Visual arts pedagogy in early childhood contexts: The baggage of self-efficacy beliefs, pedagogical knowledge and limited pre-service training

Lindsay, Gai M

doi:10.1177/1836939120979061

Cited by 19 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Empirical research located for this review suggests that teacher beliefs about art and art education are key factors in determining the quality of art provision in ECE settings (Frawley, 2013;Garvis & Pendergast, 2011;Horne, 2015;Lindsay, 2021). This aligns with Cherrington's (2018) assertion that "early childhood teachers' explicit and implicit beliefs impact upon their thinking and reflection" (p. 318), and that teachers' personal beliefs might be even more influential than their professional ones.…”

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artsupporting

confidence: 54%

“…This has been affirmed in visual arts education where a lifetime of experiences, attitudes and influences seem to come into play in teachers' practice (Lindsay, 2021). Kindler (1996) analysed student teacher journal reflections in a Canadian university visual arts course, and identified four misguided beliefs about visual arts that negatively shape teachers' practice (or lack of practice), including the superiority of process over product, seeing art as therapy, understanding creativity as naturally unfolding, and thinking of art as a solitary experience.…”

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Teacher self-efficacy, meaning teachers' beliefs about their own ability, has been shown to affect teaching practice (Bray-Clark & Bates, 2003). According to international empirical research in the ECE sector (De Rijke & Bailey, 2014;Horne, 2015;Lindsay, 2021;Smyth, 2017), most ECE teachers do not see themselves as artistic, and many adults in education experience 'Art anxiety'-a sense of fear when faced with having to engage in visual art (Genever, 1996). De Rijke and Bailey (2014) conducted a small-scale Community of Practice research investigation about student teachers' developing confidence to get involved in outdoor exploration and visual arts experiences, finding that experiential learning led to meaningful change in the student teachers' confidence.…”

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…De Rijke and Bailey (2014) conducted a small-scale Community of Practice research investigation about student teachers' developing confidence to get involved in outdoor exploration and visual arts experiences, finding that experiential learning led to meaningful change in the student teachers' confidence. In a qualitative study in Australia, Lindsay (2017Lindsay ( , 2021 interviewed 12 ECE teachers about their visual arts beliefs and teaching practices and analysed the data using a framework incorporating the work of Dewey and Malaguzzi, finding that the teachers' practice was restricted by low visual arts selfefficacy and the 'baggage' of lifelong beliefs about visual arts. Smyth (2017) took a mixed methods approach to find out whether preschool teachers shared the same art anxiety as had been previously found amongst primary school teachers in Australia.…”

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in New Zealand (NZ) early childhood education (ECE), visual arts teaching for young children is still enacted within a largely developmental frame, using a hands-off approach (Terreni, 2017). According to Lindsay (2021) and Smyth (2017), teachers' self-efficacy beliefs, knowledge and skills in art education need to be addressed in order to shift practice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Visual arts in ECE: Strengthening intentional teaching through a network professional learning community

Denee¹

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<p>Over the past 100 years, educationalists such as Dewey and Eisner have proposed radical and progressive ways in which visual art can support and enrich learning in education (Lindsay, 2016b). The early childhood pedagogy of Reggio Emilia, in Italy, is a renowned example of how teachers take an active role in facilitating children’s artistic abilities with positive outcomes for children’s learning (Gandini et al., 2005). However, in New Zealand (NZ) early childhood education (ECE), visual arts teaching for young children is still enacted within a largely developmental frame, using a hands-off approach (Terreni, 2017). According to Lindsay (2021) and Smyth (2017), teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, knowledge and skills in art education need to be addressed in order to shift practice. Professional learning communities (PLCs) offer the potential to challenge teachers’ assumptions and beliefs and to foster transformative learning, resulting in observable shifts in art teaching practice (Damjanovic & Blank, 2017; Servage, 2008). This mixed methods study (Johnson & Christensen, 2019) within an interpretivist paradigm (Schwandt, 1994), examined the perceptions and practices of NZ ECE teachers about art education through a nationwide survey and a professional learning intervention using a network PLC approach. Situated and social cognitive theories, socio-cultural theory and transformative learning theory were interlinked in a bricolage approach (Tobin, 2018) to form a theoretical lens for this study. The first stage of the research involved a survey of ECE teachers regarding practices and perceptions about visual arts, and this provided a background context for the PLC project. Key survey findings included a dominant developmentalist view of children’s art learning amongst ECE teachers and confusion about the role of the teacher. In the embedded case study, a network PLC was established with seven teachers from four ECE services, meeting over 9 months with a mixture of practical and reflective learning about visual arts. The data collection included multiple sources for rich analysis: interviews; reflective writing; meeting dialogue; photographs; and learning story assessment documentation. Case study findings included the value of reflective and practical learning for visual arts teaching, the impact of a network PLC on the practice and perceptions of both the participants and their colleagues, the critical place of teacher self-efficacy in visual arts teaching practice, and the importance of leadership of various actors across the network to support the application and sharing of new learning. Overall, the outcomes of this study have important implications for visual arts pedagogy in ECE and effective professional learning approaches for teachers.</p>

