Literary review:

After reading the summary of a report entitled ‘Arts in the Secondary Schools: Effects and Effectiveness’ (Harland, Kinder, Lord et all) I felt compelled to write this review. Their research question was ‘Does the involvement in the arts in secondary school boost general academic performance?’ The study was conducted over several years performing case studies on ‘five secondary schools in the United Kingdom with strong arts reputations’ and examining the GCSE results of over twenty seven thousand students from 152.  The qualitive information collected from the case studies was primarily based on students own opinions and the quantative data based on the exam results.

When starting to read this report I saw a lot of similarities to my own inquiry which sparked my attention, upon further reading element of their research continued to crop up which didn’t sit right with me. Firstly they state that they reviewed results for 27,607 students from 152 schools and distributed questionnaires to 2,269 students in 22 schools. Now the report does not make this clear but from these numbers I can assume that their conclusions have been based on all yr 11 students and not just those who have opted to take one of the creative arts subjects for GCSE.  Thus some of the questionnaire answers have come from students who might not have studied an arts subject for nearly two years; surely this data will skew the results. Student opinion was strongly considered when drawing their conclusions and even though students’ opinions are very useful I do not think I would have based my findings primarily on these opinions as at this age they are not always able to see how subjects can benefit each other, plus there is a strong chance that their opinions have been based more on an emotional response than fact for example a students experience with a particular teacher might sway their responses.

During the first module I made an entry in my in my journal commenting on how frustrating I was finding it trying to get the yr10 students to take the knowledge that they had learned in History about the second world war and the years that immediately followed and using it to draw conclusions about the social and economical state of American as a reason for the emergence of the pop art movement. When it was explained to they could understand this link but unless it was pointed out for them they would not make use of the knowledge they had learned in other subjects. Now this clearly is not because one subject does not help with the understanding of the other subject as I do not believe that anybody could dispute that an understanding of certain historical events will help you to understand the reasoning behind certain art movement rather I believe it is because teachers do not make these cross curriculum connections more obvious to the students. I am aware that this is something teachers should be doing as I have noticed them adding it into their lesson plans when they are undergoing lesson observation but then forget about it the rest of the time. I believe that highlighting these links is vital to improve the students overall understanding. At the moment I believe that there is too much of a barrier between subjects too often have I heard students make comments like I love Drama but hate English and it is not explained to them that the two are intricately linked, one could not be without the other.

The study concluded that ‘no relationship existed between studying the arts in secondary school and performance on national exams.’ These findings were unlike the conclusions drawn from similar investigations conducted in schools in the United Sates, their reasoning for this was ‘perhaps in the United States academically strong students are advised to study the arts, while in the United Kingdom, academically strong students are not encouraged to study the arts.’ From my experience of working in a secondary school I believe that this is the case and to further stigmatise the subjects, it is reviewed by other subject teachers as an ‘easy option’ and this belief filters down to the student. In the opinion of someone who has not only studied the subject for over a decade and taught it, I can confirm that this is not the case. The standard of analytical writing on not only their own work but also the works of others is expected to be of as high a calibre as would be expected in an English exam. This subject also asks you to view and think about things in a different way, pieces of work are not merely made for the sake of making them; they have more meaning or depth behind them. This is not always obvious and different people might have conflicting views on the meaning of a piece, but we ask the student to form an intelligent, independent opinion. How is this dissimilar to what they are asked to do in English with literature and poetry, and how could having more practice at thinking and writing in this way not improve your English level?

To study art at any level takes a huge amount of self discipline and self motivation, something which teenagers are not always renowned for, this is also the case with the other arts but I speak mainly about the study of fine art as this is where my expertise lays. If students do not have a certain level of self motivation and discipline they will not be successful on this course as there are not enough taught hours scheduled on the timetable to get the work done, this is unique to this subject and is understood by most of the students early on in the course and I struggle to see how developing the skill of independent learning could not be beneficial in the study of all other subjects especially when it comes to prioritising revision.

This study has also stated that most of their qualitive data had been collected from schools with strong arts reputation; I believe that this choice of screening was a mistake, how can you comment on the effectiveness of a subject if you only look at the top end and do not take a cross section of schools? Theses findings do not show an accurate depiction of the whole country. In spite of the fact that state secondary schools cannot restrict entry due to academic performance exemplar schools tend to attract exemplar pupils meaning the influence of the arts might not have such an obvious effect on the performance academically as it would if you were to look at an underachieving school. The school I currently work in would be considered an oversubscribed, under achieving inter city school and it is clear how much the study of art helps their literacy level and general use of vocabulary, this might not be the case of all such schools but I believe that other school demographics should have been taken into consideration when collecting their data. This is why I plan to investigate three contrasting schools; my schools will differ in location, pupil demographic and budgetary constraints so that I know that if any trends do emerge I could assume that these trends might reflect most schools nation wide.

