also an example of what art educators can
learn from listening intentionally to young children’s perspectives
on their artwork. Involving children in discussions about the
quality of their artwork can uncover students’ understandings,
motivations, and beliefs. Practices in art education that make
students’ thinking visible (Ritchhart et al., 2011) allow children’s
voices to play a central role in teacher decision making.
is research suggests that student autonomy in an art
classroom, specically students making artwork about things they
deem important, is a central aspect of what young children value
about their work. e students in this study valued autonomy. Self-
determination theory helps us to understand the role autonomy
plays in motivation and learning. As a result, art educators would
be wise to consider whether and how their current practices foster
student autonomy. e growing body of scholarship about student
agency and autonomy (e.g., Andrews, 2010; Rufo, 2011, 2016)
and choice-based art education (e.g., Douglas & Jaquith, 2018;
Dravenstadt, 2018; Purtee & Sands, 2017) oers tremendous vision
and substantial resources in this regard. However, we encourage
readers not to overlook another valuable resource: the voices of
young artists. ey can help to lead us in providing them with the
education they want and need, if we listen. n
ORCID
Leslie Gates
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0403-266X
Leslie Gates, Associate Professor, Art Education, Millersville
University of Pennsylvania in Millersville. Email:
Leslie.Gates@millersville.edu
Brittany Bard, K–2 Art Educator, Greencastle-Antrim School
District in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Email: bbard@gcasd.org
Involving children in
discussions about the quality
of their artwork can uncover
students’ understandings,
motivations, and beliefs.
1 Choice-based art education is an art educational movement that began in the
1970s that develops artistic behaviors by enabling students to discover what
it means to be an artist through the authentic creation of artwork. Students
need time to explore and learn about materials, techniques, and concepts in
meaningful ways; teachers need to connect the art curriculum to the lives
and interests of the children (Douglas & Jaquith, 2018). In a choice-based art
education classroom, the main focus is students taking ownership in their
artwork through generating their own ideas, choosing what materials to use,
and how they will go about the process.
2 e aesthetic theories we adopted were formalism, expressionism,
instrumentalism, institutionalism, and imitation.
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References Endnotes