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- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Arizona State University
- Status: Published
Description
This qualitative case study of 12, eighteen to twenty-four-year-olds from seven countries provided insight into the learning practices on an art-centered, social media platform. The study addressed two guiding questions; (a) what art related skills, knowledge, and dispositions do community members acquire using a social media platform? (b), What new literacy practices, e.g., the use of new technologies and an ethos of participation, collective intelligence, collaboration, dispersion of abundant resources, and sharing (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007), do members use in acquiring of art-related skills, concepts, knowledge, and dispositions? Data included interviews, online documents, artwork, screen capture of online content, threaded online discussions, and a questionnaire. Drawing on theory and research from both new literacies and art education, the study identified five practices related to learning in the visual arts: (a) practicing as professional artists; (b) engaging in discovery based search strategies for viewing and collecting member produced content; (c) learning by observational strategies; (d) giving constructive criticism and feedback; (e) making learning resources. The study presents suggestions for teachers interested in empowering instruction with new social media technologies.
ContributorsJones, Brian (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Guzzetti, Barbara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT This qualitative study examines how high school art teachers conceive of being a good art teacher. Motivated by my own experiences as an art teacher, I designed this study to add teachers' voices to the conversation surrounding quality in education. My research design included a narrative strand and an arts-based strand. In the narrative strand, I interviewed and observed 12 high school art educators from a major city in the southwest. I conducted an autoethnographic reflection exploring my connection to the research topic and research process. In the arts-based strand I used fiber-arts to further understand my topic. I wrote this dissertation using a narrative approach, blending the traditional research format, voices of participants, and my autoethnographic reflection. I included the results of my arts-based approach in the final chapter. Findings suggest that the teachers in this study conceptualize being a good art teacher as a process of identity construction. Each of the teachers understood what it meant to be a good art teacher in unique ways, connected to their personal experiences and backgrounds. As the teachers engaged in identity work to become the kind of art teacher they wanted to be, they engaged in a process of identity construction that consisted of four steps. I propose a model of identity construction in which the teachers chose teaching practices, evaluated those practices, identified challenges to their identities, and selected strategies to confirm, assert, or defend their desired identities. The findings have implications for teachers to become reflective practitioners; for teacher educators to prepare teachers to engage in reflective practices; and for administrators and policy makers to take into account the cyclical and personal nature of identity construction. This study also has implications for further research including the need to examine the dispositions of art teachers, teachers' evolving conceptions of what it means to be a good art teacher, and the effect labeling teachers' quality has on their identity construction.
ContributorsAndrelchik, Hillary (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study aimed to understand, compare and describe details about U.S children and Taiwanese children's visual image reading. The researcher interviewed thirty children ages 8 to 10 in the state of Arizona and Taiwan. The researcher employed quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data. The analysis using these two methods provided different ways of comprehending the data. The results showed that the two groups of children's image reading did not have statistically significant differences in most categories; but there were demonstrable trends and viewpoints employed when both groups of children explained the details of the images. First, the children expressed what they saw in the images in six ways. The U.S. children were more able to describe contexts with self-experiences/opinions and/or associations than the Taiwanese children. Second, when interpreting the meanings, the Taiwanese children understood the concepts of the images better than the U.S. group. The U.S. children were more critical and expressed self-opinions/associations more. Third, when asked preferences, the U.S. children paid more attention to identify their favorites and express feeling the images brought to them. The Taiwanese children cared more about style and form. Fourth, when judging the images, the U.S. children emphasized the artist's devotion to creating while Taiwanese children considered the form, composition, colors, structure, design, and composition. The results also indicated that the children decided their preferences and their judgments of artworks might be based on multiple viewpoints instead of a single one, especially for the Taiwanese children. Some cultural differences between the two groups of children and their image readings were presented, such as, cultural differences made children have different learned symbolism.
