Drawing information in the classroom: the Brazilian participation in the data collection of the international iSquare project

Abstract

This article presents the perspective of Brazilian scholars from the Federal University of Paraíba as they participated in the data collection phase of the collaborative, international iSquare research project, based at the University of Toronto, Canada. It discusses the origins and theoretical foundations of the study in which scholars from twelve countries investigated graduate students´ visual conceptions of information, using the draw-and-write technique. The article enacts a methodological innovation, since arts-informed, visual methods are rare in Information Science. The team from Brazil discovered sociocultural factors that influence students´ visual conceptions about information, and these can be compared to other iSquares from around the world. The article justifies the iSquare approach as an investigative and pedagogical method, providing students and educators with a multimedia, playful, and spacious means to engage the concept of information in the classroom. As an example of arts-informed, visual research, the article includes striking examples of the original data drawn by the participants.

Keywords:
Information; iSquare; Visual research; Arts-informed methods; Qualitative research