In conclusion I believe that this investigation carried out to highlight the effectiveness of the teaching of the arts in secondary schools was flawed to the point that I do not believe that the conclusions that they have drawn effectively reflect the overall teaching of the arts in secondary schools in the UK. Further more I believe that the research question ‘does the involvement in the arts in secondary school boost general academic performance’ is rather a redundant one as we have already established that there are different learning styles, some people learn better with visual aids and working problems out through trail and error, while others learn best in a more tradition learning environment  of reading and memorising, thus the focus should be how can we as teachers be more creative with our teaching styles and incorporate some of the methods used in teaching the arts and other practical subjects to accommodate the different learning styles we will encounter.

References:

• Harland. J, Kinder. K, Lord. P, Scott. A, Schagen. I, Haynes. J, Cusworth. L, White. R and Paola. R, (October 2000) ‘Arts Education in Secondary School: Effects and Effectiveness’ The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), Berkshire, UK.

Revised introduction

I started to write the first draft of my inquiry a couple of weeks ago then following reading Mark’s blog i thought I would write a summery of the inquiry to give to the participants so that they fully understood what they were agreeing to be involved in but as I wrote it I found myself writing another draft of the introduction. I think this draft is more concise and more importantly is within the word count, I think it also outlines the inquiry enough to also use as information for the participants.

Working title: ‘Does active experimentation with processes and materials give a developing artist a firmer understanding of their professional practice? How can this concept be developed to enhance the teaching of the subject?’

This inquiry will take the form of an in depth investigation into the study and teaching of art at key stage 4 and 5, comparing three contrasting art departments and identifying their different practices and constraints which are put upon them. The participant’s roll as either as a current student or an art teacher will be to answer a questionnaire, be involved in interviews conducted by me and be a part of observed lessons. As the period of time during which I will be collecting the information will be relatively short (collection time will run from the beginning of the michilmas term to two weeks into the second half of that term) the participants’ involvement will not be extensive which means that their studies or jobs should not too disrupted. The inquiry will mainly be qualitive based on my observations from the information collected the opinions of the students involved and what I have learnt from the previous modules and previous two years at my current school.

My main aim is to investigate how students experiment with processes and materials and how this impacts the work that they make. To complete the inquiry an in depth investigation will be conducted upon three contrasting art departments. The three schools differ in location, pupil demographics and departmental budgets one of the schools is the secondary school which I currently work in thus this department will act as the base from which my comparisons are drawn. By looking into the children’s experiences and comparing and contrasting the different teaching styles both within the department and between the schools I believe I will have a strong overview of how the subject should be successfully taught.

Through this investigation my inquiry plans to address the following question: What further measures can be implemented in the classroom to further encourage students to experiment with a variety of processes and materials? How do art students manage the transition from the study of GCSE to A-level? What constraints are put on art departments by both the school and outside influences and how might these constraints influence the work made by their students? How do art teachers and their support staff help to foster creativity? Finally with talks of the government changing the curriculum to the English baccalaureate (E-bac) what is the future for this subject?

Upon completion of this inquiry a document will be made outlining my findings and explaining how the information gathered can be translated into a teaching and learning environment. This document will act as an aid for student teachers and newly qualified teacher (NQT) who wish to expand their knowledge of teaching the subject and as a guide for how creativity and methods of experimentation can be encouraged in the classroom.  

This line of inquiry has been chosen as not only is it relevant to the work that I am doing now in a secondary school art department but I am also hoping that it will help me to gain a place on a graduate teacher training course. 

Inquiry introduction first draft

Working title: ‘Does active experimentation with processes and materials give a developing artist a firmer understanding of their professional practice? How can this concept be developed to enhance the teaching of the subject?’

Introduction:

This inquiry plans to examine the teaching of art at key stage 4 and 5 focusing on the progression of art students from GCSE and A-level. I predict that the encouragement of active experimentation will improve both the quality of the students work and their understanding of the subject. This theory will be investigated by exploring the following key issues: How do students cope with the transition between GCSE and A-level? What constraints are put on art departments by both the school and outside influences and how do these constraints influence the work made by the students? How can this idea be effectively translated into a teaching and learning environment?  How do art teachers help to foster the different learning styles within the class room? Finally where do the creative arts sit within the curriculum and what is the possible future for the subject?

