The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of ambiguous visual stimuli in art instruction with ninth grade girl art students on the four divergent thinking abilities of fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration, as measured by Torrance's Tests of Creative Thinking, Figural Forms (1966).The research hypothesis was formulated as follows: Students exposed to ambiguous visual stimuli in art will exhibit a greater increase in divergent thinking abilities than students exposed to non-ambiguous visual stimuli.A group of 40 freshmen high school girls studying art at West Philadelphia Catholic Girls' High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the 1969-1970 school year, constituted the sample of subjects for the study. These subjects were matched for IQ and previous art teacher, then randomized into two treatment groups. The assignment of the ambiguous stimuli treatment to one group was done at random by the researcher. The second group thus became the non-ambiguous stimuli treatment group.The art instruction given to both treatment groups consisted of projects in design, watercolor painting, print-making, and the production of 2 x 2 acetate transparencies. A variety of materials were used. The study lasted nine weeks, averaging 4 meetings weekly, with 42 minutes per meeting.Each treatment group was exposed to a separate set of slides during the art classroom activities. One set, the ambiguous visual stimuli, contained 51 slides of the Rorschach "projective" and the Gestalt "figure-ground" ambiguity types. The non-ambiguous visual stimuli set of 45 slides was composed of representational or non-abstract pictures, paintings, designs, etc.The two art instructors for the study exchanged places with each other several times during the nine weeks in order to minimize any possible differences due to teacher "style" and/or personality.The results of the study showed high positive correlations between the factors of fluency and flexibility, moderate to high correlations between fluency and originality, and between flexibility and originality, with low positive correlation between elaboration and the other three factors.There was no statistically significant difference between the scores of the two treatment groups on Torrance's Tests of Creative Thinking, Figural Forms. The ambiguous visual stimuli-treatment group, however, showed significant net mean gains on fluency and originality. No significant net mean gains were made by the non-ambiguous visual stimuli treatment group.The conclusions drawn from the findings are:1. Torrance's Tests do not seem to be measuring four distinct factors; to know an individual's flexibility score is to know her fluency and originality scores.2. A Gestalt-like figural flexibility factor, similar to the "spontaneous" flexibility of Guilford, seems to be the factor or ability being measured by the Tests.3. The use of Rorschach "projective" ambiguity and Gestalt "figure-ground" ambiguity in art instruction with ninth grade girls does not inhibit growth in divergent thinking abilities.4. High school girl subjects in an art instructional setting are not adversely affected on divergent thinking measures by either ambiguous or non-ambiguous visual stimuli.Recommendations for further research included:1. Replication of this study, employing a randomized sample of boys and girls (or boys only), restricting the visual stimuli to the Gestalt "figure-ground" ambiguity, administering several measures of divergent thinking, increasing the treatment time and exposure to the visual stimuli, and evaluating the art products of the subjects.2. Continued utilization in art education research of Guilford's "Structure-.of-Intellect" model, with particular emphasis on the figural content of the divergent thinking (production) operation.

