This study sought to determine the effectiveness of portrait drawing as an art therapy intervention for adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as a way to improve communication and social skills as well as increase an understanding of facial expressions and social cues. Participants consisted of two females with ASD from a center for autism at a major university in the southeast United States. The participants took part in six weekly art therapy sessions where the Face Stimulus Assessment (FSA) was administered as a pre and post test. A modified version of the Formal Elements of Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) was used to score the FSA drawings. Additionally, questionnaires based on the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) was used to measure the impact of portrait drawing on the participants' weekly behavior. The sessions incorporated the concept of the 'Interactive Square' (Bragge & Fenner, 2009) as an approach to art therapy with the more structured directive of portrait drawing. The participants were asked to create self-portraits before drawing the researcher's portrait. Next, participants with ASD engaged in portrait drawing with neurotypical peers. Qualitative and quantitative results showed the portrait drawing is an effective technique for adults with ASD. Quantitative and qualitative data are discussed. Artwork is used to illustrate the qualitative data. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester 2015. / June 23, 2015. / Art Therapy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Communication, Interpersonal Relationships, Portrait Drawing, Social Skills / Includes bibliographical references. / Marcia Rosal, Professor Directing Thesis; David Gussak, Committee Member; Theresa van Lith, Committee Member.

After numerous obstacles and the inability to establish a placement in which to conduct my thesis, I decided to reframe my topic in order to explore the challenges of conducting art therapy research as a graduate student. Previous research has also addressed some of the potential complications when conducting research, however, little has discussed the obstacles faced from a graduate student perspective. Reviewing the history and guidelines that Institutional Review Boards implement, this thesis describes how I followed this process with various ethical review boards, as well as illustrates the difficulties I faced. I particularly use a narrative inquiry to help expand and learn further from the challenges I experienced. Through analyzing each interaction, I found that while I encountered common research struggles documented in previous studies, I also had unique obstacles stemming from being an art therapy graduate student. In the final part of this thesis I illustrate the frustration I experienced towards this process in an intersubjective response art piece. This reflection alongside the previous research led me to conclude that art therapists encounter numerous undocumented struggles while attempting to conduct research, but by conducting more studies like this we can better understand how to overcome these for the future. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester 2015. / July 2, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references. / Theresa van Lith, Professor Directing Thesis; David Gussak, Committee Member; Marcia Rosal, Committee Member.

Financial management is the operational activity with which all organizations to manage their economic resources efficiently in corporate finance. Nonprofit arts and cultural organizations also need to allocate their financial resources for everyday operations. Nonprofits receive benefits from identifying, measuring, monitoring, and utilizing financial indicators for sound financial management because financial management takes the responsibility for effective utilization of funds as well as obtaining funds. However, I found only eight articles that were partially covered financial management topic among the total 1,515 academic articles from seven major arts management journals from the last 10 years. Although 42% of nonprofit arts organizations recorded deficits in 2013, research on financial management has been extremely lacking in the arts and cultural sector. Based on the discrepancy between scholarly research and current problems, this study suggested a conceptual framework for financial management, designed financial performance measurements, and analyzed the proposed measurements with empirical data to examine the applicability of these financial measurements in practices. To suggest financial management tools, four research questions were addressed: (1) Is the degree between the proposed categories (factors) and related variables (indicators) statistically meaningful? (2) What financial categories and indicators do nonprofit arts and cultural organizations use to measure their financial performance? (3) Based on the answers of Research Question 2, what are the statistically exploratory and significant factors (categories) and indicators among applicable measurements? (4) What are the distinctive implications for different types of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, and what are the distinctive implications for budget sizes based on the value of statistically significant financial measurements? The population of this study was 501(c)(3)s’ performing arts organizations under the category of National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities codes from A60 to A6E. I used the digitized data files from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, regarding the 501(c)(3) arts and cultural organizations’ IRS Form 990 from 2003. To investigate proposed research questions, I conducted data cleaning processes and analyzed data with SPSS. Descriptive statistics were used in the first phase analysis to generate the means for 15 financial measurements. Factor analysis was conducted to find statistically meaningful relationships between the proposed categories and sub-indicators. To determine validation of results from factor analysis in this study, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity significance level were measured. Through factor analysis, this study demonstrated that all of the 15 proposed measurements can be used for nonprofit arts and cultural organizations to assess their financial performance. In addition to factor analysis, analysis of variance by arts subsectors suggested that the ratios of contributions to expenses, contributions to revenue, and fundraising expenses to total expenses were not the same between different types of arts organizations. Furthermore, analysis of variance by budget sizes proposed that the means of eight measurements – the saving, contributions to assets, direct supports to assets, revenue to assets, operational margin, management expenses to total expenses, fundraising expenses to total expenses, and direct supports to fundraising expenses – were not the same between different budget sizes in nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. A detailed discussion of the findings, as well as implications and conclusions for future research are included. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / March 29, 2018. / Art and Cultural Organizations, Financial Measurements, Financial Statement Analysis, IRS Form 990 Analysis, Nonprofit Financial Framework, Nonprofit Financial Management / Includes bibliographical references. / Pat Villeneuve, Professor Directing Dissertation; Patricia Schriefer, University Representative; Jeff Broome, Committee Member; Antonio Cuyler, Committee Member.

