Measuring Creativity in Visual Arts Teaching Methodology in Elementary School

Abstract

In the contemporary society, creativity is one of the most desirable abilities which an individual can possess in all the fields of human activity. On the other hand, educational policy and national curriculums marginalize the importance of art subjects in most countries in the world, while the advantage is given to STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). Although creativity, according to many educational standards, is one of the key abilities, in teaching practice routine activities are still valued more than creative ones. However, it is the art subjects which develop creativity (constructive) potential within an individual, although this also heavily depends on a teacher/professor, on his/her methodological approach and abilities within the scope of professional activity. Therefore, we conducted empirical research in Visual Arts Teaching Methodology training and non-training primary schools. We expected that we would foster students’ development of creativity through regular collaboration with university, problem- based learning of art and artistic language, inventiveness in creating art assignments and through increasing public awareness of harmfulness of stereotypical artistic expression. Among a large number of verified tests of creativity, Urban-Jellen test “The Test for Creative Thinking - Drawing Production (TCT-DP)”, which is based on the activity of drawing, was selected and used in this study. We wanted to know whether there was a statistically significant difference between training and non-training schools in students' performance on the test used to examine the level of creativity. The level of statistically significant difference between the control group and the experimental group was determined by a chi-squared test. The research has been carried out in elementary schools in the area of the city of Zagreb, on the sample that included the students of fourth and eighth grade. The results of the research indicate that there is a possible influence of collaboration between the mentors and university professors and students of teacher-training college within the scope of Visual Arts Teaching Methodology course on students' creativity.