Adapting Visual Thinking Strategies as a Tool for Evaluating the Impact of a Work of Public Art

Abstract

This article presents the development and application of an approach for evaluating audience response to and meaning-making from large-scale public murals, created as part of an art-science-community engagement project. The project adapted Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) facilitation, a common technique in visual arts education, with a focus group style interview to investigate if the murals generated the intended meaning-making among members of the communities they depicted. We piloted a VTS-centered focus group discussion with three groups of community residents in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Thematic coding of observations in the discussion groups suggest that a VTS-centered focus group is an effective approach to evaluate audience meaning-making by prompting slow looking, protracted discussion, and offering a structure for discussion that keeps the facilitator from shaping topics of conversation. The affordances and limitations of this approach as a tool for research and evaluation of learning through public art and exhibitions is discussed.

Keywords:

• Art-science integration
• climate resiliency
• community science
• environmental education
• evaluation
• resiliency education
• STEAM

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of the community members who participated in these discussion groups, as well as the artists who created the murals. We wish to thank the VTS organization for the training our moderator received to become proficient at the VTS facilitation method, which enabled us to adapt it into a new application. Those seeking to apply or adapt the VTS method should be similarly trained; more information is available at https://vtshome.org/.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was completed with the support of NOAA (Grant #NA18SEC008005).

Notes on contributors

Jessica Sickler

Jessica Sickler is Principal of J. Sickler Consulting in Pittsburgh, PA. She is an evaluator and researcher who specializes in helping organizations understand what works and why in their informal education efforts. In her work, she explores creative methods to enable learners to demonstrate their meaning-making and skill gains in authentic ways.

Keri Maxfield

Keri Maxfield is the Art Director at Nurture Nature Center in Easton, PA. She has over 30 years of experience in art, design, visual communication, and public outreach to a broad range of audiences. Keri is in charge of developing and directing the visual arts and arts education components of Nurture Nature Center programming and grant work. Her work focuses on the conveyance of scientific data and social messaging through visual representation

Kathryn Semmens

Kathryn Semmens is the Science Director at the Nurture Nature Center in Easton, PA. She leads projects that integrate science, art, and community in order to educate, inspire, and engage diverse audiences with a focus on earth and space sciences, climate change, and natural hazards.

Rachel Hogan Carr

Rachel Hogan Carr is Executive Director of Nurture Nature Center in Easton, PA. She is an experienced facilitator and social science researcher who has led Nurture Nature Center since its founding in 2007. She has led numerous research and education projects related to flooding, risk communication and education about hazards.