This paper centers around an experience a class of twenty-one fifth grade children and their teacher had with puppetry. The art teacher worked cooperatively with the classroom teacher and children throughout the experiment. The purpose of this paper is to describe ways in which she worked with the classroom teacher and her pupils and helped to meet pupils' need to make wise choices and decisions. The paper will include a description and analysis of three decisions: first, the decision by the group to make puppets; second, decisions made by a boy in making his hand puppet; and third, decisions made by a girl in making her string puppet. On the basis of these findings, recommendations for ways in which an art teacher can work with classroom teachers and children will be made. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Julia Schwartz, Professor Directing Paper. / "Jan. 15, 1952." / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47).

The need for additional studies and research into problems of art education has been recognized for several years. This realm of study has attracted a number of investigators in recent years but it is still a relatively virgin field. Despite the increasing recognition among educators of the pervasive importance of the arts to human growth, there exists an unfortunate paucity of systematic research in the areas of aims, methods, and materials in art education. / "August, 1955." / Advisor: Ivan E. Johnson, Professor Directing Study. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-32).

"The purpose of this investigation was to explore, in a general way, the relationship between selected work-study skills and certain aspects of creative expression, through drawing and painting, of children in a fourth grade class"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1953." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: W. Edwards, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 22-23).

This study was an exploration into how seniors who participate in art workshops at the senior center experienced and made sense of their art museum visitations. In light of the rapidly increasing aging population in most countries around the world and the corollary notion that their well-being would be a global benchmark for civilized living (Kinsella & Phillips, 2005), the arts and creativity have been gaining momentum as a model for healthy and purposeful aging (Cohen, 2000, 2001; Hanna, 2013; Hanna & Perlstein, 2008). Despite the efforts to make art museums accessible to senior citizens, little empirical evidence and literature can be found that address the museum experiences of older adults, especially those who are considered to be receptive to visiting art museums, based on characteristics of the art exhibition. This study fills that critical gap through the use of phenomenological research methods that incorporate observations, in-depth interviews, a focus group, and document analysis techniques. The research site was selected by conducting evaluations using Serrell's (2006) Framework for Assessing Excellence in Exhibitions from a Visitor-Centered Perspective to identify characteristics of six art exhibitions. The exhibition chosen was rated excellent regarding its levels of achievement for all criteria: comfortable, engaging, reinforcing, and meaningful. The museum fieldtrip was set up to take participants to see the selected art exhibition. The fieldwork contributed a comprehensive perspective of not only experience but also motivation and reflection dimensions of the museum visitation that seniors constructed through the dynamic interaction of personal, sociocultural, and physical contexts. The data from the observation field notes, transcriptions of in-depth interviews and the focus group, and document review were analyzed by using phenomenology data analysis methods and emerging themes were presented in the form of composite descriptions. The results of the data analysis showed that participants were infused by a spirit of inquiry and had a need for being social. Older age-related needs and life-learned wisdom played a key part in shaping seniors' museum experiences emotionally and intellectually. The essence and shared meaning of this group of seniors' art museum visitation experiences culminated in seven key findings: seniors perceived themselves as curiosity-driven museum visitors with older age-related needs and values; sociocultural circumstances played a key part in seniors' art museum visit motivations; seniors constructed their museum experiences on their interests in art with a touch of life-learned wisdom; not only physical but also communication and attitude accessibilities are crucial to older museum visitors; seniors preferred personal interactions in order to maintain social connections; sociable experiences made seniors' meaningful museum experiences memorable; and the art museum visitation cultivated seniors' senses of purpose in terms of staying creative. To make contributions to the current paradigm for creative aging, the findings put forward knowledge that conveys practical ways for art museums and senior centers to work together on making arts and creativity services. These services can dynamically play an important role in building an effective ecosystem of leisure activities for promoting active lifestyles and social well-being among senior citizens. The findings of this study were used to develop seven recommendations that revolve around how art museums and senior centers can foster older visitors' meaningful and memorable museum experiences and collaborate on constructing and sustaining a full cycle of arts experiences and creativity engagement, from passive observation to active participation, not only in but also across communities. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2015. / December 2, 2015. / art museum, arts participation, creative aging, exhibition evaluation, museum education, museum experience / Includes bibliographical references. / Pat Villeneuve, Professor Directing Dissertation; Anne Barrett, University Representative; David Gussak, Committee Member; Theresa Van Lith, Committee Member.

The majority of veterans entering college today have served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coming from an all-volunteer military, this population has expressed feelings of social isolation and challenges adjusting to the changes in structure outside of the military. For combat veterans, there can be physical and psychological wounds which present additional challenges. Therefore, institutions of higher education are developing programs and services to support veteran’s transition and facilitate their social integration into college. This research studied the individual and social processes of a creative arts workshop for six student veterans at Florida State University. Using qualitative methods from a phenomenological philosophical perspective, this study examines how the workshop facilitated the transition for student veterans and how they interpreted their life experiences through the creative arts. Being a group workshop, symbolic interactionism was used as a conceptual framework in assessing their individual experiences. Military uniforms were reprocessed into pulp and participants learned to make handmade paper from their cloth of personal significance. They also used stencils made from personal images, transferring the image to their paper. Following the workshop, their artwork was publicly exhibited in the university library with a personal statement written by each participant. The participants responded positively to the experience, noting the meaningful connections they made with other student veterans and the personal significance of the work they created. Learning a new craft, expressing themselves creatively, and displaying their work professionally strengthened their self-efficacy and sense of belonging and connection to the university. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2016. / May 31, 2016. / Art Therapy, Group Therapy, Papermaking, Phenomenology, Student Veterans, Symbolic Interactionism / Includes bibliographical references. / Marcia Rosal, Professor Directing Dissertation; Douglas Schrock, University Representative; David Gussak, Committee Member; Jeff Broome, Committee Member.

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