Görsel Sanatlar Dersi Alanında Yapılmış Lisansüstü Tezlerin İçerik Analizi

Özet

This study aims to reveal trends, methodological preferences, and production profiles in graduate theses prepared in the field of Visual Arts Education during the 2015–2025 period through a content analysis. The Council of Higher Education’s National Thesis Center (YÖK Thesis) database was searched using the keyword “Görsel Sanatlar Dersi (Visual Arts Course),” and the sample comprised 53 graduate theses. The research was conducted within the framework of content analysis, a qualitative data analysis method. Examined variables included year of publication, language of the theses, research methods used, data collection instruments, and thesis types (master’s/doctoral). Obtained data were tabulated and visualized with tables and charts after conversion to percentage distributions.

Key findings: Sample size: 53 theses. Distribution by year: the largest share of theses was completed in 2019 (24.53%), followed by 2018 and 2022 (each 11.32%) and 2024 (16.98%); the lowest production occurred in 2020 (1.89%). Language: all studies (100%) were written in Turkish; no theses were found in English or other foreign languages. Research methods: qualitative methods dominated (34 theses; 64.15%), followed by quantitative (12 theses; 22.64%) and mixed methods (7 theses; 13.21%). Data collection instruments: interviews were the most frequently used instrument (34 studies); questionnaires/scales were used in 12 studies; and a combination of scale and interviews appeared in 7 studies. Thesis types: 49 master’s theses and 4 doctoral theses (2015, 2017, 2018, 2024), indicating a limited number of doctoral works.

The study demonstrates that graduate production in visual arts education is largely national in scope and dominated by qualitative approaches. The marked decline in 2020 is attributed to COVID-19–related restrictions, which particularly affected practice-based fields by hindering access to ateliers and data collection. Additionally, the predominance of master’s theses highlights the relative scarcity of doctoral-level research in the field. The findings are compared with relevant literature (e.g., Allahverdiyev, Mamur, Özer et al.). The results indicate the importance of increasing doctoral-level research in visual arts education, encouraging English-language graduate studies to enhance international visibility and interaction, supporting methodological diversity (including quantitative and mixed approaches) and the effective use of qualitative data sources such as portfolios, and developing models and infrastructure to sustain practice-based research against pandemic-like interruptions.