Exploring arts learning in Australian home education: understanding and improving practice though design-based research

Exploring arts learning in Australian home education: understanding and improving practice though design-based research

Facilitating a quality Arts education in alignment with the Australian Curriculum can be extremely challenging; the demands of delivering meaningful learning across five arts subjects, each with their own set of discipline-specific skills and knowledge, can be overwhelming, especially for educators who may not have background learning in one or more of these disciplines. Whilst research has been conducted regarding this issue with generalist classroom teachers, a thorough investigation is yet to be undertaken into the arts teaching practices of sector: home education. In this doctoral research project, I sought to investigate the arts practices within Australia's growing home education community with the goal of supporting and enhancing quality arts engagement for home educators. To this end, I worked with a group of home educating families, investigating how they approached arts education, the challenges they faced, and the ways that existing knowledge and strengths were . These understandings were then used to develop, test, and refine an online arts learning environment and Community of Practice (CoP).

The project employed a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach, and was undertaken in four consecutive phases: an analysis of participant needs, the theoretical and practical development of a design solution to meet these needs, the iterative evaluation of this design, and finally, reflection to produce design principles: practical and theoretical guidelines that explain how quality learning occurs in this context. Data collection methods included surveys, interview data, forum posts, participant artefacts, web analytics and researcher reflections. Data were coded and analysed using inductive-thematic analysis.

The study has resulted in both practical and theoretical original research outputs. In addition to an arts website and online community for home educators, the project has led to the development of a set of design principles and a learning model for online arts learning design for home educators. Additionally, the project has generated insight and new understanding into how participating Australian home educators teach and engage in the Arts.