Children talk about learning to draw

This study investigates four- to six-year-old children’s conceptions of learning, by applying the lexicometric method to their oral responses to questions about their learning of drawing, in an individual interview at school. Interviews were videotaped and fully transcribed. Subjects were 26 children from a middle-class background attending public schools in Argentina (in a four-year-old class, a five-year-old class and first grade in elementary school). Differences among groups are described on the basis of correspondence analysis and modal response procedures. Such differences are then systematised into several interrelated dimensions regarding changes in children’s conceptions of learning to draw, namely: learning agency as the internalisation of social mediation, nature of both learner’s and teacher’s actions and mental states, learning goals and temporal frame of reference. Thus, three main conceptions are identified: external agency, external/internal agency and internal agency conceptions, which are associated to the three different school grade groups studied.