The "Draw to Learn" study was undertaken to determine if a combination of drawing and writing in a high school language arts setting would enhance creativity and self-expression. The intervention described in this study took place in a 9-12 high school in Hartford, Connecticut, during April and May of 1993. It consisted of six classroom lessons and four measurements: the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (T.T.C.T./non-verbal), the Sheridan RESCORE writing analysis test, an opinion survey questionnaire and a three-judge panel review of randomly selected student journals. Outcomes were mixed. Results from the T.T.C.T. and the RESCORE were the opposite of expectations. The T.T.C.T. creativity index dropped significantly after the intervention and the RESCORE results measured no general increase in writing between the first and last sessions of "Draw to Learn." Other results were more promising. Anecdotal material from RESCORE, data from the opinion survey questionnaire and the judges' responses indicated some enhancement of creativity and self-expression from the intervention, with a noticeably stronger performance in drawing than in writing. It was speculated that time constraints could have been involved in producing both this discrepancy and the negative results from T.T.C.T. and RESCORE. The possibility that the data were reflecting a population undergoing change was also raised. Several areas of further research are suggested by the study, including uses of the model with other populations, different kinds of drawing activities, and longer time frames.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8949 |
| Date | 01 January 1994 |
| Creators | Loomis, Louise Earle |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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