abstract: This study aimed to understand, compare and describe details about U.S children and Taiwanese children's visual image reading. The researcher interviewed thirty children ages 8 to 10 in the state of Arizona and Taiwan. The researcher employed quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data. The analysis using these two methods provided different ways of comprehending the data. The results showed that the two groups of children's image reading did not have statistically significant differences in most categories; but there were demonstrable trends and viewpoints employed when both groups of children explained the details of the images. First, the children expressed what they saw in the images in six ways. The U.S. children were more able to describe contexts with self-experiences/opinions and/or associations than the Taiwanese children. Second, when interpreting the meanings, the Taiwanese children understood the concepts of the images better than the U.S. group. The U.S. children were more critical and expressed self-opinions/associations more. Third, when asked preferences, the U.S. children paid more attention to identify their favorites and express feeling the images brought to them. The Taiwanese children cared more about style and form. Fourth, when judging the images, the U.S. children emphasized the artist's devotion to creating while Taiwanese children considered the form, composition, colors, structure, design, and composition. The results also indicated that the children decided their preferences and their judgments of artworks might be based on multiple viewpoints instead of a single one, especially for the Taiwanese children. Some cultural differences between the two groups of children and their image readings were presented, such as, cultural differences made children have different learned symbolism. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Art 2013

<p> The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and recognize if district-created student art assessments and teacher evaluations influenced the job satisfaction of art teachers due to the increased teacher turnovers and teacher shortages. The experiences, beliefs, and perceptions of the art teachers were critical in understanding and establishing if the increased implementation of the accountability measures added to the stress level and job satisfaction experienced by art teachers. The sample for this case study comprised of 10 male and female art teachers who were certified to teach art within the State of Florida for at least five years and were currently or formerly employed in the Central Florida region. The art teachers were invited first through email invitations and subsequent participants were recruited through the snowball method. Data gathered in this study was collected through audio and visual recordings through the semi-structured interview process. The data collected were analyzed using NVivo 11 Pro (QSR International, 2017) software to uncover themes, patterns, and critical phrases shared by participants. The five themes were: (a) there is a greater level of stress is experienced by teachers from student art assessments and teacher evaluations than ever before; (b) there is much confusion and lack of information on the purpose, procedures, and calculation of student art assessments and VAM scores; (c) class size and an overloaded schedule are detrimental to both the already heightened stress level of art teachers; (d) a supportive, understanding, and appreciative leadership team at each school has a positive impact on an art teacher; (e) a teacher evaluation system that is applicable and fitting for performing arts courses is a necessity within the district. Research findings from this qualitative study exposed the experiences, perceptions, and challenges art teachers have encountered in relation to the district-created student art assessments and teacher evaluations, while teaching in the Central Florida region.</p><p>

The problem of this study was to survey the status of art in the secondary schools of Oklahoma. Art educators today are faced with a lack of uniformity in the teaching of art. There is an increasing need for a recognized art program and a placing of renewed emphasis on the teaching of art. Clear and comprehensive attitudes and ideas toward art in the Oklahoma public schools would tend to ease these difficulties and enrich teaching. There has been a great deal of critical thinking, but this has failed to produce the answers necessary to formulate a basis on which to build a good art program. This study was an attempt to survey the individual schools to determine the present status of art in the secondary schools of Oklahoma.

<p> Art is part of our natural human behavior. For four years, college students go through several developmental stages. Art in higher education can become a fundamental part of students&rsquo; behavior. Like language and laughter, art is a basic part of the self-concept and development. Experimental learning is one outline of the many comprehensive theories of college student development that can be used as measuring tools for administrators, professors, institutional policies, improvements, and practices. The college environment is a place that fosters outcomes of growth and challenges, and as a result, support is needed because a student lives different levels of maturity within social contexts. College can be an &ldquo;advisory circle&rdquo; as the environment provides education, support, realization, awareness, and knowledge that develop strength for the future and the world ahead. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between art and non-art majors and the development of the self-concept in higher education. The data is derived from senior students at four-year institutions who completed the college senior survey from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) of UCLA. Descriptive statistics, cross-tabulations, and chi-square testing were performed to examine the relationship between art and development of the self-concept in higher education. The major themes of the college senior survey are academic and social adjustment, sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, academic, residential and employment experiences, plans for the next academic year, patterns of behavior, life goals and self-concepts, and feelings of personal success. The findings of this study suggest that art majors and art careers have a good self-concept when studying the controlled variables of gender, race/ethnicity, GPA, art majors/non-art majors, career occupation, institution type, and control. The independent variables that are the HERI standards of student/faculty interactions, educational environment/climate, campus environment satisfaction, academic achievement/change, and learning styles/self-rating were also examined alongside the dependent variables of character and development of art and non-art majors&rsquo; self-concept, self-esteem, ideal self, and self-image.</p><p>

