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Using Comics and Graphic Novels in K-9 Education: an Integrative Research Review

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Using Comics and Graphic Novels in K-9 Education: an Integrative Research Review STIC 11 (1) pp. 37–54 Intellect Limited 2020 Studies in Comics Volume 11 Number 1 © 2020 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/stic_00014_1 Received 1 November 2019; Accepted 12 February 2020 LARS WALLNER Linköping University KATARINA ERIKSSON BARAJAS Linköping University Using comics and graphic novels in K-9 education: An integrative research review Keywords Abstract classroom The aim of this article is to increase knowledge on the use of comics as materials in K-9 education (ages comics 6–15). This is achieved through an integrative research review. Reference lists and websites have been education searched, both by database searches and manually, and the results analysed and cross-referenced to iden- graphic novels tify common areas of research and possible gaps in knowledge. 55 texts (research articles and doctoral integrative research theses) were found, with 40 first authors from fourteen countries. The results revealed several gaps in review knowledge. Most of the analysed studies had been carried out in North America, which suggests that more K-9 studies in other educational contexts, published in English, are needed, and that cross-national studies of comics in education will be productive. Furthermore, only three of the analysed texts describe studies www.intellectbooks.com 37 Lars Wallner | Katarina Eriksson Barajas that have high ecological validity, while all of the remaining 52 studies were ‘staged’ studies, in which the researcher had introduced material and observed the results. This suggests that further studies that utilize non-experimental research methods are needed. Finally, most studies focus on students’ reading prefer- ences in regard to comics, rather than, for example, on how students compose comics or what they learn through comics. Thus, further studies that explore student work with comics, and examine the kinds of knowledge that reading comics enables, are desirable. As staples of popular culture around the world, comic strips, comic books and graphic novels (hence- forth comics) have been used as educational tools for the past hundred years (Tilley and Weiner 2017). Despite this, relatively little research has been done on the educational possibilities of comics. Although there is research from as early as the 1940s (Witty 1941a, 1941b), it is difficult to meas- ure the validity of this with today’s standards. There have been a few attempts at research reviews outside of those found in doctoral theses (Clark 2017; Tilley and Weiner 2017). However, these have not been exhaustive analyses, but rather broad strokes and for this reason it remains difficult for researchers and educators to form a more complete picture of this research. The advantage of integrative research reviews is that they gather research on a topic with the aim to increase our understanding of developments in that area of study (Cooper 1982, 2017). An inte- grative research review describes how the topic is conceptualized, how research methods and theo- ries influence findings, and the strengths and weaknesses of earlier research. Thus, an integrative research review into the field of comics in education is long overdue, and will provide researchers and educators with a fuller picture of the field: what research has been done, what we have learned and what gaps exist. Purpose and research questions The purpose of this review is to integrate topical research in order to establish an understanding of the use of comics in the field of K-9 education. As not much is known about comics in education (see, e.g. Tilley and Weiner 2017), a review of the research, which can unveil possible gaps, strengths and trends, is essential to the continued development of the field. Throughout this research review, the following questions are addressed: • What approaches are utilized in research on comics in education? • What study foci does research on comics in education have? • What school subjects and populations are included and excluded in research on comics in education? 38 Studies in Comics Using comics and graphic novels in K-9 education 1. See http://www. The results are then discussed and problematized from a perspective of finding gaps in knowl- english.ufl.edu/comics/ scholars/. Accessed edge and further development of the field of research on comics in education. 16 September 2020. This research review is not a complete picture of comics in the field of education – we have 2. Wallner (2019) is an excluded pre-school, after-school educational programmes and upper secondary and higher educa- exception. This article tion. It does, however, give a fairly comprehensive insight into the research conducted within has, however, been K-9 (kindergarten through ninth grade, or ages 6–15) educational programmes, and gives future available online since April 2018, and has researchers a large piece of the puzzle. for this reason been included. Methods Performing an integrative research review An integrative research review has two purposes: to compare existing research in order to estab- lish a state of knowledge in the field and to identify central aspects and issues in a field in order to discover gaps in knowledge (Cooper 1982, 2017; Taveggia 1974). In order to find the strengths and weaknesses of a field of research, it is necessary and beneficial to perform a review of the literature, as exhaustively as possible. Thus, this article aims to collect, review and analyse previous research on comics in education. This has primarily been done using database searches, as described below. We have also conducted manual searches (cf. Eriksson Barajas et al. 2013) through studying reference lists of relevant works, and mass solicitations (Cooper 2017) through COMIXSCHOLARS-L,1 an e-mail discussion list for a large international network of comics researchers. Although less systematic, this manual search was necessary in order to fill potential gaps of data. These searches were done in the fall of 2018, which limits our field to publications available at that time.2 Database search: Identification The first step in performing database searches was to formulate the right questions, field of research and types of study (cf. Brunton et al. 2012). Using database searches, rather than merely searching specific journals with which we were familiar, helped us escape bias in the selection of literature (Cooper 2017) and gave a more complete view of the field. The research questions defined the crite- ria for the search, whether broad or narrow. The next step was to choose the appropriate databases, keywords and subject fields (Torgerson 2003). Initially, the following five search engines and databases were used: ASSIA (Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, ProQuest), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center, EBSCO), MathEduc, Scopus and Web of Science. Together, these collect the majority of scholarly works published within the field of education. www.intellectbooks.com 39 Lars Wallner | Katarina Eriksson Barajas Since our interest was international scholarly work, we limited our search to peer-reviewed works (to ensure academic quality) and works available in English (in order to be internationally accessible). We were aware, of course, that work published in other languages is of equal quality and relevance, but as this is less accessible to an international audience (and to us, specifically), we settled for works published in English. In the search process, works included were screened for quality by limiting the selection to peer-reviewed, internationally accessible journals. Thus, we excluded certain textbooks, such as Frey and Fisher’s (2008) Teaching Visual Literacy. Such textbooks are relevant to practising teachers, but are prescriptive and do not present the research on which they are based, only the results and theory that come from research. In line with our purpose, general search words were selected and used (Eriksson Barajas et al. 2013). Initially, we constructed search strings using different variations of the term comic, for exam- ple, comic book, comic strip, etc. However, as it was reasonable to believe that a search for the basic term comic would result in hits that included several suffixes, we chose to use the basic search term together with truncation, as shown below. Since our interest was primarily in education, a combination of the terms education, teaching and classroom was considered most appropriate, in order to cover the relevant research within the educa- tional sciences. Thus, comic was combined with one or several of the other three, forming the search strings shown in Table 1. These were entered into the most general search forms, such as ‘all text’ or ‘anywhere’. The Boolean term AND was used where available, or the built-in conjunction of the search engine, combined with the truncation character (*) (cf. Eriksson Barajas et al. 2013). In the initial searches, the terms manga and graphic novel were found to be frequently used instead of, for example, comic book or graphic novel, and these were, therefore, added to the search strings. This search was then restricted to English language, scholarly (peer-reviewed) articles from academic journals. The results from the searches were then cross-referenced in the search engines to rule out duplicates. Table 2 shows the search results. These results were then further cross-referenced using the EndNote programme, to give 1404 unique results. The subject fields ranged from microbi- ology and chemical engineering to cognitive psychology, economy
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