To complete the inquiry an in depth investigation will be conducted upon three contrasting art departments. The three schools differ in location pupil demographics and departmental budgets one of the schools is the secondary school which I currently work in thus this department will act as the base from which my comparisons are drawn. By looking into the children’s experiences and comparing and contrasting the different teaching styles both within the department and between the schools I believe I will have a strong overview of how the subject should be successfully taught.

 The information will be gathered during the first half of the autumn which is a relatively short period of time and a number of the students will be at the start of their course so many of them will not have had much time to reflect on the course which will have both it’s advantages and disadvantages in that their experiences from their previous course, be it GCSE or AS-level will be fresh in their mind, but on the other hand they might not fully understand what the course entails. Thus I will also be relying on some of my prior knowledge which I have gained through the last two years of working in my current department. For the purpose of this inquiry I will be investigating the study of Art and design with the endorsement of fine art only Edexcel defines fine art as ‘work which is produced as a outcome of students’ personal experiences, rather than that which is created exclusively for a practical function or that which is the outcome of a tightly prescribed brief’ Edexcel GCSE specification 2008

From reading through a number of exam boards specifications for both GCSE and A-level it has become apparent that they do stress the importance of experimentation both as a way to improve their knowledge of different techniques and to learn trough their mistakes thus helping to form their individual artistic identity, a concept which is important if the students choose to study A-level. This inquiry plans to highlight how such experimentation is encouraged and where further encouragement can be introduced.

Upon completion of this course I plan to go on to do initial teacher training, I believe that this inquiry will give me a better understanding of how the subject is taught, how the different course specifications can be interpreted and what is makes a competent art teacher. The completion of this inquiry will result in a guide for people such as myself who are looking to enter the teaching profession or newly qualified teachers to demonstrate how experimentation can be encouraged in the classroom and how this benefits the students.

questionnaire issues

So I have began to think about my questionnaires, what questions I need to ask to ensure that I get all the information I need and how am I going to distribute these questionnaires? Already I have come across a few major issues firstly I am now unsure if a survey is the best research tool to use on this occasion as many of the questions I wish to as could have some quite long winded answers and I am concerned that the students will not give me as much written information as they would if they were to answer verbally. I do not want to interview each student as it will be very time consuming and I wanted to use the survey as a screening process to select which students I wish to interview. I think I am going to have to stick to this method of data collection with the knowledge that I might have to use another method is a large number of the students choose to not to answer the questionnaire properly.

Another issue I have thought of is how I distribute the questionnaires? Ideally I would like to use Survey Monkey give the students the link and ask them to complete the questionnaire but I am concerned how many of them will actually do it. I know that this is a risk you take when using a questionnaire but I think the risk is higher when you ask school students to do something for school which is not mandatory. I can insist that the students that I teach fill them in during class time but I cannot expect other teacher to do the same. I plan to discuss this matter with the head of the department to see if he has any suggestions. 

Reflections on Research Tools:

Following my research into the possible tools to use for my inquiry I can conclude that I plan to use lesson observations, surveys/questionnaires and interviews. I had hope to use focus groups to get the three age groups together to discuss their thought on the course but upon conducting a pilot focus group the possible problems with this research tool became apparent. The pilot involved students in the current year 11 with that hear of the department acting as the gatekeeper. This is a trying group at the best of times and do not reflect the average standard of students in this art department. The majority of them have a very immature attitude which was very apparent in this discussion. It started off well, I asked them to reflect on their experiences on the GCSE course and encouraged them to talk about any regrets they might have. A common theme amongst them was they wished that they worked harder in yr10 to take some of the pressure off of them in yr11 and would have liked to have completed their coursework earlier so that they could have gotten unit 2, the externally set assignment finished earlier. All of this would be very useful for the current yr10’s to hear as this is something we stress to them constantly. Unfortunately they very quickly went off topic and the discussion erupted into an argument with the less outgoing and confident students getting lost in shouting. On a number of occasions the teacher and I tried to calm them down and get them back on topic with little success. I think one of the main problems with this group is there are a lot of loud and aggressive characters who tend to dominate situation. I was disappointed with the outcome as I feel that it would be beneficial for the younger years to learn of the older groups experiences and hopefully try to avoid making the same mistakes as them but in the case of this pilot I think there would be little useful information anybody could take from this particular focus group. I am not ruling out this tool entirely but as it is time consuming and the time that I can spend with the students is limited I am unsure how useful it will be.

Before conducting the survey pilot I had planned to use this tool as one of the ways of communicating with some of our current yr11 students who are leaving at the end of this year but I found that to get the information I would like from the students would be very time consuming using this tool. Many of the questions which I had planned to ask are open questions which would require a lengthy answer. I my experience of dealing with students of this age is if the work is not mandatory a massive amount of thought will not go into it. I fear that I might end up with over simplified answers which will not give me the incite I desire, but if you were to ask them this question verbally you would get a much more in depth response. This method could also prove to be very time consuming for the students and I in no way want their involvement in my inquiry to encroach on their time spent on their school work. As a result the surveys/questionnaires will be used to gather quantative data.   

Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

Throughout this last module I have been attempting to solidify my position within my current practice by creating a proposal for an inquiry which will address some of the key issues that I have identified in my current work place. The inquiry plans to investigate the progression of pupils studying art and design form GCSE to A-level. Looking in Particular at how active experimentation with processes and materials can improve students overall understanding of the subject and the work that they produce. From working in a secondary school art department for just over a year I have noticed that the step from GCES and AS-level is quite a big one and a number of students struggle when making this transition. This is something that I also found when studying A-level art, the realisation that art is not necessarily only about having an aesthetically pleasing outcome but thinking creatively allowed me to succeed. The aim of this inquiry is to encourage students to work in this way.

The main focus of this module has been to develop this line of inquiry and think about how I plan to execute the inquiry in a way that will be both advantageous to the students and teacher who wish to approach the syllabus in this way. Experimentation is one of the key concepts and assessment criteria for GCSE, AS-level and A-level art. The means by which I plan to execute this inquiry have been outline in the inquiry proposal. Even before reading the module readers I had quite specific ideas about what I wanted the inquiry to be based on, I knew that I wanted to investigate the transition of students from GCSE to A-Level and incorporate this with my interest in experimenting with materials and processes. In hindsight I think that this was not the best approach as I found myself creating questions which would fit into what I wanted my line of inquiry to be rather than identifying already existing issues within my work place and my practice. At this point I was also seeing myself in two different fields, a practicing artist and a trainee teacher, I wanted to be seen primarily as an artist rather then an educator evidence of this can be seen in my initial award title rational (appendix A). As a result my inquiry developed two very distinct lines of inquiry a problem which was only resolved later in the module following further research.  

In the first module (3002) the concept of reflection was introduced, something which I though I already did, which to an extent was true but the introduction of the reflective diary into my working life really helped me with some very difficult situations which in turn meant that I handled the situations much more effectively when they next arose. When blogging about this I found that many other students were having similar problems and by sharing our experiences and advising each other I learnt coping techniques which I would not have thought of on my own (appendix B). The reflective diary will be key in the gathering of information for the inquiry as I will be observing a number of classes and as I have learnt form using this technique my initial thoughts are not always right, or the most unbiased of opinions as my reactions will be based on emotions rather then considered thought, as outlined in one of my blog posts this inquiry will strive to be as unbiased as possible (appendix C).

Throughout this module the majority of my time was spent looking into ethical implications which might arise when conducting this inquiry. I found this section very interesting and learnt a huge amount. Once again I though I had a firm understanding of the ethical issues that would have to be taken into consideration when conducting this inquiry as ethics and child safeguarding is a topic often discussed in staff meetings and inset days. What I had not taken in to consideration was if I was going to ask students to experiment with different and unconventional materials, what ethical issues have arisen when other artists have done this (appendix D)? Obviously I was not expecting the students to go to some of the extremes mentioned in appendix 4 but it is important for me as an educator to make them aware of these issues.

I had assumed that because my inquiry would involve minors I would have to get parental consent for the students to be involved in the inquiry, upon reading the reader I learnt of a term ‘Gillick’ (appendix E) whereby if a minor can be considered ‘Gillick’ competent they should be allowed to decide for themselves if they wish to be involved in the inquiry. This was something which I thought about for a while and in the end for reasons outlined in appendix E I decided to not grant any of the students involved in this inquiry this option as if I was not going to allow students from one school this right this should be the same with the other two schools. One of the three schools involved in this inquiry is an independent boarding school; I was concerned that obtaining parental consent for these students could prove to be lengthy processes as pupils only see their parents at half term and holidays. Upon speaking to the head of the art department I discovered that all pupils in such schools are in Loco parentis which means parental consent is not required for these students as the staff members/ housemasters can make the decision in absence of their parents.

During this time we were asked to set up a Special Interest Group (SIG) to discuss issues specific to your line of inquiry. I feel that I did not engage with my group as much as I could have because I felt that my issues and input was not as relevant to the other members of the group as I was the only fine artist. I tried to make my views relevant to all creative arts subjects and to talk about education in general but upon reading their posts, in particular the students looking at dance education I got the impression that the route that they take to become a teacher is very different to what I am experiencing, for example I posted a message about residual and tracking grades which I am still finding very confusing (appendix F) and I got he impression that this is not something that the other members in the group have had to deal with. I feel that my interaction with my SIG is an area that I have to work on more and believe could be useful throughout the inquiry. Another possible reason for why I have not engaged with the group as much as I could have is because I have a very good relationship with two of the art directors from the schools I am investigating, one of which I work with every day and thus I have been relying heavily on their knowledge when I have a question rather then asking the group.  

The final section of the module looked at research tools and asked us to start to think about which tools we would use to gather information for our inquiry. I was open to ideas from the outset as all of my previous projects has only involved researching literature and has never involved human subjects and thus was interested to try out the different methods. I knew that I wanted to use interviews as I thought that this would be the most effective way to gain information form individuals, and where students were concerned would put them in an environment where they did not feel like they would be pressured or scrutinised by their peers. What I did not take into consideration was how long they could take, my pilot interview took up to and in some cases in excess of 15 minutes and in my opinion was very successful but that is a long time if you are asking a teacher to excuse a pupil from a lesson. Especially seeing as the main point that I have tried to stress to the heads of the departments is I will put no extra strain on their departments and will disrupt their normal lessons as little as possible. Lesson observations are a very convenient tool for me to use as I am involved in many of the lessons already but as previously mentioned I will have to be weary of being emotional and having pre conceived ideas.

I had hoped to use focus groups as a way of getting the students together to talk about their experiences and allowing them to bounce ideas off of one another but as show in my pilot focus group (appendix G) I feel that this is not an effective way of gathering information in the school that I conducted the pilot on and I would like the collection of information to be uniformed across the three school.

In conclusion this module has highlighted many areas of consideration which I had not factored in when first thinking about this inquiry. I believe that I have addressed all of the issues that have arisen and I am in a position to conduct a informed inquiry. In spite of this before I start collecting information from students in September I feel more research into the teaching of the subject and the differences and similarities in the exam boards need to be completed.
Appendix A:  http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/award-title-rational.html
Appendix B: http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2010/10/reflective-journal.html
Appendix C:http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/ethical-issues-in-practice-of-art.html
Appendix D:http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-i-plan-to-overcome-ethical-issues.html
Appendix E: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=145821545478191&topic=82
Appendix F: http://stephiemonty.blogspot.com/2011/05/reflections-on-research-tools_04.html

Reflections on Research Tools:

Following my research into the possible tools to use for my inquiry I can conclude that I plan to use lesson observations, surveys/questionnaires and interviews. I had hope to use focus groups to get the three age groups together to discuss their thought on the course but upon conducting a pilot focus group the possible problems with this research tool became apparent. The pilot involved students in the current year 11 with that hear of the department acting as the gatekeeper. This is a trying group at the best of times and do not reflect the average standard of students in this art department. The majority of them have a very immature attitude which was very apparent in this discussion. It started off well, I asked them to reflect on their experiences on the GCSE course and encouraged them to talk about any regrets they might have. A common theme amongst them was they wished that they worked harder in yr10 to take some of the pressure off of them in yr11 and would have liked to have completed their coursework earlier so that they could have gotten unit 2, the externally set assignment finished earlier. All of this would be very useful for the current yr10’s to hear as this is something we stress to them constantly. Unfortunately they very quickly went off topic and the discussion erupted into an argument with the less outgoing and confident students getting lost in shouting. On a number of occasions the teacher and I tried to calm them down and get them back on topic with little success. I think one of the main problems with this group is there are a lot of loud and aggressive characters who tend to dominate situation. I was disappointed with the outcome as I feel that it would be beneficial for the younger years to learn of the older groups experiences and hopefully try to avoid making the same mistakes as them but in the case of this pilot I think there would be little useful information anybody could take from this particular focus group. I am not ruling out this tool entirely but as it is time consuming and the time that I can spend with the students is limited I am unsure how useful it will be.

Before conducting the survey pilot I had planned to use this tool as one of the ways of communicating with some of our current yr11 students who are leaving at the end of this year but I found that to get the information I would like from the students would be very time consuming using this tool. Many of the questions which I had planned to ask are open questions which would require a lengthy answer. I my experience of dealing with students of this age is if the work is not mandatory a massive amount of thought will not go into it. I fear that I might end up with over simplified answers which will not give me the incite I desire, but if you were to ask them this question verbally you would get a much more in depth response. This method could also prove to be very time consuming for the students and I in no way want their involvement in my inquiry to encroach on their time spent on their school work. As a result the surveys/questionnaires will be used to gather quantative data.