The purpose of this study was to investigate
the effectiveness of a series of perceptual training
and drawing lessons on the drawing behaviour
of children of eight years of age, in year three
classes in some South Australian middle income
schools. A literature search revealed that the
drawing behaviour of children is responsive to
perceptual training and drawing classes, and
furthermore that an improvement in drawing ability
has resulted from such programmes. Children
of eight years of age were selected for two reasons.
Their drawing development has generally become
schematic, which means that a certain degree
of stereotyping is used in their drawing. And
in addition the perceptual development of eight
year olds is considered by many perceptual theorists
to be sufficiently advanced for a series of training
lessons. Also as a result of perceptual development
children of eight years of age are able to participate
in a drawing test which involves the drawing
of objects or models based on the observation
of such objects or models.
A pretest-posttest with control group design
was used in this study. The experimental and
control groups were selected from a sufficiently
large sample of schools. The groups selected
were randomly assigned to be experimental or
control groups in the study. A Salome modified
drawing test was administered to each experimental
and control group in the study. This drawing
test which consisted in the subjects being required
to draw three objects, was administered as a
pretest and a posttest to all groups by the researcher.
The experimental groups received a treatment
which consisted of six weekly sessions involving
perceptual training and drawing exercises. The
control group continued with their normal art
lessons with their class teacher. The test drawings
were scored by three judges on a Salome modified
rating scale. A scoring procedure was devised
so that the judges were unaware whether the drawings
to be scored were pretest, or posttest, control
group or experimental group.
The following statistical tests were conducted
on the drawing scores using an SPSS computer
programme:
a t-test for age
a t-test to determine whether there was
a significant difference between the mean
scores of the experimental and the control
groups.
an analysis of variance to determine
whether there was a significant difference
between the gain scores of the experimental
and control groups.
- and Pearson Product Moment Correlation
Coefficients for rater inter-reliability.
All statistical tests demonstrated that the experimental
groups gained significantly higher posttest
drawing scores. All statistical tests produced
results as the 0.05 level of significance.
The implications for curriculum design, and the
practice of teaching drawing in primary schools,
are that interventionist drawing programmes of
the kind used in this study do aid drawing development.
Drawing is a basic skill in art, thus a perceptual
training and drawing programme which aids drawing
development will also improve other modes of
artistic expression.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219348 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Speck, Cathy, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Cathy Speck |
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