Same drawing, different readings: Professional vision and the limits of interpreting visual data in educational research

Children's drawings are increasingly used as a source of data in qualitative research in education; however, their meaning derives not only from their visual characteristics but also from the professional perspective of the person interpreting them. Drawing on the concept of professional vision, this study aimed to examine how experts from different professional backgrounds interpret the same children's drawings and to identify the aspects in which their interpretations converge and those in which they differ. A qualitative study was conducted using semi-structured interviews with 20 experts representing six professional groups (teachers, early childhood educators, educationalists, psychologists, philosophers, and art experts), who independently interpreted four drawings produced by Year 5 and Year 6 primary school pupils without any additional information about the children or the circumstances in which the drawings had been created. The data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis with combined deductive-inductive coding. The findings indicate that professional background shapes both the elements to which experts pay the greatest attention and the ways in which they attribute meaning to them. Teachers, early childhood educators, and educationalists primarily focused on the educational context and classroom relationships; psychologists on emotional indicators; art experts on the characteristics of visual expression; and philosophers on the limits of interpretation and the importance of dialogue with the child. At the same time, all professional groups acknowledged the limitations of their own perspectives and emphasised the need for an interdisciplinary approach and the inclusion of additional sources of information, particularly the child's own perspective, when interpreting children's drawings.