This thesis makes the first sustained attempt to locate post-war British art school pedagogy in relation to systems-inspired cultural practice after World War II. I explore how in the post-war era in Britain, system, cybernetic and network theories had an instrumental presence in visual arts pedagogy and practice which marked a fundamental shift in the values of cultural production. This was informed both by General System Theory, which had emerged in biology before the war (GST) and its part in the new systemic presence across culture and economy in the wake of the war. I draw out this cultural trend through the examination of student work of the period, pedagogical documents and new interview material with teachers and students. The immediate post-war years form one of the most vital periods of technological development of all time, in which the physical and biological sciences played an ever-more prominent – and integrated - part. The pedagogies of 1945-1970 incorporated a range of systemic and mechanical approaches into creative practice, which had a clear link to contemporaneous technological developments. That mechanisms, networks and systemic approaches were a fundamental aspect of visual arts pedagogies of the period is a phenomenon which has never been analysed and this is the task of this thesis. This was manifested both in the subject matter of classes and courses and in the teaching structures and models that this thesis will examine. These consist of the Basic Design movement, Groundcourse and the Hornsey protest of 1968. The presence of mechanics as process, pedagogy, practice and symbol within British art education demonstrates the evolving importance of technology within culture. With this in mind, each case study within this thesis investigates systems characteristics of British art school pedagogies during the period. The underlying aim is not to create a narrative account of each pedagogical moment, but rather to pursue the material and cultural influences which shaped their development.

<p> Digital clay is a virtual material that exists currently in many 3D design software applications. Coupled with the rapid development of 3D printing technology, clay forms designed with a computer can now be externalized into the physical world as 3D prints or, vice versa, as digital scans. Recently, advanced tools have become available to artists and designers as affordable systems marketed to the professional consumer. As a response to these developments, my research examines the learning that occurs for eight artists who have been asked to play with physical and digital clay. This research employs a multiple case study methodology to understand the challenges of learning to work with digital clay and the supporting role of physical material engagement in this process. By interviewing participants and thematically analyzing their responses, I presented the subjective experience of the artists through portraiture showcasing the educational role play assumes when engaging across physical and digital media. Findings of the study suggest that engaging physical and digital materials calls upon a broad scope of cognitive processes including recollection and mental wanderings that contributed to reflection and discovery of novel ideas. Details from unstructured interviews were presented through narrative reporting as this research also strives to make sense of the participants' experience and situate the details of the study&rsquo;s context.</p><p>

<p> Many colleges and universities have space on campus that extends beyond a traditional classroom. These areas include but are not limited to dining hall facilities, residence halls, college bookstores, and outdoor quads that serve as a focal point of the institution. In the case of a small, private, Los Angeles-based art and design college, this type of space was not always formally available to its students. Thus, a sense of student community engagement was absent from the college experience.</p><p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how the implementation of a new multipurpose space at a college of art and design had the ability to alter the social and academic experiences of art and design students. The study amplified the voices of students who lacked power and longevity at an art and design institution. In a case study method of design, an interview protocol was used for primary data collection, with additional data obtained through document collection and participant observation. Environmental theory served as a conceptual framework for this research. Ten students and seven faculty, staff, or other administrators participated in this study in the fall of 2016. Findings emphasized that art and design students have a need to foster expression and thrive in environments where strong levels of student engagement are present. </p><p> The new facility serves as the central platform to highlight values or desires that ultimately sustain the heartbeat and magnificence of the new space. Participant motivation to utilize the new space was driven by the opportunity to experience stronger engagement in spaces that were previously nonexistent. While data were collected from multiple college stakeholders, the primary focus of this research was the influence on student culture. The findings suggested a need for new systematic processes that equate to a series of short- and long-term recommenda- tions for policy and practice.</p><p> This study provides recommendations for policies and practice that may transfer to similar institutional contexts and provide institutional leaders with insights and strategies to develop community and facilitate a stronger sense of campus life in the context of an art and design school.</p>

