Art Educators Report Grades at Which They Teach 11 Drawing Concepts

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to solicit information about the applicability of 11 basic perceptual concepts for instruction in drawing to students in Kindergarten through Grade 12. The study is based on responses to a national survey of 750 art educators, 250 in elementary, 250 in middle, and 250 in high school teaching assignments. Among these, 87% were female, 8% were 20 to 29 years old, 15% were 30 to 39 years, 48% were 40 to 49 years, 27% were 50 to 59 years, and 2% were 60 years or older. As few as 35.5% to as many as 48.7% (per concept) of the art educators reported that they teach each of the 11 concepts in elementary grades. Also, from 33.3% to 38.4% (per concept) of these teachers indicated that they stop teaching the 11 target concepts to students in high school. Empirical evidence from psychologists suggested that children gain comprehension of the concepts at differing points in their development. Were art educators employing the information identified by psychological research, their reports might have presented clear distinctions between grades at which each of the 11 concepts are taught. The results are interpreted in light of five possible explanations.

Exploratory Study of the Relations between Spatial Ability and Drawing from Memory

“…Nonetheless, they are of interest both to teachers of the graphic arts, engineering, architecture, and to students more likely to excel on Memory for Designs Tests (Condon & Schroeder, 2004), as well as to researchers of spatial ability. For teachers of the graphic arts (Basseches, 2006), for example, the present study suggests that those who score relatively low on the Maze Tracing Speed Test, Eliot-Price Mental Rotations Test, and the Bender-Gestalt Test might be identified as students who may need additional support in their learning about proportionality, and that the Shapes Memory Test and the Form Board Test may be used to identify students who would benefit from additional support for learning accuracy for details. For researchers interested in spatial ability, the differences between scoring for proportionality and/or for accuracy of detail could be more systematically studied using a larger sample, a different combination of spatial tests, and perhaps a different criterion measure.…”