VISUAL THINKING: ENHANCING ART CRITICISM SKILLS AMONG SPATIAL LEARNERS

Art criticism is one of the four foundational disciplines of Discipline-based Art Education (DBAE). It refers to an organized system for studying the work of art by looking and talking about art that involves making description, analysis, interpretation and judgments about artworks. However, most of the times, students do not know what to say, or how to go about saying it, or they might make the wrong judgments. Art students are mostly visual-spatial learners. Very often these students also end up writing in a dull way, with little sense of academic values. Therefore, visual imageries play an important role for these spatial learners who are skilful in representing, transforming, generating, and recalling symbolic, non-linguistic information. In the 21st century, teaching and learning with technology have diversified to complement the age of digital era where technology is made available to cater for all learning styles. 

A Visual Thinking Courseware (VTC) was designed and developed to help solve the problem of teaching Art Education by introducing systematic strategies particularly on visuals to enhance students’ Art Criticism skills. Built on Gestalt Theory, the objective of this research was to determine the best visual selections for the teaching and learning of Art Criticism between Random Visual Selection (RVS) and Sequenced Visual Selection (SVS). Research was carried out to determine the difference in students’ performance in Art Criticism between High Spatial Learners (HSL) and Low Spatial Learners (LSL) using these RVS and SVS modes.

The methodology used in this research was quantitative and qualitative in nature. A quasi-experimental design was applied to collect the necessary data. A pretest and posttest for the two treatment groups was implemented. Six research instruments were used in the research to obtain the data namely, Index for learning Styles Questionnaire (ILSQ), Spatial Ability Test, Pretest and Posttest, Courseware Evaluation Form, Art Criticism Rubrics and Critical Thinking Rubrics. Sixty-three post degree education diploma students participated in this study. This research indicates that there are significant difference in students’ performance in Art Criticism skills between High Spatial Learners (HSL) and Low Spatial Learners (LSL) using RVS and SVS.

Data analysis showed that among HSL students, the RVS mode helped them to improve Art Criticism skills better than the SVS mode. For the LSL students, the SVS mode helped them to improve their Art Criticism skills better than the RVS mode. Therefore, it can be concluded that regardless of the visual selections, Visual Thinking Courseware used in this research enabled students to criticize better and help improve their Art Criticism skills.

Keywords: Visual Thinking, Spatial Ability, Art Criticism, Art Education