ContributorsChiou, Yu-ting (Author) / Young, Bernard (Thesis advisor) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Through the disciplines of art education, anthropology and psychology the researcher examined research-based traits and characteristics of the creative process among a second year Title 1 urban high school art class. Within the theoretical framework of social justice, this micro-ethnographic study explored exactly what teaching and learning to be creative implies and proposes a potential resolution for art teachers learning how to enhance teaching children how to think creatively. The research proposition is that student creativity occurs as a function of a series of interrelated factors including a nurturing classroom context, strong teacher-student dialogue, strategic questioning, purposeful incorporation of visual culture, and manipulation of content in favor of student interests within the culturally situated context of the art classroom. Navigating teacher-student relationships at moments of creative origination produced results indicating that the art teacher alone is the single most influential factor for enhancing creative outcomes in a classroom. Through incorporation of a variety of collaborative activities and comparative analysis of dissimilar content-driven projects generated evidence that artistic skills and creativity do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. The study finds that the artworks produced evidence based nuances of the creative traits of originality, fluency, flexibility, and elaboration in which profoundly varied in character depending on the content and the context. The study concludes that creativity cannot be strictly taught or learned, but rather that it can be enhanced through teacher nurturing and manipulation of content to encompass a socially intelligent uptake in the culture of art-making. Broader implications are suggested focusing on the significance of creative education and the impact it can have for educational systems, schools and undergraduate programs in art education. The researcher proposes an art education curriculum model that fosters both creative thinking and the unique learning needs of Title 1 urban students. The curriculum suggests the art teacher begin initial instruction by teaching students about the traits, characteristics and obstructions of creativity prior to teaching artistic skills sets to serve as a foundation of creative awareness from the start.
ContributorsForeman, Angela (Author) / Young, Bernard (Thesis advisor) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The general field of interest of this study was art education in the context of art museums in the United States. The vehicle of a mixed method, descriptive research design was used to investigate whether museum educator and curator participants had tendencies to use personal or communal approaches (Barrett, 2000) to teaching art interpretation to adult visitors. While the personal approach to art interpretation focused on individuals' responses to artworks, the communal approach emphasized the community of art scholars' shared understandings of artworks.
Understanding the communities of practice of the participants was integral to the discovery of meaning in the study's findings. Wenger (1998) introduced the theory of community of practice to explain how individuals, who are united in a particular context, shared similar perspectives, learned socially from each other, and gained a sense of identity through their routines and interactions. The study examined how museum educators' and curators' separate communities of practice influenced their members' teaching approaches through the development of distinct teacher personae. Teacher personae reflected the educational values and priorities of museum educators' and curators' communities of practice. And, teacher personae had tendencies to adopt personal or communal approaches to art interpretation.
Understanding the communities of practice of the participants was integral to the discovery of meaning in the study's findings. Wenger (1998) introduced the theory of community of practice to explain how individuals, who are united in a particular context, shared similar perspectives, learned socially from each other, and gained a sense of identity through their routines and interactions. The study examined how museum educators' and curators' separate communities of practice influenced their members' teaching approaches through the development of distinct teacher personae. Teacher personae reflected the educational values and priorities of museum educators' and curators' communities of practice. And, teacher personae had tendencies to adopt personal or communal approaches to art interpretation.
ContributorsSchmitt, Rory (Author) / Erickson, Mary L (Thesis advisor) / Toon, Richard (Committee member) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Held, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This quantitative, quasi-experimental study examined the effectiveness of three types of online guided-practice activities designed to increase learning of visual art concepts, the color concepts of hue, tint, shade, value, and neutral colors in particular, among fifth grade students in a large school district in the southwestern United States. The study's results indicated that, when students were given a limited amount of time to engage in practice activities, there was no statistically significant difference among the three types of guided practice and the control group. What was effective, however, was the instructional component of this study's instruments.
ContributorsDelahunt, Michael (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Atkinson, Robert (Committee member) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
I conducted this qualitative research including data collection, data analysis and comparison analysis in a Casting and Jewelry Techniques course at Arizona State University for a whole semester. The purpose of this research was to explore the symbolic interactive meaning of metalworking to university students in metal courses, and if they had various learning needs to improve and enhance their metal art making by seeking their responses to the relationship between technical issues and concepts of their own artworks. The study results showed that the meanings of metalworking to students were craftsmanship, and a sense of accomplishment, and it related to their daily lives in career and presentation. Most of them focused on the degree of technical completion and forms of work rather than expressive concepts, and techniques were important in their works. I compared my findings in this study with my pilot study and James's study in a sculpture studio class, and found some similarities in teacher's philosophy and students' metalwork meanings that included career aspirations, some peer interaction, technical concerns rather than concept formation, and process as serious play or the exploration of materials.
