An investigation of the use of group dialogue and questioning strategies with primary school students learning visual arts in museums and schools

Previous scholarship on museum education has placed the emphasis either on visitors’ experiences or on outcomes of learning gained from museum visits. There is a lack of empirical research into group dialogue – the most used education strategy in museums and the most basic component of teaching in classrooms. The proposed study will investigate the group dialogues conducted by teachers with students in museums and classrooms. ‘Design-based research’, a method to identify improvements systematically from experiments in learning situations, will be the methodology employed. The study will be conducted in three phases. Phase 1 will involve the preparation of teacher participants for leading group dialogues and curriculum plan development. Eight teachers and about 220 sixth-grade students (age 12) from different primary schools will be invited to participate in the study. Phase 2 will focus on the implementation of curriculum plans with the support of the investigators and the evaluation of teachers’ and students’ performance in the group dialogue. Phase 3 will be the data analysis stage. Taking the Hong Kong context into consideration, the results of the study will be used to create a pedagogical model that is theoretically and practically sound.

Funding Source: RGC - General Research Fund (GRF)