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of art education in Catholic secondary schools. Studied were:(1) historic status of the schools and attention to separate schools for boys and girls;(2) specific factors for comparison with findings of the 1963 NEA survey of music and art in the public schools;(3) the extent of shared time art programs; (4) obstacles to art programs; (5) the extent of humanities courses.A questionnaire modelled on the 1963 NEA survey incorporated features specific to the Catholic schools. It was sent to 486 Catholic secondary schools in a saturation survey of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky--states selected for their historic associations and concentration in them of a Catholic population and a Catholic school population proportionate to that of the nation at large.Results were based on a usable net response of 382-(78.60 percent) which was 80.93 percent of 472 schools continuing operation in September, 1969.Results corresponded roughly to those of the 1963 PLEA survey although there were basic differences in composition by type, organization, and size of schools.Of schools responding 13.09 percent offered no art. Art departments existed in 76.70 percent. Another 10.31 percent provided opportunity for shared time classes. Some of these supplemented their own offerings with shared time classes. This percentage of schools offering art far surpassed the 53.6 percent of all public schools offering art in the 1963 survey, but it was only one percent higher than the 74.7 percent offering art in public senior high schools whose composition was nearest that of Catholic secondary schools.Percent of art enrollment to total enrollment in Catholic secondary schools was close to that of public schools in the 1963 survey. The 14.63 percent was only .57 percent below 15.2 percent enrollment in senior public high schools. Art enrollments in Catholic schools showed strong influence from separate schools for boys and girls. Girls' and coed schools accounted for the 60.44 percent of small schools which offered art. All large schools not offering art were boys' schools.Strong evidence of a continuing tradition of art education was shown by the high percentage of girls' schools (92.74 percent) with art departments. An interesting feature of the boys' schools was the number of them (55.26 percent) which had introduced art within the past decade. The past two years had seen others taking advantage of art classes in nearby girls' schools.Art curricula followed much the same generalized pattern as public schools with little opportunity for specialization. Less than three percent of the schools required art above grade nine.Preparation of teachers was generally adequate, and percentage of art teachers to average number of teachers per school compared well with percentages in senior public high schools.Lack of personnel ranked first in causes of schools dropping art. Finances ranked first in obstacles toward schools introducing art programs. A crowded academic schedule was the first obstacle in schools which had art programs. Lack of space and finances followed. Almost89 percent of the schools charged for or had students purchase art supplies beyond tuition. Forty-one percent of the schools required an additional studio fee.Humanities programs which included visual arts were reported by 35.08 percent of schools. Another 7.9 percent offered humanities courses which did not include visual arts. Courses were not generally restricted to an intellectually elite; but many encompassed music and art alone, and time allotted them was limited.

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an instructional method utilizing event perception to affect the graphic abilities of young children.Event perception has been described by E. J. Gibson as the detection of invariant properties over a temporalspatial sequence of stimulation. This involves attending to aspects of permanence in an object's size, shape, ratios, proportions or other distinguishing characteristics over continuous transformations in time and space. The detection of these invariant properties facilitates the constant identification of visual phenomena as well as unifying sequential information. The instructional strategy in this study employed event perception training as a means to aid children in their development of drawing skills.The sample was comprised of fifty-seven third grade students in three intact classes in a private New York City elementary school. One group received perceptual training in the detection of invariant properties of moving objects undergoing transformation in time and space; a second group received traditional drawing instruction in composition and drawing techniques, while the third group received no treatment and served as a control section. Students in all three groups were pre- and post-tested using the Frostig Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP) and the Event Perception Drawing Test (EPDT). The DTVP consisted of five sub-tests designed to test and measure a specific type of perceptual ability. These abilities were operationally defined as: eye-hand coordination, figure ground perception, constancy of shape, position in space and spatial relationships.The EPDT was used to assess ability to perceive and draw invariant properties in visual information undergoing apparent transformation in time and space. The test task involved the sequenced illustration of a narrated event and was completed in five consecutive drawings. The pre and post-test drawings of the subjects in all three groups were subjected to a critique by three independent judges using a test scale designed for the study. The scale consisted of six criterion items associated with the perception of an event; size transformation, shape transformation, spatial transformation, kinetic occlusion, movement and causality.Data gathered during this investigation was subjected to analysis of covariance techniques and, when significant ratios were obtained, t-tests were conducted. The confidence level for testing the null hypotheses was set at an alpha of .05. Review of the data led to the following conclusions:(A) Subjects receiving drawing instruction which included the observation and recognition of physical invariants in moving, temporarily occluded objects achieved significantly higher drawing scores than subjects in the Traditional Drawing and Control Groups. The resulting data indicated that the treatment incorporating event perception training was more successful than drawing instruction in composition and materials.(B) Group performance on the Developmental Test of Visual Perception remained unchanged. The effect of the experimental treatments was inconclusive in this instance.While this investigation made no attempt to assess the aesthetic effects of event perception treatment, it does point out that data acquired through visual perceptual activity may serve as a resource for creative work. More research is required to examine the aesthetic effects of event perception training in general perceptual development. The findings suggest, however, that the inclusion of event perception tasks may stimulate perceptual inquiry, and can thereby aid children in developing the necessary drawing skills to represent changes occurring over time and space. The results of this study also seem to confirm that a source of visual information for art is dependent upon an observer's ability to engage in perceptual inquiry.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 300-305) / Microfiche. / xiii, 305 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (MEd)--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2017. / The teaching profession is unique in this sense that in no other employment industry, are beginner employees straight out of university expected to do the work and hold the responsibilities equal to that of a senior or more experienced colleague. This idea is held as one of the main reasons why teachers need support in their first few years of teaching (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Le Maistre & Paré, 2010). From my own experience as well as that of the novice art teacher participants in this research, it was clear that art teachers in their first three years of teaching experience positive encounters as well as several challenges. Challenges varied from the lack of support and orientation from school management to several other factors that contributed to a demanding workload and stress. The theoretical framework that informs this research is grounded in the combination of theoretical perspectives developed by Geert Kelchtermans (1993; 1994; 1999) namely the narrative-biographical perspective and the micro-political perspective. Participants were interviewed and requested to attend a focus group session where they were asked to create a River of Life representation of their experiences since starting their art education careers. The transcripts were analysed in conjunction with the drawings to forge connections between the participants’ feedback to establish themes. The themes of this particular research relate mainly to the common experiences that the participants face as novice art teachers and the support they receive from their school management and education authorities.

