Johanna MarthZeichnen als Merkhilfe zum Memorieren von Sachinhalten

About this book deutschenglish

General Studies and Arts represent, from a conventional point of view, two separate areas of education, which should address different inclinations of the pupils. This work, however, examines the basic thesis that drawing encounters with the world lays a basis for a better memorization of general knowledge.

The investigative research model consists of a mixed method approach, that analyzes both quantitatve and qualitative processes. For a long-term study, pupils from a primary school class are divided in two groups on their five extracurricular visits to a meadow orchard – one group writes and the other one draws. The evaluation is carried out in five analysis sequences, based among other things, on multivariate statistical methods and qualitative content analysis of the texts and drawings.

When left undisturbed and free to explore the surroundings on their own, all pupils show great interest in discovering the unknown. When it comes to memorizing content, writing and drawing are equally important, but each method focuses on different aspects of the learning process. Although both lead to better memorization, writing is rather used to record observations and as a learning method based on repetition, whereas drawing leads to a better understanding by making the representation more concise.

The novelty of this dissertation is that pupils with disadvantages to learn (for example, the ones who speak German as a second language or do not perform well in school) as well as pupils of a younger age show by drawing that they had learned and knew even more than they could communicate verbally in subsequent surveys. It can also be deduced from this that drawing can be used as a valuable although, for now, seldom considered technique of inclusion.