Research and Resources

A Method Grounded in How People Actually Learn

Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is built on decades of research into how people learn to make sense of what they see. In the 1970s and ’80s, educational researcher Dr. Abigail Housen recorded thousands of interviews with people looking at art—not to test what they knew, but to understand how they thought. Her research revealed that visual understanding isn’t innate—it develops through repeated, guided practice. She called this process “aesthetic development.”

From Research to Practice

In the 1990s, Housen partnered with Philip Yenawine, then Director of Education at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, to translate her findings into practical teaching tools. Her research showed that traditional content delivery rarely results in meaningful learning—especially for beginners. VTS is designed around what actually drives growth: inclusive, student-centered discussions led by educators trained in specific, research-based facilitation techniques.

Originally created for museums, VTS quickly expanded to classrooms, teacher training programs, universities, and medical schools as its impact became clear. Today, it’s used in thousands of educational settings—from K–12 schools to medical schools—to foster skilled observation, critical thinking, and collaboration.

In his 1997 article Thoughts on Visual Literacy, Philip Yenawine describes visual literacy as:

“…the ability to find meaning in imagery. It involves a set of skills ranging from simple identification (naming what one sees) to complex interpretation on contextual, metaphoric and philosophical levels. Many aspects of cognition are called upon, such as personal association, questioning, speculating, analyzing, fact-finding, and categorizing. Objective understanding is the premise of much of this literacy, but subjective and affective aspects of knowing are equally important.”

Coined by German-born author and psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, whose primary book shares the same name, “Visual Thinking” stands paramount in Abigail Housen’s empirical research” and resulting theory of aesthetic development. The application of Housen, Arnheim, Piaget and others constitute the genesis and ongoing theoretical underpinnings behind the development of Visual Thinking Strategies methods and curricula.

Through the process of collecting and analyzing Aesthetic Development Interviews (see Research Methods) and identifying and understanding the concrete words and ideas of novice viewers in the moment and over time, Housen derived the developmental stage theory that informs all VTS methods and curricula. In Housen’s essay Eye of the Beholder: Research, Theory and Practice, she provides an account of how she began her study of Aesthetic Development, how she came up with her research methodology, and the overall findings of her 20-years-old research. Housen also briefly discusses how she applied what she learned to creating the Visual Thinking Strategies curriculum.

Methods

Abigail Housen developed rigorous research methods based on her work with VTS over several decades, and informed by her studies over a wide range of settings and with diverse populations. This section introduces three of the primary data collection methods used in Abigail Housen’s research. The Aesthetic Development Interview (ADI) is a core tool used in her empirical research from which she derived her Stage Model of Aesthetic Development, and which continues to be used today to measure aesthetic stage and stage growth. Both the Writing Sample and the Material Object Interview tools were used in subsequent research examining the impact of VTS and Aesthetic Development on critical thinking.

Aesthetic Development Interview

VTS’s main data collection instrument is a non-directive interview, the Aesthetic Development Interview or ADI, that involves showing subjects a reproduction of a work of art and asking them to talk about it as though thinking out loud. This interview is tape-recorded, transcribed, and parsed. A sampling of thought units is coded using a manual covering thirteen different domains of thinking that was derived over a fifteen-year period using the same interview protocol. We further study each interview in context to understand how each thought unit fits into an over-all pattern of thinking.Example 1

Writing Samples

Because of consistent teacher reports that the students write more and better as a result of their VTS discussions, writing assignments are collected and analyzed. They are also used as part of VUE’s teacher professional development program as they provide evidence of growth in writing and critical thinking skills.Example 1,Example 2,Example 3

Material Object Interview

Originated from the Aesthetic Development Interview (ADI), the Material Object Interview (MOI) utilizes a material object such as a coin, a fossil, or a map in place of a work of art to elicit thoughts. As with the ADI, this non-directive interview follows the same procedures of collecting, coding, and analysis.Example 1,Example 2

Research has documented a strong relationship between the VTS program and students’ academic achievement in math, science, and language arts. Abigail Housen’s own research in this area has been backed up by independent researchers. (Download an overview of selected studies from 1998 to 2003.)

In this section you will find published books, chapters of books, and articles related to VTS. Books and chapters precede published writings by both VTS Co-Founders Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine, followed by articles written by others in our community. All writings are organized from most recent to earliest. We seek to keep this list comprehensive and up to date.

If we are missing any publications, we’d love to know! Please contact us with “Publication” in the subject line. Thank you.