MA, Kent State University, 2014, College of the Arts / School of Art

Teaching socially transformative art lessons can instill positive social change in individual students, classroom environment, and the school setting. However, many art teachers do not attempt socially transformative art lessons at the risk of disciplinary action, termination, personal safety, and reputation. This single subject case-study examines a successful socially transformative art lesson executed in the classroom and reveals strategies that will assist other art educators.

MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of the Arts / School of Art

This case study research describes how a mid-career art teachers makes visible holistic approaches to art education in a choice-based practice in an urban public charter school. It includes a dual review of literature on the topics of choice-based and holistic practices in contemporary art education. The findings of this case study research describe a detailed analysis of how holistic and choice-based approaches support each other in practice.

MFA, Kent State University, 2009, College of the Arts / School of Art

The goal of this study was to examine the effectiveness and impact of Nature-Based Art Teaching. While recently there has been a great deal of literature made available concerning Nature Based learning in general education, very little research exists in the area of Nature Based Arts Education. It was my goal to provide awareness of the research that already exists and at the same time bring the ideas from the field of general education into focus enabling their usefulness for art educators today. With the realm of visual culture receiving heavy attention presently and throughout the past ten years, it is my intention to expand this and veer our direction a bit in order to include the complete sensory experience of the natural environment in the K-12 art curriculum. It is very much ingrained in the minds of teachers and students that school is an indoor event. It is my goal to advance knowledge and provide inspiration that will lead educators to expand their curricular choices in order to adopt the outdoors; to provide that inner to outer bridge. With this curriculum expansion there also is great potential to increase interdisciplinary relationships. Nature-Based Art Education is important for the field of art education in order to help children form a positive relationship with the natural world that will lead to reverence for the natural world and eventually actions that will help preserve the environment.

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2013, Theatre Arts-Arts Administration

While higher arts education programs may be preparing students to excel at the creation and performance of the arts, evidence suggests that many of these programs are failing to prepare students for the business of being a professional artist. In the United States, Discipline-Based Arts Education (DBAE) remains the prevailing program theory guiding the majority of higher arts education programs. While there is much praise for DBAE throughout higher education, scholarly discourse and evidence suggests a need to adapt DBAE to better address the poor professional outcomes of undergraduate arts students. Evidence indicates that a total of 11.1% of all recent college graduates with undergraduate arts degrees are unemployed (Carnevale, Cheah, & Strohl, Hard Times: College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings, 2012, p. 7). Fifty two percent of arts undergraduate alumni reported being dissatisfied with their institution's ability to advise them about further career or education opportunities (SNAAP, 2012, p. 14). 81% of all arts undergraduate alumni reported having a primary job outside of the arts for reasons of job security (SNAAP, 2012, p. 19). Higher arts education administrators have tried to address these statistics by incorporating the teaching of applicable non-arts (business, entrepreneurship, artist survival) skills into undergraduate arts programs. However, evidence suggests that the limitations of DBAE, lack of contextual consensus on educational goals, and stakeholder pressures and agendas make it difficult for administrators to create adequate curricular room for the teaching and learning of non-arts skills. Furthermore, the National Office of Arts Accreditation (NOAA) classifies non-arts skills as “general studies units”, and only recommends but does not mandate any standards associated with the teaching of general studies units. In response to the call for higher arts education reform, this paper discusses potential causal factors of poor professional (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

Did Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1954, have an adverse impact on the employment of Black art educators? In this study, I questioned what specifically happened to Black art educators and Black art education in desegregated schools after Brown? Also, with the disappearance of Black and minority culture being taught in primary schools after Brown, how was Black and minority art impacted? The sub question of my research explores the capacity in which Black art educators were teaching art to Black students prior to Brown and the possible implications Brown had on their employment in desegregated public schools. Included in this study is a brief history of art departments established at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) by pioneering Black art educators. As there is scarce research regarding how Brown potentially effected the employment of Black art educators, this research explores the possible connection between Brown and the displacement of Black art educators. In this study I aim to articulate why Black art educators and culturally inclusive art curricula could have been rejected from desegregated public primary schools.

Master of Arts in Art Education, Youngstown State University, 2010, Department of Art

In the United States today, there is a significant concern about the impact of assessment and modes of grading in visual arts education. While some people have high regard for visual arts and their contributions to education, others feel that it is an extracurricular activity. This attitude is pervasive among many practitioners in the educational community. One reason for this state of affairs is the low status of visual arts as a subject within the general core school curricula, and its concomitant effects on assessment and grading policies from various school districts. Assessment and modes of grading can impact the status of visual arts education in school curricula, as well as how students perceive and participate in the visual art classroom. The purpose of this study is to explore how assessment and grading methods impact student attitudes towards and participation in visual arts. To achieve this objective, a review of literature on various assessment and grading methods in visual arts education was completed. This was followed by a review on the current status and perceptions of visual arts education. In order to explore the views of teachers, students and parents about the importance of assessment and grading and its impact on learning in the visual arts, a survey questionnaire was developed. The surveys were completed by 26 middle school students, 22 parents, 13 visual art teachers, and eight regular education teachers. The findings from these surveys were then analyzed. The study shows strong correlations between assessment and/or mode of grading and student participation in the visual arts. Recommendations from this study stress the importance of developing effective grading policies and advocacy in the field of visual arts education.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2008, Art Education

This study is a review of the development of a community-based art education curriculum for the Korean School of Columbus, Ohio, where I have served 5 years as an art teacher. From my teaching experiences in the school, I realized that Korean-American students in the United States suffer from a host of psychological problems, such as feelings of rejection and discrimination because they are not able to identify themselves with either the culture of their parents or that of the society they are growing up in. This results in serious outcomes for the Korean-American children because a lost identity takes away one's motivation or purposeful activity in society. In addition, these children are not able to fully express their chaotic feelings, which is a huge reason for many of the psychological problems they suffer. This is where I believe art comes in: art gives the Korean students a chance to express what they feel, think and experience in a form that is nonverbal. Based on this understanding, my desire is to develop a community-based art education curriculum for the Korean School of the Korean Church of Columbus, Ohio. The major goals of this study are: (1) to help Korean students develop their artistic talents, find their identity, and nurture their Christian faith, (2) to create a connection between Korean churches and the Korean immigrants in the United States, (3) to teach visual arts and cultural heritage in order to effectively address the problems of language barriers, cultural conflicts, and racial discrimination, (4) and to help children achieve basic art education disciplines and studio art techniques in order to better express their personal beliefs, ideas and responses to the visual arts. This case study is based on Stringer's (1999) community-based action research as the primary methodology, as well as the theories of communitarians like Etzioni (1993), Gusfield (1975), Selznick (1992), and Sites (1998). I choose Stringer's community-based action resear (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2013, Leadership and Change

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the construct of collaboration and the co-construction of knowledge in a distance learning drawing class. Distance learning drawing classes are rare, due to resistance by fine arts departments holding onto traditions that date back to Renaissance times. As a result, there is a paucity of literature on the subject. This multiple method study seeks an understanding of how students collaborate in critiques, form virtual communities and socially construct knowledge about learning how to draw. The study commences with the following three research questions: what social processes facilitate learning to draw from the perspective of the student in a computer mediated drawing class, what factors contribute to collaboration and the formation of a virtual learning community in a computer mediated drawing class as measured by the participative, interactive and social dimensions of a content analysis model, and how can the phenomenon of online collaboration be further delineated, defined or explained? The study consists of a grounded theory dimensional analysis of student and instructor interviews and a content analysis of discussion boards. Two core domains emerged from the dimensional analysis, Visual Learning and Virtual Culture . The content analysis located the frequency and quality of collaboration across three different discussion board forums; asynchronous critiques, synchronous critiques and asynchronous discussion topics. Triangulating the data resulted in three theoretical propositions: drawing is a visual medium, and students need to "see" demonstrations of the process and examples, virtual culture mediates collaboration and the co-construction of knowledge in critiques and finally, the inclusion of both synchronous and asynchronous tools provides students with balanced support for learning to draw. Literature from the domains of art education, distance learning pedagogy and virtual culture support an understanding of (open full item for complete abstract)

MA, Kent State University, 2016, College of the Arts / School of Art

PACE, CHRISTINE, M.A., AUGUST, 2016 ART EDUCATION ART MUSEUM EDUCATION AND WELL-BEING (161PP.) Director of Thesis: Robin Vande Zande This research looks at how well-being manifests within art museum educational programming with non-traditional participants. The specific programming studied took place onsite at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) in Quebec, Canada, where this type of programming has been in practice for almost two decades. Museum educators, administrators, and program personnel were interviewed in order to explore the ways in which well-being is perceived, defined, and implemented within curriculum and teaching at the MMFA. Program observations, content analyses, and literature reviews were all conducted, coded, and analyzed as part of this qualitative, collective case study. The goal of this research is to allow those within, as well as those outside of, the field of art education to more fully understand art museum education programming for well-being, justify a need for this type of programming, and to apply information learned as a model for future programming.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2012, Art Education

This doctoral study concerns itself with how primarily White, suburban, middle-class Art Education pre-service students are prepared in academia to teach in urban/inner-city schools. As a researcher, student-teaching supervisor, Cooperating teacher, and public school Art Educator, the author examines the shifting demographics of public education in an attempt to investigate alternative practices to mitigate problematic issues in the current teacher education model. Drawing heavily on the works of the Critical Geographer Doreen Massey, the author suggests that if “space is seen as being and time as becoming” (2005, p. 29), then a focus on becoming art teacher advances a temporal epistemology. He questions how a shift to a spatial paradigm with an ontological emphasis could allow PSS to focus on being an art teacher instead of becoming one. This particular study investigates the site observations of four undergraduate students at the Ohio State University that requested and/or agreed to be placed in an urban/inner-city school during their Winter Quarter in 2012. During the 12-week study, the participants collected visual and narrative data of their travels to, entrance into, and occupancy of the school and the surrounding area. Employing the use of hand-held media and ethnographic methods, participants were encouraged to document their experiences and engage in reflexive practices throughout the process. The participants used Google Maps to map out their trajectory to the site as a means of critically examining their positionality in relation to the school. Participants created a visual representation of their learning to disseminate with their peers in a formal presentation at the conclusion of the study.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

How might teacher educators build a reflective and supportive community of practice with pre-service teachers? How might a visual (intermedia) journaling practice support critical and reflective thinking? How might an arts-based intermedia approach to analysis inform teacher educator pedagogical methods? These questions evolved and emerged throughout my research process during this dissertation study. As an artist/researcher/teacher I used an arts-based research paradigm to guide an emergent research practice focused on understanding the potential of arts-based reflective practice in an art teacher education program. The study was conducted with two groups of undergraduate student participants enrolled in pre-service teacher education coursework. Parallaxic praxis, emerging from a/r/tography, was a guiding research methodology and pedagogical approach used to maintain a creative, living inquiry throughout the study. This methodology supported opportunities and potential for the researcher and participants to generate arts-based study data and engage in performative processes documenting their experience with creative reflective practices. The learnings from the first participant group informed decisions and activity design for participant group two. Participants actively engaged in self-directed and co-designed intermedia reflective activities throughout the cycles of the study. Along the way, poetic inquiry surfaced as a central method for analysis and to generate research renderings, primarily in the form of found poems. The research renderings were conceptualized into a research exhibition designed to be experienced through multiple modalities including an exhibition in an art gallery and a virtual online exhibition. This dissertation illustrates where the research process led me as the researcher, and my students, as participants. Through the renderings in the research exhibition, the process of analyzing data using poetic inquiry highlights benefits and cha (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education, Ashland University, 2024, College of Education

The researcher investigated the effects of learning in an integrated curriculum environment in a Midwestern urban school among 7th grade students. The control group consisted of students who were enrolled in just a 7th grade social studies class. The test group consisted of students who were enrolled in both a social studies class and visual art class learning about Ancient Greece. The implications of this study have both quantitative and qualitative results. The quantitative show mixed results in the control group vs. the test group in their assessment scores. However, the qualitative results showed an increase of enjoyment in teaching for teachers and learning for students in an integrated learning environment.

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of the Arts / School of Art

Critical Race Theory is a school of thought that targets inequality and challenges established thought on racial disparities in society to identify and dismantle the systems that support these inequalities. Like many other societal systems, education can promote racial inequalities, funneling marginalized students into the school-to-prison pipeline. CRT can guide art educators to self-reflect and transform their art instruction and curriculum to promote environments and pedagogies that create equitable and inclusive educational opportunities for all students. Through a series of interviews with educators teaching through a CRT lens, the research has identified academic obstacles facing diverse students, examples of systemic racism upholding white supremacy, and strategies educators use to advocate for a higher-quality, equitable, and inclusive art education. Through the stories and experiences of art educators influenced by CRT principles, we can begin to understand the impact a socially ethical, inclusive, and equitable CRT-inspired instruction can have on a student population.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Higher Education Administration

The purpose and value of higher education have been debated for centuries as proponents of technical or liberal ideals have advocated for their respective positions. Post-secondary art and design education has been affected by such debates, causing arts educators to justify their existence and demonstrate a return on investment for undergraduate students' degree attainment. However, quantitative measures of success through career and financial criteria fail to recognize the inherent value of arts education on the development of students as people and creators, which is an oft-espoused outcome of the arts. Further, student development in higher education is a well-researched field and student affairs practitioners use student development theory to inform their work. Yet such theories have evolved in waves marked by critique of the limitations inherent with theories past. Today's practitioners question the relevancy of student development theories on distinct student populations and within specific settings, including art and design contexts. The purpose of this study was to construct a theory of self-authorship based on experiences described by undergraduate students studying art and design and to understand what factors students describe as influential to such development. The research questions are: (a) How do art and design students describe their development toward self-authorship in college? and (b) What factors do art and design students describe as influential in their development toward self-authorship? Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, I developed a theory of self-authorship specific to the nuances of the art and design context that includes three components: (a) considering post-secondary study in the arts, (b) adapting to the arts environment, and (c) shifting from extrinsic to intrinsic orientations to develop a creative identity and live a creative life. Factors that influenced students' self-authorship development included pre-coll (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

From computational and scientific viewpoints, virtual reality (VR) is a well-researched technology, platform, and mode of communication. However, from an arts perspective, virtual reality has very few, if any, defined parameters as an artistic medium. This study aims to explore the technical affordances and the experiential and creative phenomena of art-making in virtual reality in an effort to establish VR as a contemporary artistic medium framed within an arts and museum education context. The embodied, open-ended play of art-making with the virtual medium presents a different kind of user experience than most other VR applications, which deserves alternative ways of classifying the immersive elements of virtual art-making. By using the social cognitive framework (Bandura, 1986) to guide my research, I consider the dynamic relationship between environment, person, and behavior in order to understand not only the technical elements, but also what type of immersive process and embodied creativity virtual artists experience and what types of art can they make. Through a phenomenological framework, design-thinking approach, and an arts-based research methodology, this study analyzes data collected from participants and uses data visualizations to bring the research to life and make it accessible for all audiences and fields of study. Additionally, this project aims to discover how artists and educators can use the virtual medium to inspire creativity and impactful art experiences within museum spaces in ways that transport the visitors from viewer-of-art to maker-of-art.

MA, Kent State University, 2020, College of the Arts / School of Art

This action research study examines restructuring my elementary visual art curriculum to allow for a higher level of student choice through a studio classroom. My curriculum transition to choice-based art education is influenced by the Teaching for Artistic Behavior philosophy and pedagogy. Using a case study as part of my action research, I study teachers who have already restructured their curriculums, classrooms, and teaching philosophies. Through dialogue and interviews with three visual art teachers I aim to better understand the components of Teaching for Artistic Behavior and how to implement it in practice. The literature review provides a historical context and contemporary thoughts on choice-based education, art education, and choice-based art education. The study's findings through data analysis aim to find balance within a choice-based approach and acknowledge the barriers, challenges, and positives of transitioning the art curriculum.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Art Education

Research suggests that museums are not reaching their full potential for including visitors with disabilities (Bienvenu, 2019; Ginley, Goodwin, &, Smith, 2012; Kudlick & Luby, 2019; Rappolt- Schlichtmann & Daley, 2013; Sandell, 2019). Recently, scholars have critiqued art museums for their lack of accessibility (Kudlick & Luby, 2019) and exhibitions that misrepresent disability history (Sandell, 2019). The history of outsider art demonstrates how artists with disabilities are discriminated against in the art world (Prinz, 2017). Creative art centers, programs which provide artistic mentorship for adults with disabilities, are often positioned within outsider art discourse (Wojcik, 2016). Due to discrimination against artists with disabilities, art museums can increase inclusion through engaging with artists at creative art centers. Therefore, I utilized action research methodology to design and implement an integrated art museum professional development workshop for artists with disabilities at Open Door Art Studio, a creative art center, and community artists. The primary objective of the study was to explore how museum practitioners can collaborate with creative art centers to develop inclusive programming for creative art center artists and community artists. Based on interviews with Open Door Art Studio artists and staff members, I structured the workshop around time in the museum gallery for discussion and a collaborative art making exercise in the museum's studio space. For the time in the studio, I paired artists from Open Door Art Studio with community artists to create collaborative art pieces. From the post-workshop interviews, I found that the workshop, especially the collaborative portion, supported social connection between artists from Open Door Art Studio and the community artists. This social connection was demonstrated in the way that artists found things in common with each other, spoke about how they enjoyed meeting each other, (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts and Education, University of Toledo, 2019, Art Education

Student involvement and engagement in learning the skills of artistic expression provides a challenge for every art instructor. Students are found to develop and display stronger artistic tendencies if continuously engaged within the art classroom. The ideas of Lowenfeld, Piaget and Vygotsky when applied to the foundational pedagogues of artistic instruction, holds promise to develop a classroom geared toward artistic and social development. By application of these ideas in digestible bites, the instructor introduces the ideas and methods from Lowenfeld, Piaget and Vygotsky to the foundational pedagogues of artistic instruction, which can then be incorporated within the classroom.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Art Education

This research employs American freeform role-playing games as a media for participatory arts-based inquiry into the relationships and perspectives of professional and pre-service art educators. The role-played performances and participatory discourse re-imagine relationships within a collaboratively imagined educational community that parallel ones from the professional lives of art educators, such as those between school administrators, staff, teachers, students, and parents. Participants use the roles, relationships, and settings they construct to explore themes and situations that they identify as being present in educational communities. These situations represent points of intersection between members of an educational community, such as parent-teacher conferences, community advocacy meetings, or school field trips. The data from each experience takes the form of personal reflections, participant-created artifacts, and communal discourse. By assuming various roles and reflecting upon them, participants gain access to experiences and points of view that provoke reflection, develop leadership capabilities, and enhance their capacity for affecting change within an educational setting.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Art Education

This study explores a collaborative and co-learning process with three Chinese-American families living in the Bay Area, California. These families and the researcher worked together toward creating an interactive website that sought to make learning Chinese art and culture fun and meaningful for Chinese-American children. The families were involved in the design process and discussed how Chinese children's identity is shaped by their family cultures and educational experiences. The participants discussed how children learn about Chinese art and culture, the kinds of Chinese art they can learn from their communities, and how they might appreciate and talk about Chinese art. The participants also reviewed the interactive and educational websites the children used, discussed the usability, visual design, interactivity, and educational features of the website, and iterated and finalized the paper prototypes of the website. This participatory process is expected to encourage mutual understanding between the parents and the children, incorporate children's needs and voices into the educational website design, and finally inspire changes in their future lives. The study examines the theories of multicultural art education, and how they are related to the participatory action research methodology. It also looks at how the research is connected to the Chinese-American community, and why the study uses Chinese traditional art as the main content of the participatory process. This study explores the technological perspective of the research, which includes a discussion of the theoretical support for using interactive technology in education, current practices in art education, an analysis of usability and user-centered design process, and a review of a list of educational websites. This study could be read as a step-by-step account of how to collaborate with the minority groups to build socially and culturally sustainable developments. Instead of studying on people, thi (open full item for complete abstract)