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| Project Details |
| Funding Scheme : | General Research Fund | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Number : | 18602918 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(English) : | A study of a Visual Culture Art Education model for promoting creativity and critical thinking skills in the senior high school context | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(Chinese) : | 視覺文化藝術教育模式提升高中生創造力和批判思考能力研究 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(English) : | Dr Lau, Chung Yim | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Department : | Department of Cultural and Creative Arts | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Institution : | The Education University of Hong Kong | ||||||||||||||||||||
| E-mail Address : | chungyim@eduhk.hk | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Tel : | 2948 8333 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
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| Panel : | Humanities, Social Sciences | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Subject Area : | Education | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Exercise Year : | 2018 / 19 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Fund Approved : | 474,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Status : | Completed | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Completion Date : | 31-12-2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Objectives : |
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| Abstract as per original application (English/Chinese): |
There is a gap between the traditional art education model and the needs of contemporary society. The main content of Discipline-based Art Education (DBAE), developed by art educators in the 1980s-90s, has been adopted by the Hong Kong Education Bureau since 1996. The aim of DBAE is to educate students to become an elite in high/fine arts. However, the assumptions in DBAE about art education fail to justify the use of a modernist paradigm for teaching and learning art in the postmodern era. Art educators criticize DBAE’s monotype mode of teaching for producing students who do not have the ability to think critically. Since DBAE celebrates only modern art and culture, it fails to fulfill the needs produced by the rapid changes that take place in contemporary society and in the students’ social lives. It cannot cultivate the higher order thinking or visual literacy skills that students require to appreciate and interpret artworks, and to create meaning about society and themselves. As a new model for art education, art educators claim that Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) facilitates students’ critical thinking skills and creativity related to their daily, postmodern lives. It critically reflects the complexity of the relationships between students’ social lives, everyday life experiences and the visual images they encounter. The aim of VCAE is to nourish critical, reflective and creative thinking skills to prepare the new generation with the level of visual literacy they need for the 21st century. In the long run, VCAE can provide an educational method that nourishes students’ critical and interpretive abilities to suit the needs of Hong Kong culture. However, we do not know how effective VCAE is and teachers do not know how to use VCAE to teach. A VCAE model is necessary for knowledge transfer, but one has not yet been established. By developing such a model the proposed study will bridge the gap between theory and practice. It will also help to bridge the gaps between students’ learning, their everyday socio-cultural life and the real world. This study will adopt a design-based research methodology, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, to examine the effectiveness of VCAE and to identify its teaching and learning approaches. Data collection and evaluation methods include pre-test, post-test and delayed post-test evaluations of students’ portfolios, observations, interviews with teachers and students and document analysis. Senior high schools, teachers and their students will be involved in the study. 傳統藝術教育模式與當代社會需求之間存在著差距。由藝術教育工作者在20世紀80至90年代開發的以學科為本的藝術教育 (DBAE) 的主要內容，自1996年以來一直由香港教育局採用。DBAE 的目的是教育學生成為高級/精緻藝術的精英；然而，DBAE對於藝術教育的假設，未能支撐在後現代時代使用現代主義範式來教授和學習藝術的合理性。藝術教育家批評DBAE的單一教學模式，僅在培養沒有批判性思考能力的學生。由於DBAE只頌揚現代藝術和文化，它未能滿足當代社會和學生社交生活中發生的快速變化所產生的需求，它也不能培養學生欣賞和詮釋藝術作品所需要的更高思維或視覺素養能力，並創造出對社會和自身的意義。作為一種新的藝術教育模式，藝術教育家聲稱視覺文化藝術教育 (VCAE) 能促進學生的批判思考能力和與他們日常的後現代生活相關的創造力。它批判地反映了學生的社會生活、日常生活經歷和他們所遇到的視覺形象之間的關係的複雜性。VCAE的目的是培養批判性、反思性和創造性思考技能，使新一代具備21世紀所需要的視覺素養水平。長遠來說，VCAE可以提供一種教育方法，助長學生的批判和詮釋能力，以適應香港文化的需要。然而，我們不知道VCAE的效果如何，教師也不知道如何使用VCAE進行教學。VCAE的模式對於知識轉移是必要的，但尚未建立。通過建立這樣的一個模式，該研究將填補理論與實踐之間的間隙。這也將有助於拉近學生的學習、他們的日常社會文化生活和現實世界之間的距離。本研究將採用以設計為本的研究取向，結合定量和定性的方法，研究VCAE的有效性，並確定其教學和學習方法。資料收集和評估方法包括學生的前測、後測和延後測試、課堂觀察、師生訪談和文件分析，高中學校、教師和學生將參與這項研究。 |
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| Realisation of objectives: | All the four objectives have been achieved, although the Covid-10 pandemic and social incidents occurred and became severe during 1999-2020. During 1999-2020, the Hong Kong Government announced the social distancing policy. In light of the worsening situation of the COVID-19 epidemic, the Education Bureau (EDB) also announced that all kindergartens, as well as primary and secondary schools, suspended face-to-face classes and school activities. Therefore, all face-to-face classes were almost suspended for one semester, affecting the learning and teaching of visual arts. However, all the incidents mentioned previously and policies slightly affect the research plan. They only affected the arrangement and organization of the research activities of Phase I of the project. In fact, based on the research plan, the focus of Phase I was mainly on preparation, organizing and conducting seminars/workshops for teachers and independent assessors and the unit/lesson plans design. Because of the incidents and policy, all the teachers who participated in the study needed to revise and adjust their VCAE unit and lesson plans in order to fulfil the requirements of the research study. Under such circumstances, the research team closely worked with the teachers and tried their best to assist the teachers in implementing their VCAE teaching. Fortunately and eventually, the field-test and the evaluation of the outcomes and impact of VCAE have been smoothly completed on schedule. Meanwhile, the findings of the study have identified various meaningful learning and teaching approaches to VCAE, including 1) impact on increasing the awareness of students’ identity, 2) impact on knowledge transfer using interdisciplinary learning strategies, and 3) impact of everyday technology on visual culture learning. The study also suggests a revised VCAE