The general cognitive growth that results from VTS, and which is well documented, is predicated on aesthetic growth. The first and most reliable growth that is recorded from VTS experience is growth in what can be called viewing skills. For example, there are increases in the number and complexity of observations. There is more grounding of observations and interpretations in what is actually depicted in an image. There is gradual awareness and concern for the artist and his or her intentions as well as thoughts about why the artist makes things look as they do. For example, artworks come to be seen as constructed objects, with attendant conventions and rules, such as awareness of space and the arrangement of things within that space. Given VTS, aesthetic growth takes place in all students, although at varying speeds and to somewhat different degrees. Most elementary school students start in Housen’s Stage I as novice viewers, but by the end of three years of VTS, the most recent data shows that the majority is in Stage II, with fewer than 20% in the transition stage between I and II, and 25% in a higher stage. This puts ten-year olds significantly ahead of peers in a control situation, lack of VTS being the only difference in experience. Perhaps more impressively, it puts VTS students on par with the majority of adult museum visitors, thought students with VTS skills are more flexible, more open, more observant, and more confident. It is critical to know that, only when students are in Stage II or above and have had substantial viewing experience, do we find reliable, consistent transfer of viewing skills (as well as evidential reasoning and speculation) to other classes of objects. This finding underscores the important, perhaps unparalleled, role art can play in developing cognition more generally.

VTS is developmentally-based. Derived from research, the questions asked are naturally occurring, ones that underlie and motivate beginning viewers’ processing of visual material. Therefore, the questions themselves are easy to put into use when introduced by the teacher. The process begins with a teacher articulating the questions, repetitively. Bolstered by the teacher and the group, students quickly apply the pattern of behavior indicated, gradually losing the need for prompts in the group setting. The behaviors indicated are then internalized, showing up in an individual’s thinking in the absence of group interaction. The evidence of the basic strategy posed by the questions transferred from group setting to operating alone is the first instance of transfer of a VTS-related behavior documented in research data. In addition, the questions produce such a positive response in virtually all students that teachers instinctively use them when initiating discussions of other material. VTS lesson plans encourage them to do so. Thus students begin to apply the questions to explorations of other unfamiliar subjects and objects, again, first in the group with prompts, and eventually unaided and alone. This meta-strategic transfer — applying a strategy learned in one setting to a different context — also appears in data. It is seen relatively quickly for many students in their writing samples, but for it to become normative behavior, the VTS process has to continue for long enough for stage change to occur. In other words, this transfer does not occur reliably and predictably before a student is in Housen’s Stage II. The phenomenon is noted by teachers as well as recorded in data. Since the beginning of research on VTS, teachers have reported that after a number of discussions, students’ writing changes. Students display a more positive attitude toward writing. Written statements are longer. Students are more likely to write in complete sentences. They include more observations. They are likely to supply reasons to back up opinions. They often speculate among possible conclusions. These last several points can be directly traced to students adopting the pattern of questions, but the impact on attitude, length of written statements, and completeness of sentences is harder to explain. Our best guess is that the overall improvement relates to the positive experience that students have articulating observations and ideas, and then hearing their comments paraphrased by teachers. Though the time spent doing VTS is small, one explanation for its impact is the paucity of opportunity for students to express what they see and what they think in normal activity — in school and out. The simple provision of a number of hours when students are willing and able to express their thoughts and feelings about works of art stretches both vocabulary and conceptual understandings sufficiently to have an impact on writing. This improvement to some degree reflects a low level of expectations, but many teachers are convinced that the VTS experience is a deciding factor in student written performance, including on tests. For growth to occur, and certainly for transfer of learning from one setting to another, time is an important, and often overlooked, factor. Where we have researched its impact, VTS activity has been sustained and spread throughout several years, in one case for five years. The extended experience is appropriately paced with more complex art and more directed questions added when normative behaviors indicate that most students are ready. The maintenance of developmentally appropriate challenges that build on existing capabilities and interests — as well as a reasonable amount of time spent on the activity — allows for growth in confidence to keep pace with advancing skills. Students grow but to them it is imperceptible because it all feels so natural. The transfer occurs because the behaviors have been internalized; this is, a gradual process. There is an additional factor that may have an impact on transfer. By the end of the first year for the older grades, students are asked to reflect on the VTS questions and discussions. This allows them to step back and reflect on HOW they are learning, as much as WHAT they learn from VTS discussion. Aware of the strategies in this conscious sense, students are better equipped to call the strategies into use in different settings, when confronted with unfamiliar material. Thought expecting students in Grade 5 and younger to predictably operate in this meta-cognitive manner — aware of how their mind is working — is unrealistic, given a developmentally appropriate strategy, and occasional moments of directed reflection, it is clear that they can become conscious of how their minds accomplish certain learning.