D.Ed. / Art lecturers affiliated to a tertiary institute observed the occurrence of negative emotional content and expression in the artwork of their students. These students are also inclined to manifest negative behavioural and interaction patterns. The lecturers appealed for this research as a method to determine what the content of the expressed artwork indicate. The request was for the research methods to proceed within an art framework in order for it to be applied as a class project. The research proceeded with the use of art as a projection medium, applied during the process of facilitative interaction. The aim was to determine the degree to which the projected content in the young adults' artwork correlate with their personal life- and experiential world. The young adults were requested to write spontaneous sketches depicting the story of their life. The information was passed on to a graphologist for the analysis of their handwriting. The findings of the graphologist was later applied as external triangulation in order to verify the identified themes obtained from the analysis. With the aid of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction, it has been determined that the young adults struggle with unresolved trauma as a result of abuse. The exposure to abuse resulted in barriers influencing their relationships with others as well as themselves. The barriers manifest as experiences of pain and confusion; mistrust and isolation; aggression and depression. The research resulted in the development of a model for educational psychologists equipping them to identify and address unresolved trauma with young adults through the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction. The development of the model proceeded in four stages. During stage one concepts were identified, defined and classified after completion of the fieldwork. The sample included 30 respondents from different cultures ranging from ages 18 to 24. The collection of data proceeded with the use of art as projection medium involving the following - a Gestalt-therapeutic exercise: the drawing of a rosebush, in-depth interviews, the analysis of cartoons and the writing of spontaneous sketches on unlineated paper for graphological analysis. The model of Guba was used to ensure trustworthiness in qualitative methodology. This refers to the credibility, transferability, reliability and verification of the research. In step two the relationship between concepts was drawn, after which step three followed, involving the description of the model. Guidelines in operationalising the model, are stated in step four. The model aims at the empowerment of young adults suffering from unresolved childhood trauma, with the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction. During this process the young adults are guided to an enhanced self-awareness in order for self-insight and self-empowerment to develop so that mental health can be obtained. The power of the model lies in the continuous plotting taking place through the use of art as projection medium during facilitative interaction.

The purpose of this research study was threefold: to determine if a multicultural art program would have a positive effect on students' appreciation of their own art work, art from other cultures and attitudes towards other cultures. The program supported a multicultural view of art which emphasized the cultural similarities and values which were common to all students. A nonequivalent control-group design was used within a quasi-experimental framework. One grade eight class participated in the Multicultural Program while the other served as the control group. Both classes were pre- and posttested with the Borgardus Social Distance Scale and a Cultural Appreciation Measure to determine if there was an attitude or appreciation change as a result of the treatment. Student journals and a Journal Posttest also provided data for analysis and reflection. No significant statistical differences were found between experimental and control groups on the pre- and posttest. However, student journals and the Journal Posttest provided data to indicate a significant positive change in students' attitudes towards their own art and the art of other cultures. This was complemented by the researcher's journal which described the classroom proceedings. The results from the journals and the Journal Posttest indicate that teaching art through a multicultural perspective, which emphasizes the similarities across cultures, can change attitudes about art. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

