The Use of the Socratic Method in Visual Perception Training and Its Effects on Primary School Students’ Drawings

Drawing, one of the most fundamental ways children express themselves, varies with age. Students in the study group, who are developmentally in the concrete operational stage, occasionally use templates in their drawings. In this context, the Socratic method, aimed at activating cognitive processes through guided questioning rather than presenting direct answers, emerges as a prominent approach, holding significant potential for the development of visual perception. This study aims to examine the effect of the Socratic method used in visual perception training on the self-portrait drawings of fourth-grade primary school students. The study employed one-group pretest–posttest weak experimental design, one of the quantitative research methods. The study group consisted of 55 fourth-grade primary school students. The data were obtained by evaluating the students’ self-portraits drawn before and after the implementation of the Socratic method, using the SelfPortrait Evaluation Rubric. Inter-rater reliability had been established for the data, and a pairedsamples t-test was used for the analysis. The study found that visual arts education supported by the Socratic method significantly improved students’ observation-based drawing skills, enabling them to move away from template-based expressions across the sub-dimensions of form, expression, representation, proportion, composition, and detail. As a result, it was concluded that the Socratic method enhances visual perception in art education and is a recommended tool for fostering effective cognitive development.