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Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artsupporting

confidence: 54%

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Teacher and Leader Beliefs About Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Visual arts in ECE: Strengthening intentional teaching through a network professional learning community

Denee¹

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Visual Arts Self-Efficacy: Impacts and Supports for Early Childhood Teachers

Denee

Lindsay

Probine

2023

Early Childhood Educ J

Self Cite

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Although visual arts pedagogies are considered central within early childhood education programs, teacher self-efficacy has a direct impact on the quality and delivery of visual arts curricula. Until recently, the visual arts self-efficacy, pedagogical knowledge, and practice of in-service early childhood teachers have remained largely unexplored. The authors of this paper present a qualitative, iterative re-analysis of their three PhD studies which broadly focussed on early childhood visual arts praxis and specifically examined the visual arts beliefs and pedagogy of early childhood teachers in Australia and New Zealand. A thematic analysis of the intersecting self-efficacy findings raised in the three studies identifies the powerful influence of self-efficacy on teaching practice in the visual arts domain and offers new understandings about visual arts self-efficacy amongst early childhood teachers. The combined findings reveal several factors that restrain or enhance teachers’ visual arts self-efficacy across time, including the impact of childhood experiences, pre-service training and epistemological beliefs. The paper also identifies several enabling conditions that appear to support teachers to develop and maintain positive visual arts self-efficacy beliefs, including practical engagement with materials, sustained professional learning, relational trust and intentional leadership. These enabling conditions offer practical strategies and research recommendations in service of positive visual arts self-efficacy to enhance quality visual arts teaching in early childhood contexts.

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Early Childhood Visual Arts Education: Teachers’ Content Knowledge, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, and Challenges

Leung,

Wu,

2024

Asia-Pacific Edu Res

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In the past, visual arts education in Hong Kong was not considered an important area of early childhood education. While the Hong Kong kindergarten curriculum has recently been updated to encourage creativity, there remains a lack of adequate visual arts education for young children. This deficiency stems from the fact that the visual arts receive minimal attention within Hong Kong teacher education programs. Little research has been conducted on how visual arts education is actually delivered in local kindergarten classrooms in Hong Kong and what kinds of artistic knowledge and skills kindergarten teachers need. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate kindergarten teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge in early visual arts education (EVAE) and to identify the challenges they faced in teaching visual arts to children. The study surveyed 342 in-service kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong and conducted individual interviews with 12 participants. The findings revealed that Hong Kong kindergarten teachers generally performed well in terms of their pedagogical content knowledge, but they lacked content knowledge in various forms of early visual arts (EVA) and faced challenges in teaching visual arts effectively. This study has the potential to change how early childhood visual arts teaching is conceptualized and taught in Hong Kong and other Asian regions.

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Visual arts pedagogy in early childhood contexts: The baggage of self-efficacy beliefs, pedagogical knowledge and limited pre-service training

Cited by 19 publications

References 30 publications

Visual arts in ECE: Strengthening intentional teaching through a network professional learning community

Visual arts in ECE: Strengthening intentional teaching through a network professional learning community

Visual Arts Self-Efficacy: Impacts and Supports for Early Childhood Teachers

Early Childhood Visual Arts Education: Teachers’ Content Knowledge, Pedagogical Content Knowledge, and Challenges

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