Elevating Students’ Interest in Learning Visual Art Education (VAE): Exploring Issues on Barriers and Challenges

Abstract

Until today, visual art education (VAE) received limited attention in Malaysian particularly at the secondary school level. Students are allocated to the arts stream during upper secondary school based on the outcomes of their prior examinations. Hence, this study aims to explore current art students' interest, challenges, and their commitment to art education. This study employed a survey research design to collect the relevant quantitative data using questionnaire This study involved 62 students from Art Stream students. They were purposefully selected among secondary school students in Selangor, Malaysia. The students answered the questionnaire in Google Forms which were distributed online to the respondents. Questionnaires were used as research instruments to identify respondents' perceptions of Visual Art Education. The data obtained were analyzed descriptively statically using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 23 to obtain the frequency distribution, percentage, mean and standard deviation. The findings in this study showed that factors that affect students' commitment to Visual Art Education are they are easily stressed by the lack of art materials and tools to do the Visual Art activities, they think that Visual Art Education is difficult and the lack of exposure to Visual Art Education. We could see that the students think Visual Art Education is important in their studies and can enhance their creativity. The finding also shows that teachers used improper teaching aids.