The purpose of this study was to investigate the significance of using blocks as an art medium to teach young children, 3 and 4 years of age, selected art concepts through regularly scheduled treatments. It also examined the effect of learning these concepts had on the structures the children built. / The sample consisted of 40 children, ages 42-54 months, who were randomly selected from four pre-schools in Tallahassee, Florida. Two schools, one designated as the experimental with 10 children and one as the control with 10 children, were on the east side of the city. Two schools with the same distribution were on the west side. / The 20 experimental subjects were divided into four groups of five and each group received one identical treatment per week for six weeks. They were introduced to and encouraged to talk about art attributes while observing structures, interacting with the experimentor and manipulating and building with blocks. The controls received no treatment but were free to construct with blocks. / Relevant art attributes for the medium of blocks were selected from CEMREL. With the help of a professor of art education, 42 were chosen and organized into seven simple conceptual statements. These were grouped into six treatments. To test the concepts two instruments were designed, tested for reliability and administered by the investigator for pre- and posttesting. He scored the concept identification test and three raters who were trained by him scored the implementation. The Fisher t-test, Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Chi-square test of independence were used to analyze the data for the three hypotheses. / Hypothesis 1 examined the effect the treatment had on children's acquisition of art concepts compared to those who did not have the treatment. The results yielded significance at the .001 level in favor of the treatment. Talking about and using art concepts significantly increased the art concept scores. / Hypothesis 2 examined the effects the treatment had on children's block structures compared to those who did not have the treatment. The results yielded significance at the .001 level in favor of the experimental group. Those children identifying art concepts changed their block structures reflecting their use. / Hypothesis 3 examined the relationship between the children's ability to identify concepts and implement these in their block structure. The results yielded a moderately high association, .67, between the children's concepts on both tests and a significant association at the .05 level between the subject's ability to identify concepts and to implement them in a block building structure. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: A, page: 2483. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74504 |
| Contributors | GELFER, JEFFREY IAN., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 89 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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