pedagogical model at the senior high school level. These approaches will undoubtedly contribute to the subject knowledge and enrich our understanding of VCAE. Finally, the research results are disseminated primarily through publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations. Since the social distancing policy in Hong Kong, it is impossible to conduct a face-to-face knowledge transfer seminar/workshop to share the study's findings with art teachers, art educators and relevant stakeholders. The sharing seminar/workshop was thus changed to be conducted via Zoom on 23/11/2021. All the Experimental Group (EG) teachers were invited to present in the seminar/workshop. Besides, local art educators, art teachers and pre-service teachers, and EDB officials were also invited to participate in the seminar/workshop (N = 32). On the other hand, in the sharing meeting, the research team described, analyzed and interpreted the findings and challenges of the study. They recommend some possible ways to implement VCAE. All the participants shared their learning and teaching activities, difficulties and challenges, and views on improving the VCAE curriculum. Upon request, the research team will send the video clip of the sharing meeting to art teachers in Hong Kong. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Summary of objectives addressed: |
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| Research Outcome | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Major findings and research outcome: | 1. Major findings and research outcomes no. 1, 2 & 4 In the field-test, a comparison of the control group (CG) and the experimental group (EG) test score shows a significant overall difference in the improvement of the EG in the four domains (i.e. Creativity, Critical Thinking Skills, Visual Presentation/Analysis and Self-reflection in Learning. Specifically, the EG’s test score improvement in Creativity rated the highest (7.71 per cent), with that in Critical Thinking Skills rating second (7.66 per cent), followed by Visual Presentation/Analysis (3.13 per cent) and finally Self-reflection in Learning (1.32 per cent). In sum, both the senior secondary school students’ creativity and critical thinking skills increased significantly after the study’s intervention. It can thus be concluded that VCAE can effectively facilitate students’ creativity and critical thinking skills at the senior secondary school level. The results indicate that VCAE has a positive effect on students’ learning. 2. Major findings and research outcomes no. 2, 3 & 4 In the case studies, three main themes have been identified. They are 1) Impact on increasing the awareness of students’ identity, 2) Impact on knowledge transfer using interdisciplinary learning strategies and 3) Impact of everyday technology on visual culture learning. In sum, both students and teachers determine the value of identity in VCAE. They realize that the visual culture curriculum content can produce an authentic, interdisciplinary learning and teaching environment in which they may become critical thinkers. Second, the study suggests that visual culture learning involves an interdisciplinary knowledge transfer process. During the inquiry process of VCAE, students cognitively and autonomously employ interdisciplinary learning strategies, intentionally comparing and contrasting their art knowledge and knowledge from other disciplines to respond to contemporary issues. Third, the study indicates that everyday technology is not only an effective means by which students may study but also an interdisciplinary, intellectual platform on which they may communicate with both identity and socio-cultural issues to construct knowledge about contemporary society. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Potential for further development of the research and the proposed course of action: |
Several pedagogical implications can be drawn from the study. 1. Future research could focus on investigating the three main elements of VCAE (i.e. identity and change, interdisciplinary strategies and the technology in everyday life) and how they suit the context of the contemporary world. 2. Teachers should consider including various learning activities in the art curriculum to help develop students’ identities and evaluate how they change through visual culture learning. The "change" can be one of the important research topics and should be examined and studied through action research. 3. Although the teachers in the study confessed that it could be difficult and challenging to facilitate students’ critical thinking with the traditional curriculum, teachers could encourage students to make changes by introducing interdisciplinary learning approaches in the existing art curriculum. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Layman's Summary of Completion Report: | In Hong Kong, the Curriculum Development Council regards creativity and critical thinking skills as learning focuses for visual arts students. However, the Education Bureau has promoted Discipline-based Art Education (DBAE), developed by art educators in the 1980s and ’90s, to teachers since 1996. As DBAE disconnects students’ everyday life experiences from the contemporary socio-cultural context, it cannot cultivate the higher-order thinking or visual literacy skills necessary for students to appreciate artworks and create meaning in society and themselves. As a current model for art education, art educators invent a new model called "Visual Culture Art Education" (VCAE). They claim that this model can facilitate students’ critical thinking skills and creativity related to their daily lives. VCAE aims to nourish critical, reflective and creative thinking skills to equip rising generations with the level of visual literacy required in the 21st century. However, we do not know how effective VCAE is in cultivating Hong Kong senior secondary school students’ creativity and critical thinking skills or what its outcomes are. It was the first VCAE study in Hong Kong. It would thus offer international scholars alternative directions for future research and give local teachers guidelines regarding how to teach visual culture. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Research Output | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Peer-reviewed journal publication(s) arising directly from this research project : (* denotes the corresponding author) |
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| Recognized international conference(s) in which paper(s) related to this research project was/were delivered : |
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| Other impact (e.g. award of patents or prizes, collaboration with other research institutions, technology transfer, etc.): |
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| SCREEN ID: SCRRM00542 |