The efficacy of art as a medium for teaching concepts to fifth graders

This quasi-experimental study investigated the hypothesis that specially designed art lessons can be used as a vehicle to enhance the learning of specific concepts. The concepts selected were ones traditionally taught in an elementary art program coinciding with those measured on standardized tests. The selected concepts were area, volume, perimeter, congruency, pattern, and sequence. Elementary school art lessons designed to teach specific concepts and taught by an art specialist to a treatment group of students were found, as a whole, to enhance the learning of concepts significantly over that of the comparison group of students taught in a traditional manner. All teachers provided a multimodal approach to teaching, but the treatment teacher was found to use more visual and kinesthetic modes of instruction than the comparison teachers. Students' dominant learning modalities appeared to have no influence on the amount of knowledge gained from the type of instruction received. Students who were taught by the treatment method learned more regardless of their dominant learning modalities. Students taught by the treatment teacher who exhibited a positive “feeling tone” in her classroom learned more than students taught by teachers who exhibited a negative or neutral feeling tone. As a whole, concepts transferred from the teaching situation to the testing context. The students in the treatment group were found to have scored significantly higher on the posttest than those students in the comparison group. No significant difference was found in creativity of the artwork produced by the two groups of students. In addition, no significant relationship was found between dominant learning modality and developed ability level, race, or gender. Race and gender had no significant relationship to the amount of knowledge gained.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed. D.

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Administration

Department dc:contributor.department

Educational Administration

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1989

Author dc:creator

• Willett, Leslie V.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Parks, David J.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Worner, Wayne M.
• Bloom, Leslye
• Whitwell, William
• Arnold, Jean B.

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/54809

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/54809