<p> Policy changes influence various aspects of art education such as K-12 art education curricula, state licensure systems, and contexts of art teacher preparation. Despite strong relationships between art education policy and practical fields, few studies have attempted to understand art education from the perspective of policy analysis. This study explores the connections between art education policy and the field of art education through a focus on art teacher preparation in Indiana. Additional attention was paid to perceptions of the appropriateness of alternative licensure routes in relation to policies of academic and quality standards and the extent to which visual art teachers&rsquo; sense of identity as teachers and artists is affected by appropriation of these standards.</p><p> The theoretical framework of this study is the need to understand policy appropriation of standards (including visual art and art teacher preparation standards) as an on-going process, that is continually influenced and changed by internal (human level) and external (institutional level) factors. The appropriation process is effectively expressed through practices, narratives, and texts of practitioners.</p><p> To understand the status and factors of the art education policy appropriation in art teacher preparation, I collected data as printed or digital documents, and as interviews with faculty members and pre-service art teachers in two traditional visual art teacher preparation programs in Indiana. I analyzed external (institutional level) and internal (human level) factors to adopt and work with state and national standards. While national standards for visual art education (were adopted by many states and presented as voluntary policy, in Indiana the national standards were built into the Indiana&rsquo;s Academic Standards for Visual Art Standards for K-12 students. Visual art teachers were required to complete a traditional teacher preparation program and pass examinations to become licensed to teach art.</p><p> Findings reveal that faculty of higher art teacher education programs in Indiana paid attention to the national and state standards in K-12 visual art and the standards for teacher education when preparing students to become licensed K-12 art educators. External motivations were accreditations system for teacher preparation requested by Indiana Department of Education related to NCATE. Schools and districts could be external motivations that pre-service art teachers adopt the standards in order to succeed in a job market. Internal factors were respects of roles and leaders of art education associations, desires to train/be qualified teachers and attain balanced knowledge between art studio and art education. Alternative routes to licensure were viewed as economically advantageous but not supportive of high-quality education. Policy had little impact on issues of identity. I concluded with recommendations for improvement in art teacher preparation that were needs of supportive policies for pre-service teachers&rsquo; teaching and teaching licensure including traditional and alternative licensures.</p><p>

<p> This was a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional research study that surveyed California homeschooling parents with children in grades K-6 during the 2016&ndash;17 academic year. The purpose was to discover the methodologies and activities California homeschooled K-6th grade students received and experienced in the four arts disciplines: music, dance, theater and fine art. The data was collected through an online survey and a random representation of the research participants. The data collected included collecting specific information regarding arts activities and lessons, the approximated time and hours of instruction, and the locations or places where the lessons and activities were conducted. There were a total of 178 responses collected from the research participants. The overall participation rates within the four arts disciplines for this sample population of California homeschooling students in grades K-6 during the 2016&ndash;17 year in music was 80.34%, dance was 48.32%, theater was 52.81% and visual arts was 94.39%. The specific activities, lessons, time and locations were analyzed and discussed. This research concluded that the sample population participates in visual arts activities and lessons mainly in the home, and music, dance, and theater activities and lessons are experienced at private studios or theaters. It was additionally noted that just over 11% of the California homeschooling parents participating referenced the VAPA standards.</p><p>

This study is an experiment in landscape art where artists put large pieces of fabric in personally significant places to be marked by the land. Landscape art is a site of power that can challenge embedded assumptions regarding national identity within tensions among local, national, and global scales. This research ruptures the Canadian myth of wilderness nation through the creation of an alternative landscape art that is informed by a theoretical discourse on the threshold as a site of difference and of learning. Inspired by the creative processes of the participating artists, Peter von Tiesenhausen, Pat Beaton, and Robert Dmytruk, I consider pedagogical implications for art education when pedagogy is structured on the powerful premise that learning is an uncertain, relational, and continual process. Using my understanding of the methodology of a/r/tography, I create and poetically analyze art that offers opportunities for personal reflection into the nature of transformative educational practices. This form of arts-based research is influenced by the notion of assemblage, as presented by Deleuze and Guattari (1984), as well as practices of narrative, action research, and autoethnography, all of which echo the research method of currere (Pinar & Grumet, 1976). Within a/r/tography, image and text are creatively juxtaposed to inspire new understandings about the pedagogical thresholds among my roles of artist, researcher, and teacher. Arguing that social change must begin from a personal awareness of one's tacit values, I posit that a/r/tography can be an educational opening into reflection of such values due to the embodied, personal nature of art-making. Through a philosophical discussion of subjectivity and community following the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Jacque Derrida, I take the participants' and my local, significant places as sites from which to reverse the binary of landscape and artist, following an artistic version of deconstruction. From this a/r/tographical inquiry into elements of the land that serve as structural and heuristic supports, I critique the neoliberal subject position within nationalism, education, and landscape art. I draw on understandings of identity as theorized and performed from the premise that it, like learning, is an unpredictable, relational activity of emergence that is alway slocated on the threshold of difference between one person and another. Thus, I examine the educational, ontological, and social importance of what it means to exist within community in the land. In doing so, I raise questions regarding the normative structures of our educational institutions and suggest that social transformation could begin through art practices as a creative form of pedagogy. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate