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Teaching and learning in the visual arts in PreK-16 classrooms, art museums, and community programs are
strengthened by knowledge gained through research. The National Art Education Association, a respected leader in educational
research and the hub of a global research knowledge network, created the NAEA Research Commission to build and sustain a culture
of inquiry and research. In pursuing its mission, a task of this Commission includes setting a timely Research Agenda.*
The NAEA Research Agenda is designed to encourage and disseminate research communicating the value of visual arts education
and its collective impact on students, schools, communities, and society.
All art educators have a common desire to advance the eld of art education. Our mission is to justify and strengthen a case for art
education through rigorous and timely support of research conducted at all levels of professional practice. To achieve this goal, the
Research Commission consulted with the NAEA membership to identify its research needs. Three themes emerged from the analysis:
1. The need for professional learning to support research literacy.
2. Four research factors that include content, student, educator, and setting.
3. Specic topics or issues to be explored through research.
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
In the area of professional learning, NAEA members across all
divisions indicated a need for greater understanding of research
methodologies and application of these methodologies for their own
teaching and research. Professional learning about research supports
understanding of implications of research for practice and developing
capacities for conducting research.
FOUR CONTENT
FOUR RESEARCH FACTORS
Art education research is a community of discourse that specically
focuses on art education as a teaching/learning experience in art.
Thus the factors of content, student, educator, and setting can
be established as constants in an agenda that utilizes and values
research as a means for improving art education theory, practice,
advocacy, and policy. From this point of view, the factors that should
be included in such a research agenda would be Student/Learning,
Art Educator/Teaching, Content/Disciplines of Art and Art Education,
and the Educational Context/Setting in which art learning takes place.
Student/Learning
Student learning in the visual arts focuses on aspects such as student
readiness; levels of development; cultural contexts; motivation; and
engagement in art and design education.
Art Educator/Teaching
Art educators’ teaching and learning focuses on experiences
with varieties of art content, professional roles, tasks, teaching
methodologies, and backgrounds related to creative and innovative
art and design education. This learning begins with pre-service
education, and continues through advanced degree programs and
ongoing professional development.
Content/Disciplines of Art and Art Education
Content can include, but is not limited to, research about knowledge
in the eld of art education, such as art education theory, art curricula
as courses of study, standards, and theory and practice of art and art
education including creativity and innovation, media arts, and design
education. Knowledge that arises from art education research is
generative, so new content is continually constructed and subject to
further research.
Educational Context/Setting
The educational settings in which art teaching and learning can take
place are situated in a wide variety of environments, for example
a classroom, museum, community center, on the Internet, etc.
The setting also includes the administrative climate, support or
destabilizing mechanisms of an environment, and the immediate
physical environment that includes materials, equipment, or other
resources.
RESEARCH AGENDA
*Developed by the Research Commission and adopted by the Board of Directors, 2014
Funding support provided by the National Art Education Foundation