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.

Committee: Samuel Adu-Poku PhD (Advisor); David Gill PhD (Committee Member); Patricia Sarro PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Art History; Education; Educational Evaluation; Fine Arts; Middle School Education

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.

Committee: Robin Vande Zande Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Art Education

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.

Committee: Cathryn Chappell (Advisor) Subjects: Ancient History; Art Education; Education

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.

Committee: Jason Cox (Committee Chair) Subjects: Art Education; Education; Teacher Education; Teaching

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.

Committee: Linda Hoeptner Poling PhD. (Advisor) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2012, College of Education and Human Services

How Black artists—othered and positioned at the margins of “civilization” in the United States—construct knowledge, context, and historical memory is informative to urban education research and policy. The exploration of this reflects the wisdom of an African proverb that others will tell the story of the struggle should it not first be told by those who live it. To create reciprocity between participants and the researcher, this study employed participatory methods and critical analysis of data from interview sessions, observation, works of art, journal reflections, and information from existing studies and artist documentaries. The study uncovers an approach to the creative process—a form of visual stenography fusing art, inquiry, and activism while considering the historical, social, and ideological context. Findings suggest art may be employed as a method, an indigenous paradigm countering the threat of being scripted into history and disrupting unequal research hierarchies and social relations.

Committee: Anne Galletta PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Brian Harper PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Michelle Fine PhD (Committee Member); Karen Clark-Keys PhD (Committee Member); Karen Sotiropoulous PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Art Education; Black Studies; Cultural Anthropology; Curriculum Development; Divinity; Education; Education Policy; Educational Theory; Fine Arts; Social Research

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)

Committee: Durand Pope (Advisor); Kristin L.K. Koskey Dr. (Advisor); Jennifer Milam Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Arts Management; Curriculum Development; Educational Evaluation; Educational Leadership; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

Within the last 10 years, social media has become an increasingly prevalent component in the daily lives of students, including those in universities. Although many social media sites were developed and updated within this timeframe, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, research on how the latter can be implemented as a pedagogical tool is minimal, appearing only relatively recently in comparison to that of others. More specifically, little research has been done to address the potential uses for Instagram within the field of art and visual culture education, including university courses. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to address how a curriculum model in a university visual culture education course can incorporate platforms associated with Instagram and the ways in which this impacts student engagement while also supporting pedagogical development. Coming from a formal art history background, my understanding of how one teaches and learns about art conformed to stereotypical views of education, such as taking notes with pen and paper and memorizing the information provided. Specifically, because I was discouraged from using technology in fine arts classes, I viewed it as being incompatible with this particular learning environment. However, upon entering the field of art education, it became clear to me that a sense of discomfort was present in the classroom when I employed policies that did not allow for the use of technology. Recognizing this disconnect, I sought to discover the ways in which an intentional application of personal technology use could be implemented into a visual culture curriculum to promote student engagement. As such, utilizing the theoretical frameworks of intersectional feminism, connectivism, and pragmatism, I employed the use of pedagogical action research to design and implement a new curriculum component for an art education course that focuses on visual culture's relationship to social justice and diversity. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dana Kletchka (Committee Co-Chair); Jennifer Richardson (Committee Co-Chair); Christine Ballengee Morris (Committee Member); Joni Boyd Acuff (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Communication; Curriculum Development; Educational Technology; Literacy; Pedagogy; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2018, Curriculum and Instruction

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was designed to explore the experiences and perceptions of four studio art education faculty members in higher education related to the phenomena of, visual culture (VC), multicultural art education (MAE), and cultural awareness (CA) and their perception of impacts in students. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews in face-to-face settings addressing the three concepts, their descriptions, themes and variations, techniques, and strategies, and descriptions, the influence of VC, and the influence of MCAE on students' CA. The data analysis plan applied Moustakas's (1994) seven-step modified van Kaam method and was used in conjunction with NVivo8®, Speech Texter software, and Temi software, which aided in organizing and categorizing data. The findings of the study indicated that (a) art faculty member in higher education considered cultural awareness as a comprehensive concept and (b) there is a natural overlap in experiences with visual culture and multicultural art education in art programs. Art faculty members reported that visual culture is a way that support students' understanding of how to effectively apply visual communication concepts to their daily lives, art faculty members use visual culture different themes and variation/ strategies and techniques every day in their teaching practices. The findings also indicated that awareness of the diversity of cultures can be understood through the multicultural art education that involves different themes and variation/ strategies and techniques.

Committee: Victoria Stewart (Committee Chair) Subjects: Art Education; Curricula; Education

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2006, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2022, Education

The following study examined how using different Social Emotional Learning strategies in art impacts middle school students' ability to express their emotions. The participants in the study consisted of 10 seventh grade students from a large public district in Central Ohio during the 2021-2022 school year. Students completed three art projects that focused on expressing emotions using color, facial expressions, and design. My findings showed that based on the rubrics students understood how to express their emotions on their art projects because they scored highly on each rubric. When looking at the data from student reflections and surveys, it did not show a significant change over time. When looking at individual students, the results showed that the intervention positively impacted some students but did not have a significant impact on others. Due to the small number of students participating in the study and the short amount of time the study took place, further research is required to explore the effects of SEL intervention in the middle school art classroom.

Committee: Hillary Libnoch (Advisor); Jessica Tynan (Committee Member); Erin Hill (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Education; Educational Psychology; Middle School Education

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Art

Undergraduate Honors Thesis exploring the relationship between memory and language, and their visual expression.

Committee: Kristina Paabus (Advisor) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art Education; Art History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

Matter and materiality are integral to the artmaking process, but research into materiality in this realm has been largely unexplored. Instead, discussions and explorations of artmaking practice are articulated with the assumption that the artist is the primary active agent. This dissertation interrogates how artmaking and philosophical inquiry can expand current understandings of the concepts of matter, material, and materiality in artmaking. This study looks to the philosophies of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty and their reaction to the pervasiveness of Cartesian dualism in Western and their contributions to notions of subjectivity, Being, being-in-the-world, embodiment, and perception, and these ideas form the basis from which this study develops. New materialist thought offers a significant contribution to the discussion of materiality and artmaking practice enacted through this study. This dissertation is expanded through an engagement with the new materialist theories of the feminist philosopher and theoretical physicist Karen Barad. Particularly, Barad's concept of entanglements as they pertain to her theory of agential realism and her notion of onto-epistemology, or knowing in being, inform the research process in this dissertation. Moving away from merely reflexive accounts that privilege the artist and researcher as the prime subject in artmaking, this study instead embraces a diffractive methodology. This methodological direction is inspired by Donna Haraway and developed by Karen Barad and entails reading insights through one another to generate and attend to the differences and interferences enabled. By diffracting the theories that undergird this research through artmaking practice and philosophical inquiry, differences and new understandings are generated. In this study, artmaking practice and philosophical inquiry serve as methods through which insights on the role of matter, material, and materiality in artmaking practice develop. Attending to the insi (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jennifer Richardson (Advisor) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2016, College of Education and Human Services

Multiple access points for visual art education exist within the nation's schools and communities. How these diverse school and community contexts collectively impact the development of student visual art achievement and perceived competence has not been sufficiently researched. The purpose of the study was to identify student, community, and school factors that impact middle school students' achievement and perceived competence in visual art. The study sought to contextualize the structures and policies that shape visual art instruction within the nation's schools by building understanding of how visual art experiences influence adolescents at a crucial moment in their social, emotional, and academic growth. A nationally representative sample of 4,000 8th grade students nested in 260 schools from the 2008 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in visual art was used in the study. A two-level hierarchical model was used to determine the extent to which school and community practices and characteristics predict visual art achievement and perceived competence when student-level variables are controlled for. Findings revealed that schools' frequency of instructional offerings, percentage of blacks and Hispanic students enrolled, and amount of community resources used were positively related to students' perceived competence and achievement in visual art, regardless of student-level variables such as race and self-directed experiences. These findings suggest that schools and community organizations should collectively leverage resources to provide supportive visual art learning networks for students. School administrators and teachers should recognize the impact of self-directed visual art experiences by engaging these experiences in both art and non-art classrooms. Schools should also advocate for an active visual art education agenda to create and maintain more authentic family and community connections. Community art organizations should direct fund (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Brian Harper Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Joshua Bagaka's Ph.D. (Committee Member); David Adams Ph.D. (Committee Member); Paul Williams Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education; Middle School Education

MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Art

This research focuses on the motivation of adolescent students, including several with special needs, in an art classroom to create artworks through the use of digital and Visual Culture experiences. Action research was conducted in two different classroom settings over several months in a public school. Each class period was recorded with audio and video to analyze the students' responses to Visual Culture stimuli with structured discussion questions and relevant studio production. To blend this study with Narrative inquiry, other field texts collected as data included research notes, written and audio-recorded critical reflections on teaching, and photographs of students' artworks. Students involved in the study were part of inclusion classrooms including students with special needs, and students who are identified as gifted. All the students went through a unit of lessons that centered on artworks created as responses to Visual Culture experiences from the student's lives. Interpretations of student art production indicated that all of them were similarly motivated, though students had different responses to Visual Culture experiences that ranged from strong likes and dislikes of celebrity images and enjoyment of humorous personified animal images. Capitalizing on their fascinations with popular images such toys, video games, and animals, Visual Culture can serve as a bridge between students of varying cognitive and academic backgrounds, allowing them to create art as a community rather than as individuals. Research findings concurred with a pilot study which also found that students both collect Visual Culture as a way to construct their identity, and that Visual Culture can be a language through which students can communicate. Though in this study the Visual Culture studied was carefully curated to benefit the lessons taught, the students showed their interests in many other varied experiences that surfaced during the implementation of this pedagogy. One of the (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Koon-Hwee Kan PhD (Advisor); Linda Hoeptner-Poling PhD (Committee Member); Juliann Dorff MAT (Committee Member); Jeanne Ruscoe-Smith PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Art Education

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to gain comprehension of visual art teachers' ranges of understanding about and classroom practices in assessment for student learning in art education. Twelve art teachers from traditional public schools; teaching in elementary, middle, or high schools; from three school districts from three states in the United States participated in this study. The setting for the study was their art education classrooms. This study was constructed around individual, guided, and semi-structured interviews with the art teachers. These interviews were supported by multiple sources of information including pre-site visit questionnaires, artifacts, and field notes from one-day observations within the art teacher's classroom. The interview and pre-site visit questionnaire protocols were developed through field-tests with over 50 art teachers. The analytical framework for interpretation was developed around feminist principles of assessment (Shapiro, 1992). Aligned to this framework were assessment practices from the literature in visual art education: Wilson (1992); Beattie (1997a); National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (2000, 2001); Dorn, Madeja, and Sabol (2004); and National Art Education Association (2009a). This framework had two themes: Student-Centered Assessment and Assessment as a Professional Practice of the Art Teacher. Analytical coding was used in the analysis the units of data of the research sub-questions questions. Findings included a range of awareness of assessment practice, different purposes of art teacher comments to students, a progression of including the student in assessment towards role of the student in shared power, and influences of school district support. For those art teachers who both had a greater awareness of their assessment practices and used a wider variety of assessment tools for information for improving student learning, connections were found to their amount of professional dev (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christine Ballengee Morris (Committee Chair); Michael Parsons (Advisor); Deborah Smith-Shank (Committee Member); Karen Hutzel (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Art Education

In an expanding technological ecology, the spaces of learning in art education require a new appraisal of the role that visual technologies serve to learners. Through intersections of actor-network theory and theories of visuality from visual culture studies, this research focuses on developing a social ontology to investigate the role that the visual technology Photoshop plays in collaborating with users within a human-technological hybrid. In a role reversal, for this research I become the instrument of research and Photoshop becomes the focus of a non-human ethnographic inquiry that utilizes an ontological framework to consider how technology performs with us and not on us. This symmetry between human and non-humans in a social ontology generates the complexity of Photoshop in a heterogeneous network formation of agencies, through more than its instrumentality, by seeing it working with me in the production of digital visual culture.

Committee: Kevin Tavin (Committee Chair); Sydney Walker (Committee Member); Jennifer Eisenhauer (Committee Member); Robert Sweeny (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Art Education

This qualitative, interpretive case study uses a psychoanalytically informed theory base to examine students' perceptions of television criticism essays and writing processes created in the undergraduate course Criticizing Television, which was developed and taught by the researcher from 2005—2009. The impetus for this research emerges from gaps in the art education literature on the issue of visual culture criticism writing pedagogies. In this case study, the focal concepts critical consciousness and subjectivity guide consideration of multiple data sources, including students' criticism essays, E-mail correspondence, online survey, researcher's teaching journal, and literature from art education, composition studies, and psychoanalytic studies in education. Resulting from this research of students' criticism writing is the development of an impasse methodology, a psychoanalytically informed perspective on reflexive readings of, and responses to, students' criticism writing. The case study conceptualizes the research results as consequences, within which are embedded suggestions for future research and practice. By problematizing visual culture criticism writing within existing, traditional art criticism paradigms, the research addresses a significant gap in art education theory and practice in regard to student writing and subjectivity in contemporary visual culture art education.

Committee: Candace Stout PhD (Advisor); Sydney Walker PhD (Committee Member); Jennifer Eisenhauer PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art Education; Curricula; Mass Media; Pedagogy

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2011, Art Education

This dissertation examines the identity construction of five manga fans by exploring their creation of comics and their cosplay. Certain identity themes emerged through a Lacanian interpretation using a qualitative/interpretivist paradigm. Data collection relied primarily on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with participants, and included their cosplay photos as well as their manga drawings and stories. Specifically, Lacan's concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real were used to interpret these participants' identities. The study showed not only that identity is not always determined by the Symbolic (conscious act), but also that it is governed by unconscious desire and fantasy (of the Real). While unconscious desire (Real) continues to break the fixibility of identity, the Symbolic remains an oppressed ruling Other that determines which identity is positive and which negative. The Imaginary is a most important outlet in terms of identity building for the subject, the freedom to make changes, and the power to heal one's fixity against change (provide hope) in light of the Other's gaze. Some of Lacan's concepts – gaze, fantasy, desire/lack, camouflage – are also discussed by way of explaining identity-related themes.

Committee: Sydney Walker (Committee Chair); Maureen Donovan (Committee Member); Jennifer Eisenhauer (Committee Member); Patricia Stuhr (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, Art Education

There is a disconnection between the visual and visuality when it comes to the issues of representation and identity for a particular group of people. According to Sturken and Cartwright (2001) visuality can concern how we see everyday objects and people, not just those things we think of as visual texts (p. 370). The relationship between images and their visuality renders serious consequences when the group (i.e. Black women) in question is misrepresented. Images of misrepresentation are even more consequential when it occurs within the realms of mass media and popular visual culture because the viewing audience is pervasive. So then, the question that must be asked is how can marginalized groups that are misrepresented in a highly visual world take control of their images? How can they acquire the agency to construct self and group identity? These questions addressed in this research study where their answers can be cultivated and examined within the realm of contemporary art, mass media and popular visual culture. I use a mixed methods approach to collect data through the development of both a focus group and use of content analysis, rhetorical analysis and a quantitative survey (i.e., The Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale). A focus group is useful in gaining knowledge from disenfranchised or marginalized groups. Specifically, the goals of this study call for the use of Participatory Action Research (PAR) with a small population of Black women at The Ohio State University and the use of a survey and questionnaires that measure self-esteem and perception. The main goal for conducting a theoretical and participatory study of the images of Black women in visual art and popular visual culture is to develop pedagogical recommendations of how visual culture scholars can use narrative inquiry and counter-narrative to explore race and gender representation.

Committee: Vesta Daniel Ed.D (Committee Chair); Osei Appiah PhD (Committee Member); Karen Hutzel PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; American Studies; Art Education; Womens Studies