Drawing as ecological elicitation: an arts-based, rubric-scored method for assessing traditional ecological knowledge in indigenous primary school children

Arts-based methods are widely valued in research with indigenous children for reducing power asymmetries and supporting child-centred expression, yet they are rarely used as systematic assessment tools yielding structured, comparable data on the depth of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). This paper presents and critically evaluates an integrated method combining elicited drawing, a natural-pigment colouring activity in which children prepare plant pigments and apply them to their line drawing, an individual narrative interview, and a three-level rubric operationalising Berkes’ Knowledge Practice Belief framework across four domains. The method was applied with 279 Orang Asli children aged 7–12 years from Jahai, Jakun, and Semai communities across 14 schools in Peninsular Malaysia. We document the rationale and implementation of each component and evaluate two features designed to offset the drawing medium’s bias toward tangible, depictable content: the colouring activity as a culturally embedded knowledge-activation step, and a highest-level-wins rule that credits knowledge shown in either the drawing or the talk. Drawing functioned as an anxiety-reducing visual anchor that deepened narrative engagement, and colouring elicited resource-management knowledge absent from the drawings themselves. Scoring revealed a steep gradient: species-level knowledge was near-universal and frequently reached the highest level, whereas social-institutional and worldview knowledge rarely exceeded recognition, a ceiling attributable to converging causes rather than to the method alone. Limitations include peer imitation in group settings and the difficulty of eliciting worldview knowledge from children in middle childhood. Implications for TEK research methodology, arts-based environmental education assessment, and indigenous curriculum design are discussed.