ContributorsHsu, Kai-Hsuan (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Using arts-informed ethnographic approaches, theatrical techniques and a feminist/performance studies lens, this study analyzes the construction of US girlhood from the perspective of girls ranging in age from fourteen to seventeen by examining their original artistic creations and performances. Placing the artifacts of girl-created culture and the girls' representations, which I view as a performative practice, at the heart of my study, I connect girlhood studies to Butler's gender performance theories and to the larger field of performance studies. Rather than strictly analyzing these original works myself, I involve the girl participants as co-theorists in the analysis of the resulting artistic creations as a performance of girlhood. Through our theory building sessions, we aim to discover a nuanced understanding of girlhood and how gender identity can be performed by adolescent girls, as well as how artistic and theatrical practices can serve to assist youth in exploring complex issues. The adolescent female participants serve as active writers and performers of girlhood and through their writing and performances demonstrate their understanding of what it means to be a girl in contemporary US society. In viewing the girls as theorists, I demonstrate their capabilities while honoring their experiences and knowledge, an approach I believe should be more often employed in academia and in everyday life. Specifically, my study's central research question asks: how do US girls consume mass media representations of girlhood and reproduce or subvert these representations? In what ways do girls perform their understandings of their own identities and what it means to be a girl in contemporary US society through their creations of original art and literature, live theatrical pieces, and digital cultural practices? These works include theatrical performances, creative writing, self-portrait sculptures, and blogs/journals. Additionally, I conduct and analyze both solo and group interviews. I assert the importance of creative space and theatrical/artistic practices as tools with which girls can examine and challenge girlhood and gender discourses.
ContributorsMinarsich, Teresa (Author) / Etheridge Woodson, Stephani (Thesis advisor) / Saldana, Johnny (Committee member) / Melo, Carla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Black Rock City is a temporary city existing for one week in the harsh desert of northern Nevada. It plays host to the Burning Man festival with over 300 large-scale art installations and is considered to be the largest interactive art festival in the world. Besides the main burn, smaller local regional events have developed. These regional events encompass many of the same tenets as Burning Man including the presentation of large-scale art. Burn2 is the regional event held on the virtual world, Second Life. In 2013, both events used the theme of Cargo Cult as a stepping off point for the artists. Through the lens of spectacle, I used art criticism as a way to gain understanding of the artworks.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
ContributorsKrecker, Linda Susan (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In this study, I investigate the digital literacy practices of adult immigrants, and their relationship with transnational processes and practices. Specifically, I focus on their conditions of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their life trajectories, their conditions of learning in a community center, and their appropriation of digital literacy practices for transnational purposes. By studying the culturally situated nature of digital literacies of adult learners with transnational affiliations, I build on recent empirical work in the fields of New Literacy Studies, sociocultural approaches to learning, and transnational studies. In this qualitative study, I utilized ethnographic techniques for data collection, including participant observation, interviewing, and collection of material and electronic artifacts. I drew from case study approaches to analyze and present the experiences of five adult first-generation immigrant participants. I also negotiated multiple positionalities during the two phases of the study: as a participant observer and instructor's aide during the Basic Computer Skills course participants attended, and as a researcher-practitioner in the Web Design course that followed. From these multiple vantage points, my analysis demonstrates that participants' access to ICTs is shaped by structural factors, family dynamics, and individuals' constructions of the value of digital literacies. These factors influence participants' conditions of access to material resources, such as computer equipment, and access to mentoring opportunities with members of their social networks. In addition, my analysis of the instructional practices in the classroom shows that instructors used multiple modalities, multiple languages and specialized discourses to scaffold participants' understandings of digital spaces and interfaces. Lastly, in my analysis of participants' repertoires of digital literacy practices, I found that their engagement in technology use for purposes of communication, learning, political participation and online publishing supported their maintenance of transnational affiliations. Conversely, participants' transnational ties and resources supported their appropriation of digital literacies in everyday practice. This study concludes with a discussion on the relationship among learning, digital literacies and transnationalism, and the contributions of critical and ethnographic perspectives to the study of programs that can bridge digital inequality for minority groups.
ContributorsNoguerón, Silvia Cecilia (Author) / Warriner, Doris S (Thesis advisor) / Faltis, Christian J (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011