It is widely acknowledged that without volunteer guides, or docents, most museums and galleries would find it impossible to offer education programmes as they are known today. Docents work in the critical interface between visitors and works of art, yet often they are viewed as being passive, and often ineffective, transmitters of the gallery's educational message. The literature on gallery education emphasizes docent "management", or the methods used to recruit, train, and supervise docents. But gallery staff must consider the docent’s beliefs, values, and viewpoints about art, and about education, for improvement of education programmes to occur. This study describes, and analyzes, the docent’s perspective of gallery education programmes, and the extent to which docents are actively engaged in the ongoing process of learning to help others learn. In order to obtain their perspective, six docents in two art galleries were engaged in long, semi-structured, and repeated interviews. These interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. Categories derived from the teacher's practical knowledge, such as subject, curriculum, instruction, self, and milieu, were used as a framework to describe and analyze the docent's practical knowledge. It was found that though the docents did indeed hold a coherent body of knowledge that originates in their practice, their theoretical knowledge of art was often an inadequate base on which to build an interpretation of the gallery's exhibitions. Differences were found in the educational goals of the gallery, and between the institution, and the docent’s educational values and purposes. Educators need to be aware or the shifting, complex, and sometimes paradoxical nature of the docent’s role. The docent’s perspective must be considered in the successful planning and implementation of education programmes. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

Artists are seldom consulted in the making of school art programs yet many are vitally concerned with the need for a visually literate public. This study summarizes the history of art education, examines recent issues documented by art educators, looks at opinions of artists of this century on the teaching of art, and presents interviews with six British Columbian artists to elicit their thoughts on what is necessary in a secondary school art curriculum. The interviews are essentially informal in nature and only those remarks dealing with secondary school education, or related concepts, are included. The final chapter contains an infusion of the artists' ideas under headings suggested by issues raised by art educators. An evaluation of the data collected from the interviews leads to recommendations for consideration for secondary school programs and the conviction that artists should be encouraged to participate in matters relating to art education. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

This experimental study investigated the possibility of measuring pupil progress in art activities undertaken by a regular class and a class of Educable Mentally Retarded students to determine the extent to which E.M.R.s might assimilate concepts and complete activities from an art programme designed for regular classes. The underlying assumption explored was that it may be that E.M.R. students do not achieve results comparable with students in regular art classes simply, because they do not have comparable programme content and quality of instruction. Two classes, one regular art Grade 10/11 combination class and an E.M.R. class were assigned treatment identical in nature and scope. The classes were a part of the regular grouping within a senior secondary school in British Columbia. The treatment consisted of engaging in fifteen assignments delivered by the investigator over a period of six consecutive months. The first two and the last two assignments served as a pre-test and post-test respectively. All interim assignments and pre and post-tests provided materials for analysis arid comparison. Pre and post-test results provided within-group gains; interim assignments provided material for informal between-group comparisons. Evaluation of all assignments was performed by three art educators employing an objective scoring procedure previously familiar to each. The evaluative instrument purported to assess the results of each assignment on seven clearly stated criteria which normally form part of the foci of instruction in art. Analysis of the data revealed that both the regular class and the E.M.R. class gained significantly according to pre-test to post-test results. Significance levels reached by the regular class on all seven categories were .001. Significance levels reached by the E.M.R. class were .0C1 on five categories. On the two remaining categories the significance levels were .01 and .004. On programme results (interim assignments) performance by E.M.R.s was comparable to that of the regular class on better than 60% of programme content. Findings indicated that there were significant differences at the .05 level between groups on 28 out of 77 categories. However, on the remaining 49 categories there was no significant difference at the .05 level. The findings suggest that E.M.R. students can perform at a level comparable to that achieved by the regular class on most assigned art tasks. Special limited art programmes do not offer the only alternative for the education of the E.M.R. within the confines of the public school and other possibilities are worth exploring. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate