PUPILS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS ART TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: AN EVALUATION TOOL

www.elsevier.com/stueducStudies in Educational Evaluation 33 (2007) 282–301

0191-491X/04/$ – see front matter © 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.stueduc.2007.07.005

PUPILS' ATTITUDES TOWARDS ART TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: AN EVALUATION TOOL

Victoria Pavlou* and Maria Kambouri**

*School of Humanities, University of the Aegean, Greece**Institute of Education, University of London, UK

Abstract

Pupils' attitudes influence both learning and teaching processes and affect the way

pupils will engage with art as adults. This article introduces an attitude scale, the

Attitude Scale for Art Experienced in School (ASAES), which comprises four

subscales: enjoyment, confidence, usefulness, and support. A three-step procedure

was followed for the construction and validation of the scale which was administered

to 420 primary school pupils in Cyprus. The scale's psychometric properties are

evaluated through Confirmatory Factor analysis. The findings indicate that teachers'

art specialisation and attitudes towards art teaching, pupils' perceived competence and

pupils' gender are three important variables that influence the formation of pupils'

attitudes. Important interactions between these variables are also reported.

An important element in the process of facilitating and supporting pupils' learning is

adults' willingness to really listen to pupils and understand them. By "understanding pupils"

we do not simply refer to acquiring knowledge about their developmental level, abilities

and learning strategies but more importantly to responding to their motivations, prior

conceptions and attitudes towards the subject they are learning (Cochran, DeRuiter, &

King, 1993). This article focuses on pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school.

Attitudes play a significant role in influencing and guiding action, emotions and knowledge

processes (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) and thus in shaping learning and teaching processes. It

is argued that effective teaching is based on the interactive system of subject matter

V. Pavlou, M. Kambouri / Studies in Educational Evaluation 33 (2007) 288–301 283

knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, learners' knowledge and environmental context

knowledge (Cochran et al., 1993; Shulman, 1986). Attitudes are a part of the pupils'

knowledge and a key factor in pupils' learning in art, about art and through art; negative

attitudes can be a limiting device which influences pupils' future initiatives to engage with

art in adult life.

Teachers who aim at understanding what pupils "think" about art may obtain

valuable information and thus be more skilful in organising lesson plans and art activities

that aim to challenge and expand their pupils' attitudes further. At the same time they are

likely to be more able to understand how and to what extent they can influence their pupils

(Atkinson, 1993, Jeffers, 1997). It is no longer assumed that there is a single fixed art

classroom reality shared by pupils and their teachers (Hafeli, 2000). Therefore it is

important for teachers to understand pupils' conceptions of, and attitudes towards art and

respond to these (Harris, 1986). Promoting positive attitudes towards art will also enable

pupils to engage meaningfully with art in school and later on as adults. This is crucial

because art is important in everyday life as an alternative way of demonstrating intelligence

(Gardner, 1993; Prentice, 1999). Art is important not just for those who are involved with it

professionally (such as artists, art teachers, museum curators, art critics, designers, etc.),

but for everybody, just as reading and writing are important in everyone's everyday life.

Sixth graders (eleven to twelve year olds), the focus group of this study, are of

special interest because at this age children start to doubt their abilities in art, they become

less confident in their art making (Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987) and need special support

from their teachers to continue to be involved with art and art making. In particular, eleven

to twelve year olds show greater awareness of realism, exhibit interest in details, and are

more self-conscious about their work and more aware of their shortcomings in art

(Herberholz & Hanson, 1995; Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987; Meager & Ashfield,1995;

Morgan, 1995). Therefore, failure to support pupils at this crucial stage can lead to low

perceptions of their abilities in art with immediate and potentially life-long effects on how

they perceive, enjoy and value art. Pupils who say "I can't do it" are commonly observed to

be indifferent during art lessons and avoid making art because of fear of failure (Morgan,

1995). On the other hand, promoting positive attitudes towards art is likely to enable pupils

to engage meaningfully with art in school and express themselves through this medium.

Assessing pupils' attitudes at this age (which is the top grade of primary school) offers an

indirect evaluation of the overall effects of art education at the primary school level. This

study focuses on pupils' attitudes towards art as taught at the top grade of primary school in

Cyprus.

Publications on pupils' attitudes towards art are very limited. There are theoretical

models about art teaching emphasising the central role of learners (e.g., Chapman, 1978;

Gentle, 1990; Houser, 1991; Stankiewicz, 2000) whereby good knowledge of pupils'

abilities is considered necessary for a teacher's effective teaching. However, it appears that,

unlike other factors (e.g., children's artistic development), pupils' attitudes are not

considered part of this knowledge. Few studies have focused on children's attitudes.

Attitudes are only indirectly mentioned in most textbooks about art teaching when the

authors talk about paying attention to pupils and their level of understanding (e.g., Herne,

1994; Meager & Ashfield, 1995; Morgan, 1995). It is this gap in the literature that the

present article aims to respond to by presenting the development of an attitude scale for

284 V. Pavlou, M. Kambouri / Studies in Educational Evaluation 33 (2007) 288–301

evaluating pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school, the ASAES (Attitude Scale

for Art Experienced in School).

Due to lack of studies on primary pupils' attitudes towards art, we sought ideas about

how to conceptualise attitudes from the area of education, and in particular from the field of

pupils' attitudes towards schooling or towards school subjects other than art. In particular

West, Hailes and Sammons (1997) researched second grade pupils' attitudes towards school

activities and found three key-dimensions of pupils' attitudes: a) interest versus boredom, b)

the level of difficulty, and c) success versus failure. Jones (1988) studied nine to twelve-

year-old pupils' attitudes towards physical education in terms of love and hate. Keys, Harris

and Fernandes (1995) studied sixth and seventh grade pupils' attitudes towards school and

education. Some of their questions relate to feelings of enjoyment, happiness, liking and

boredom. Todman and Dick (1993) investigated third, fifth and seventh graders' attitudes

towards computers in terms of three dimensions: fun, easy to use, and usefulness. Blake

(1994), who examined primary pupils' attitudes to school, notes that positive attitudes

towards schooling are associated with pupils' feelings of success, enjoyment, interest and/or

stimulation, whereas, negative feelings towards schooling are associated with pupils'

feelings of inadequacy, failure, and/or boredom. When referring to pupils' attitudes, all

these studies include the notion of enjoyment expressed in its "positive form" as interest,

love, happiness, liking and fun, or in its "negative form" as boredom and hate. Some

studies also include perceptions of confidence expressed as level of difficulty, easy to use,

feelings of inadequacy, and success versus failure. Todman and Dick's study (1993)

included the dimension of usefulness, which is very interesting in the case of art because

there is a feeling among teachers that art is treated as a peripheral subject (Dyson, 1989)

and it is interesting to explore whether pupils believe in art's usefulness and which reasons

they give for their beliefs. In addition Todman and Dick (1993) demonstrated that pupils'

attitudes towards a school subject (computers) were influenced by their teachers' attitudes

towards that subject.

In the field of art education Jeffers (1997) examines the role of teachers'

specialisation in understanding and influencing pupils' aesthetic preferences finding that

primary school teachers chose artworks according to their perceptions of children's

preferences whereas secondary school teachers chose art works according to personal

preferences. Other studies in the field of pupils' aesthetic attitudes are concerned with the

effects of pictures' characteristics and pupils' age and gender on their aesthetic attitudes

(Flannery & Watson, 1995; Hardiman & Zernich, 1982; Taunton, 1982). In general, when

looking for factors that may explain pupils' attitudes towards schooling or school subjects,

or their aesthetic preferences, researchers are more concerned with the role of pupils'

characteristics (age/developmental stage and gender) rather than with the role of teachers

(e.g., Keys et al., 1995). Therefore we decided to include another dimension in the

conceptualisation of pupils' attitudes towards art in order to better understand the role of

teachers. This dimension is named support needed and it aims to investigate pupils'

attitudes towards the support that they receive from their teachers.

To recapitulate, in this study pupils' attitudes towards the art lessons experienced in

schools are conceptualised in terms of enjoyment, confidence, usefulness and support

needed. These four dimensions are also supported by the findings of Study 1 mentioned in


the methodology section, which aimed at exploring different possible dimensions that may

reflect pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school.

Method

The ASAES was constructed, refined and administrated, in the Greek language, in

primary schools in the district of Nicosia, Cyprus. The scale was developed over three

studies. The first explored dimensions of the concept to be measured, the second

constructed a pilot scale and the third tested and validated the final instrument. These three

studies are presented next.

Study 1

The purpose of Study 1 was to clarify the concept of attitudes towards art

experienced in school by identifying areas where pupils could provide valuable

information. The literature review suggested some important dimensions of these attitudes.

At the same time the possibility to include some more dimensions was sought by looking at

what might be important for the pupils themselves.

Participants

The sample of Study 1 included 73 sixth graders, 39 boys and 34 girls (mean age

11.7 years).

Instrument

An exploratory questionnaire was given to the participants in order to identify the

key dimensions of the concept attitudes towards art experienced in school. The exploratory

questionnaire included 38 items with a five-point response scale ranging from disagree a

lot to agree a lot and an open-ended question. The questionnaire addressed a variety of

issues that could reflect pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school, such as the

nature and value of art, personal relation with the subject of art (enjoyment and

confidence), teaching and learning processes, different types of lessons (which

corresponded to four orientations for art teaching referred by Efland (1979), as expressive,

mimetic, pragmatic and objective), different types of discussion (including responding to

art works), perceptions of value, perceptions of support provided by teachers and parents,

and perceptions of good artworks.

Procedure

Based on head-teachers' descriptions about their school intake in terms of familial

socio-economic background and of the school's catchment area, three classes were chosen

from three schools which reflected the full range of social strata. The questionnaire was

administered to pupils by one of the authors after receiving permission from headteachers

and parents.


Results

The majority of the respondents (75 % or more) chose the response scale middle

point 3 (not sure) on fifteen items. Therefore, these were excluded from subsequent

analysis. When examining the remaining items (23 out of the 38), we noted that they

reflected four key dimensions connected with art production, which we named enjoyment,

confidence, usefulness and support needed.

The items excluded referred to issues related to activities about different types of art

lessons and art discussion, and perceptions of parents' support regarding art lessons. It was

decided that these issues would be investigated through an in-depth qualitative

investigation at a later stage.

Study 2

The purpose of Study 2 was to gather a large pool of attitudinal items from the target

population, to form a pilot scale and test its validity and reliability.

Participants

The sample of Study 2 included two groups of pupils. The first group included 226

sixth graders (108 boys and 119 girls, mean age 11.4 years), and the second group

comprised 133 sixth graders (80 boys and 53 girls, mean age 11.6 years).

Instruments and Procedure

Two instruments were used in Study 2. The first was a list of incomplete statements

that corresponded to the four key dimensions found in Study 1. The statements were:

a) the subject of art is enjoyable because…;

b) the subject of art is not enjoyable because…;

c) the subject of art is useful because...;

d) the subject of art is not useful because...;

e) the subject of art is easy because…;

f) the subject of art is difficult because…;

g) I like it when my art teacher…, and

h) I do not like it when my art teacher….

A pool of attitude statements was generated when pupils were asked to complete the

above statements about the art subject or their teacher. More specifically, two sentences,

out of the eight mentioned, were introduced to each class; one positively worded and its

opposite. Half of the pupils of each class were asked to complete the positively worded

sentence and half of them the negatively worded sentence. The statements collected by the

completion of the two sentences about the teacher were in agreement with those of other

studies where pupils were asked to talk about their teachers' support (Blake, 1994,

Cullingford, 1987), thus confirming the content validity for this dimension.


Based on the collected statements, a second instrument was formed, which included

the most frequently mentioned views. This comprised the pilot attitude scale with 41 items

and six factual questions. The pilot scale included ten items for each of the subscales of

enjoyment, confidence, and support needed, and eleven for the usefulness subscale. There

were twenty favourable items and twenty-one unfavourable items distributed throughout

the instrument randomly. There was a five point response scale ranging from disagree a lot

to agree a lot. This instrument was given to the second group of pupils for initial testing.

The same procedure as described in Study 1 was followed to ensure variability in socio-

economic backgrounds and permission from the headteachers and the parents was also

sought.

Results

An exploratory factor analysis was performed through the principal components

analysis. The direct oblimin rotation method was used. Six factors were obtained as a result

of this exploratory factor analysis. According to the scree test criteria the first four factors

were retained. The eigenvalues of the factors were: 7.109, 3.556, 2.875, and 2.491. These

values implied a four-factor structure for the attitude scale, explaining 44.533% of the total

variance. From the inspection of the factor structure seven items were excluded from the

subsequent analysis because they had secondary loadings in more than one factor.

Furthermore we investigated the internal consistency of the subscales using Cronbach's

alpha. The Cronbach' alpha scores were: for enjoyment 0.86, for usefulness 0.81, for

confidence 0.77, and for support needed 0.72.

Study 3

The purpose of Study 3 was to retest the validity and reliability of the scale, using a

larger sample and Confirmatory Factor Analysis. In addition it aimed at examining

variables that might influence the formation of pupils' attitudes. One of them was

considered to be the teachers' role and therefore special attention was given to the selection

of classes that were taught by teachers with different levels of specialisation and attitudes

towards art teaching.

Participants

Four-hundred and twenty pupils from 17 sixth-grade classes completed the ASAES;

201 boys and 219 girls (mean age 11.8). Six classes had art specialist1 teachers (141

pupils), six classes had enthusiastic non-specialist2 teachers (154 pupils) and five classes

had unenthusiastic non-specialist teachers3 (119 pupils). The schools were located in ten

different areas of Nicosia. Pupils in each of the three groups came from various socio-

economic backgrounds.

Instrument

The ASAES includes four Likert-type attitude subscales - enjoyment, confidence,

usefulness, and support needed - with 34 items. There is a five-point response scale ranging


from disagree a lot to agree a lot. An effort was made to make the ASAES pupil friendly.

So, the five-point response scale is illustrated with smiley faces ranging from very sad to

very happy (Davies & Brember, 1994). Pupils are asked to colour the face that best

represents their views. Pupils' responses are scored from 1 to 5. A total score for each

subscale is derived by reversing the negative items' scoring (items that exhibit negative

attitudes towards art education) and adding up the scores of all the items comprising the

subscale. There are an equal number of positively and negatively worded items. All the

items of the scale are presented in Appendix A.

The enjoyment subscale consists of nine items. These items explore whether pupils

like/enjoy art or not, and reasons for these views. More specifically, three items explore

directly pupils' feelings of enjoyment towards art in terms of like and dislike. Other items

explore this indirectly, and this is one of the advantages of scales. These involve the notion

of boredom (two items), and reasons for enjoying art as stated by pupils in Study 2 (two

items are connected with opportunities for choices and one item is connected with

relaxation).

A set of eight items measures pupils' attitudes towards the confidence subscale.

These items explore the extent to which pupils are satisfied with their work, believe in their

abilities in art and explore reasons for these expressed attitudes towards their competence

in art. The notions of easy versus hard are used to express pupils' feelings of competence

versus incompetence. Four items explore directly pupils' beliefs in their abilities (whether

they can respond to the tasks set by the teacher and how satisfied they are with the results

of their work). The others are connected with reasons for feeling competent /incompetent,

such as handling materials, expressing what they want, doing careful and detailed work,

which were perceived as signs of quality work by the pupils in Studies 1 and 2, and being

able to concentrate.

The usefulness subscale consists of ten items. These items aim to find out whether

pupils think that art is useful and important, and reasons for these attitudes. Two items look

at pupils' attitudes towards art in terms of importance, and there is one item that implies

that art knowledge is important. Four items deal with reasons for considering art an

important, useful subject to have in school. Three are connected with acquiring skills,

learning how to do things, and one refers to imagination. Lastly, three items explore

whether pupils believe in art's usefulness in daily life and for their future life.

A set of seven items addresses pupils' attitudes towards the support received from

their teachers. Three items directly investigate pupils' perceptions about the individual help

and attention received. Three others look at reasons for liking their teacher. One item may

be characterised as a long shot because it indirectly investigates teachers' attitudes towards

art as a non-important subject and suggests that teachers may use the time allocated to art

inappropriately and thus reduce the art opportunities offered to pupils.

Procedure

The procedure for selecting the classes was a multi-stage cluster sampling. First

potential schools were identified, which included the full range of schools in different

socio-economic areas of the Nicosia district. Then thirteen schools (from the 48 listed in

Nicosia) were selected not only to reflect the above variety, but also to include teachers

with different levels of art specialisation and similar teaching experience (teaching


experience is another potentially important factor, but this study tried to minimise its

effects to better explore the role of specialisation). If teachers fitted the above criteria, their

classes were selected. This procedure was followed until the sample of the pupils would be

around 10% of the top-primary grade population of the Nicosia district. The scale was

given to the pupils prior to their art lesson. Initially pupils were asked to complete the first

page, which included five questions seeking factual information (e.g., age, gender). Then,

they were told that the rest of the questionnaire was about art, they were presented with the

scale and the instructions were read loud.

Results

Reliability. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to assess the reliability of the

scale. The alpha scores obtained for each subscale were high (enjoyment: Cronbach's alpha

= .85; confidence: Cronbach's alpha = .76, usefulness: Cronbach's alpha = .80, and support

needed: Cronbach's alpha = .78).

Confirmatory factor analysis. The Amos 6 (Analysis of Moment Structures)

software was used to perform a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) in order to test

whether the four-factor structure of the attitude scale was appropriate. In a Confirmatory

Factor Analysis an a priori model is fitted on to the data. The model fit is evaluated by

means of a Chi-square statistical test. The null hypothesis underlying the test statistic is

model fit, thus significance implies misfit of the model (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1989). There

are several fit indices that describe the fit of a model. Griffin (2005) suggests it is necessary

to use at least four fit indices to build an overall understanding of fit to the measurement

model; model fit is a multifaceted concept and no fit indices in isolation should be

considered. In evaluating our model we examined the Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI; Raykov

& Marcoulides, 2000) and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), in which values

higher than 0.90 indicate a model with a good fit, and the Root Mean Square Error of

Approximation (RMSEA; Hu & Betler, 1999), in which values less than 0.06 indicate a

model with a good fit. In addition, the chi-square/degrees of freedom ( 2/df) indicator was

examined. Caution should be taken in the interpretation of fit indices when a large pool of

observed items is being analyzed, as in this case many parameter estimates will be

constrained to zero when simple factor structure is hypothesized. As O'Connor, Colder and

Hawk (2004) note, with a large number of constrains, fit indices (e.g., CFI) are more likely

to reflect a poor fit, which can be attributed to a large number of trivial discrepancies

between the observed and model implied covariance matrices. The 2/df, which adjusts for

the sample size, is believed to be a better indicator of the model fit in this situation.

Generally a 2/df less than 3.0 is considered good.

The results indicate that there was a rather acceptably good fit with the theoretical

framework of the four-factor model. More specifically, the factor structure of the applicant

sample fits the data well according to the chi-square/degrees of freedom and to the Root

Mean Square Error of Approximation indices (2(458, N = 420) = 1045,508;

2/df = 2.28;

RMSEA = 0.055). Moreover, the values of the Goodness-of-Fit Index and the Comparative

Fit Index are very close to the cut off point of 0.90 (CFI = 0.85; GFI = 0.83). These results

lead us to provisionally accept this model. This decision was also supported by the

modification indexes; if any covariance terms were to be added to the model, these would

not result in an improvement of the fit indices.


Enjoyment

,57q25e25

,47q22e22

,28q14e14

,46q12e12

,33q9e9

,24q7e7

,38q4e4

,32q2e2

,51q1e1

Confidence

,25q31e31

,21 q24e24,33

q21e21,13

q19e19

,35 q16e16,46

q13e13,34

q10e10,29

q6e6

Usefulness

,35q26e26

,60q23e23

,44q20e20

,32q18e18

,19q17e17

,24q15e15

,26q11e11

,28q8e8

,39q5e5

,25q3e3

Supportneeded

,06q34e34

,42q33e33

,49q32e32

,46q30e30

,47q29e29

,35q28e28

,30q27e27

,51

,49

,43

,54

,50

,58,68

,46,58

,59

,36

,55

,81

,44

,90

,90

,51

,50,62,53

,59,78,67,56

,55

,25,64

,59

,68

,68

,70

,75

,72,56

,69,53

,62,49

,57,68

Figure 1: Path Diagram of the Model


The path diagram of the model is presented in Figure 1. In the diagram the

correlations between the latent variables (subscales) are given. High correlations exist

between the enjoyment, confidence and usefulness scales. This is an expected result

because, for example, it is highly likely that a child who believes he or she is good in art

(i.e., scores high in the confidence subscale), also enjoys art lessons (scores high in the

enjoyment subscale), and believes that art lessons are valuable (scores high in the

usefulness subscale). Standardized regression coefficients link the observed variables with

the latent variables on the diagram. Twenty-nine of them indicate a "large" effect (values

above 0.50), four have a "medium" effect (values above 0.30) and one has a "small" effect

(value= 0.25). Moreover the R2 value for the observed variables (items in the subscales)

appears on the left side of their rectangle shape on the diagram. The R2 value summarizes

the proportion of variance in the latent variable explainable by the observed variable. The

R2 values of the observed variables range between 0.49 to 0.75 for the enjoyment subscale,

0.13 to 0.46 for the confidence subscale, 0.19 to 0.60 for the usefulness subscale, and 0.06

to 0.49 for the support needed subscale. The R2 values further justify the validity of the

instrument, that is, the ASAES measures what it supposes to measure.

Discriminant validity. The discriminant validity of the subscales was measured by

analysing scores of pupils who manifested a positive attitude towards school art by their

active participation in outside school activities such as engaging in art activities at home.

For this purpose the question "Do you like drawing at home?" (included in the section with

the factual information) was used to divided pupils into four groups: (a) yes, every day; (b)

yes, 2-3 times per week; (c) yes, 2-3 times per month, and (d) no. A ANOVA test, with

four dependent variables (the four subscales) and one independent variable (drawing at

home) with four levels, was carried in order to avoid the inflation in Type I error rate by a

multivariate design. The test revealed main effect of the variable drawing at home on

pupils' responses on the subscales [F (12, 1242) = 16,429; p<.001].

Table 1: ANOVA Tests: Outside School Activity (drawing at home) and Attitudes Towards Art

Experienced in School

Independent Variable Dependent Variable df F Sig.2

Drawing Enjoyment 3 74.817 .000 .351

at home Confidence 3 46.849 .000 .253

Usefulness 3 45.195 .000 .246

Support needed 3 5.566 .001 .039

The test also provides univariate F-tests on each of the dependent variables, which

indicated that there was a significant difference in each subscale (see Table 1). Table 1 also

presents the effect-size measure (Eta square, 2), which indicates how much of the total

variance is explained by the independent variable (drawing at home). A homogeneity test

indicated that equal variance was not assumed and therefore the Dunnett's T3 post hoc

approach was used for making all pairwise comparisons among the four groups of pupils.

The results of this analysis are shown in Table 2.


Table 2: Dunnett's T3 Post Hoc Tests: Pupils' Participation to an Outside School Activity and

their Scores on the ASAES

(I) Drawing at home (J) Drawing at homeMean difference

(I-J) Std. ErrorSig.

Enjoyment daily 2-3 times weekly 1.46 .754 .283

2-3 times monthly 4.00(*) .845 .000

Not at all 12.91(*) 1.049 .000

2-3 times weekly daily -1.46 .754 .283

2-3 times monthly 2.54(*) .713 .003

Not at all 11.45(*) .946 .000

2-3 times monthly daily -4.00(*) .845 .000

2-3 times weekly -2.54(*) .713 .003

Not at all 8.91(*) 1.020 .000

Confidence daily 2-3 times weekly 3.06(*) .775 .001

2-3 times monthly 4.95(*) .837 .000

Not at all 10.58(*) 1.004 .000

2-3 times weekly daily -3.06(*) .775 .001

2-3 times monthly 1.89(*) .658 .027

Not at all 7.52(*) .861 .000


2-3 times weekly -1.89(*) .658 .027

Not at all 5.63(*) .917 .000

Usefulness daily 2-3 times weekly 2.68(*) .870 .016

2-3 times monthly 5.04(*) .958 .000

Not at all 11.78(*) 1.197 .000

2-3 times weekly daily -2.68(*) .870 .016

2-3 times monthly 2.36(*) .765 .013

Not at all 9.11(*) 1.049 .000


2-3 weekly -2.36(*) .765 .013

Not at all 6.74(*) 1.123 .000

Support daily 2-3 weekly 1.28 .744 .422

needed 2-3 monthly 2.60(*) .793 .008

Not at all 3.63(*) .910 .001

2-3 times weekly daily -1.28 .744 .422

2-3 monthly 1.33 .726 .348

Not at all 2.36(*) .852 .038


2-3 weekly -1.33 .726 .348

Not at all 1.03 .896 .821

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.

Pupils who were dedicated to art and drew daily at home received the highest scores in all

subscales, whereas pupils who were indifferent towards art and never drew at home

received the lowest scores in all subscales. The above indicates that the subscales had

acceptable levels of discriminate validity because they were discriminating according to

pupils' active participation to outside school art activities.


Variables that Influence the Formation of Pupils' Attitudes

An important use of the ASAES is the identification of variables that may influence

the formation of pupils' attitudes.

Teachers' Background and Pupils' Gender

The analysis used in this section is a Multivariate Analysis of Variance

(MANOVA), which allows the use of several dependent variables. In this case we have

four dependent variables (the four subscales) and two independent variables (teachers'

background and pupils' gender). The overall MANOVA for teachers' background was

significant [F(8, 824) = 6.124, p<0.001], indicating that the three groups of pupils as

defined by their teachers' background (specialisation and attitudes) differed when the

subscales were considered. The simple univariate F tests on each of the dependent variables

indicate that there was a significant difference in each subscale (see Table 3).

Table 3: ANOVA Tests: Groups of Pupils Based on their Teachers' Background and Pupils'

Attitudes Towards Art Experienced in School

Independent Variable Dependent Variable df F Sig.2

Teachers' Enjoyment 2 9.032 .000 .042

background Confidence 2 4.045 .018 .019

Usefulness 2 4.389 .013 .021

Support needed 2 22.061 .000 .096

Table 4: Dunnett's T3 post hoc tests: groups of pupils according to their teachers' background

and their scores on the ASAES

Dependent

Variable

(I) Teachers'

background

(J) Teachers'

background

Mean difference

(I-J)Std. Error Sig.

Enjoyment AS group ENS group 1.35 .791 .240

UNS group 3.64(*) .871 .000

ENS group AS group -1.35 .791 .240

UNS group 2.29 .969 .056

Confidence AS group ENS group 0.83 .715 .575

UNS group 2.22(*) .764 .012


UNS group 1.39 .832 .260

Usefulness AS group ENS group 1.19 .836 .396

UNS group 2.70(*) .868 .006


UNS group 1.50 .980 .333

Support AS group ENS group 2.73(*) .608 .000

needed UNS group 4.52(*) .686 .000

ENS group AS group -2.73(*) .608 .000

UNS group 1.78 .779 .067

* The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.


Using the Dunnette T3 post hoc procedure (equal variance was not assumed) we were able

to further localise the significant differences. Pupils taught by art specialists (the AS group)

had significantly more positive attitudes towards art experienced in school than pupils

taught by unenthusiastic non-specialists (the UNS group). Further, the AS group differed

significantly from the ENS group (pupils taught by enthusiastic non-specialist) on the

support needed subscale (see Table 4).

The overall MANOVA for gender was also significant [F(4, 411) = 10,125, p <

0.001], indicating that girls and boys' attitudes differed when all the subscales were

considered. Table 5 reveals that girls had more positive attitudes than boys did. No

significant interaction among the two variables (teachers' background and genders) on the

four subscales was noted, and therefore, no further analyses were performed.

Table 5: Girls and boys: Means, Standard Deviations, and t-Statistics for Measures of

Enjoyment, Confidence, Usefulness and Support Needed

Girls Boys t-statistic, equal

Means (S.D.) Means (S.D.) variance not assumed

Enjoyment 37.99 (5.65) 33.82 (8.33) -5.948***

Confidence 33.67 (5.79) 31.31 (6.87) -3.787***

Usefulness 40.67 (5.68) 36.63 (8.60) -5.625***

Support needed 33.47 (5.62) 31.93 (6.20) -2.649***

***p<0.001

**p<0.01

Perceived Competence

Primary school pupils do not usually receive any formal assessment about their

performance in art lessons. In the absence of other indicators (objective assessments) for

pupils' competence than their responses to the ASAES, it was decided to use the results of

the confidence subscale to identify pupils with low or high perceptions of competence.

Research supports the belief that top-primary pupils can offer self-evaluations of academic

competence that are congruent with other objective evaluations and therefore these should

be seen as valid measures of performance affecting self-appraisals (both Assor & Connell,

1992, and Pintrich & Schunck, 2002, offer reviews of various studies on the issue of self-

perceptions of competence and the accuracy of pupils' self-evaluations). At the same time,

it is argued that even if self-perceptions of competence are not accurate, these are important

in determining pupils' future achievement behaviour (Pintrich & Schunck, 2002). Based on

pupils' scores on the confidence subscale the population was divided into two groups:

pupils with low confidence and pupils with high confidence. The median value (33)4

of the

confidence subscale was used to separate these two groups. Pupils who received a score

lower than 33 were characterised as low confident pupils and pupils who received a score

of 33 and more were characterised as high confident pupils.

A factorial MANOVA was performed to compare the effect of perceived

competence and teachers' background on the three subscales of the ASAES (the confidence

subscale is not included because the variable perceived competence was formed by this


subscale). The overall MANOVA for perceived competence was significant [F(3, 412) =

63.524, p < 0.001], indicating that high and low confident pupils' attitudes differed when

the three subscales were considered. Examination of Table 6 reveals that high confident

pupils had significantly more positive attitudes than low confident pupils did.

Table 6: High and Low Confident Pupils: Means, Standard Deviations, and t-Statistics for

Measures of Enjoyment, Usefulness and Support Needed

Low confident pupils High confident pupils t-statistic, equal

Means (S.D.) Means (S.D.) variance not assumed

Enjoyment 31.57 (7.83) 39.72 (4.22) -12.939***

Usefulness 34.82 (7.76) 42.04 (5.40) -10.849***

Support needed 31.20 (6.36) 34.02 (5.27) -4.884***

***p<0.001

The results also indicate an overall effect of teachers' background [F (6, 826) =

7.867, p < 0.001]. The simple univariate F tests on each of the dependent variables indicate

that there was a significant difference in each subscale [enjoyment: F(2, 420)=8.050,

P<0.001; usefulness: F(2, 420)= 3.892, p<0.05; support needed: F(2, 420)= 21.527, p <

0.001]. The Dunnette T3 post hoc procedure (equal variance was not assumed) showed that

a significant difference at the 0.05 level existed between the AS group and the UNS group

for the three subscales and between the AS group and the ENS group for the support

needed subscale.

Moreover, a significant interaction between the variables teachers' background and

perceived competence on the subscales was noted [F (6, 826) = 2.459, p < 0.05], and

therefore, further analyses were performed to examine the pattern of this interaction.

Univariate F tests revealed significant interactions on the enjoyment and usefulness

subscale (see Table 7).

Table 7: ANOVA Tests for the Interaction of the Variables' Perceived Ability and Teachers'

Background

Dependent Variable df F Sig.2

Enjoyment 2 3.711 .025 .018

Usefulness 2 5.342 .005 .025

Perceived competence and

teachers' background

Support needed 2 2.086 .125 .010

These interactions are illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, which show that high confident

pupils enjoyed and valued art more than low confident pupils despite their teachers'

background. But, the level of enjoyment and the belief in art's usefulness of low confident

pupils was significantly influenced by their teachers' background. Low confident pupils

taught by art specialists were significantly more likely to enjoy art and attribute value to it

than the other pupils did.


Figure 2: Teachers' Background, Perceived Ability and Scores on the Enjoyment Subscale

Figure 3: Teachers' Background, Perceived Ability and Scores on the Usefulness Subscale

Conclusion

This article describes the development of an instrument, the ASAES, which can be

used to assess pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school. It shows that the

instrument has acceptable levels of reliability and validity and therefore can be used to


build a database for pupils' attitudes towards art experienced in school. The reliability of

the four subscales is demonstrated at a high level on the basis of internal consistency as

determined by Cronbach's Alpha. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicates that there is

a rather good fit of the model and that the four key dimensions identified are supported by

the data.

The ASAES can be used as a tool to examine the effect of variables on pupils'

attitudes. The findings of Study 3 indicate that teachers play a significant role in the

formation of pupils' attitudes. In general pupils taught by art specialists have the most

positive attitudes towards art experienced in school. In effect this finding is a vote of

confidence from the pupils for their teachers. The implication of this is that efficiency in

teaching school art can be considered as a very strong predictor of shaping pupils' attitudes.

In addition the data indicate that art specialists were able to make a significant impact

where it mattered most, on low confident pupils. These findings imply that the ASAES can

be used to evaluate teaching practices which differ according to the teacher's attitudes,

experience and qualifications. The findings also suggest that the concept of perceived

competence may represent the key idea that most individuals will not be interested in and

value a task, in this case art activities, when they believe that they are not good at it and

have low expectations. Furthermore, the effect of gender on pupils' attitudes suggests that

there may be an underlying assumption among pupils that the subject of art is a feminine

subject.

These findings suggest that educational policy makers should take into consideration

a policy of having art specialists teaching at primary schools in order to support pupils with

low perceptions of competence so as to enable all to enjoy art. The importance of teachers'

specialisation and the kind of teacher profile thought to be most successful according to

pupils is further discussed in Pavlou (2004). The ASAES was used in another study to

further explore the role of perceived competence in engaging with art tasks (Pavlou, 2006).

There are many possible ways of using the ASAES to explore variables that may

influence the formation of pupils' attitudes. Future research could investigate (a) the role of

pupils, in terms of age/grade, gender, perceived abilities, and/or socio-economic

background; (b) the role of parents, in terms of their attitudes to art, their education and/or

cultural capital; (c) the role of school, in terms of the general ethos of the school, and/or its

facilities for art, etc.; (d) the role of teachers' background, including academic experience,

teaching experience, gender, attitudes to art teaching, etc., and (e) the role of society, in

terms of applying the ASAES to different cultures and education systems and make

comparative studies.

Notes

1. Primary school teachers, who pursued their special interest in art by obtaining further qualifications

abroad, such as MA in art and design education or BA in fine arts.

2. Primary school teachers who were not art specialists but showed enthusiasm and interest for art

teaching.

3. Primary school teachers who were not art specialists and were either disappointed or frustrated with

art teaching or uninterested and apathetic towards art teaching. For more details about the types of

teachers, see Pavlou (2004).


4. In order to make sure that the middle value of 33 was the appropriate cut to use for defining pupils

as having high or low perceptions of confidence, the same tests, as the ones mentioned in the

subsequent analyses, were carried out without including the middle values of 32, 33 and 34 (N =

79). When the middle values were collapsed and the tests were carried out results were not

different. Therefore the whole population was used in all the tests that follow.

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The Authors

VICTORIA PAVLOU is currently lecturing at the Aegean University, School of

Humanities, Rhodes, Greece. Her teaching focuses on visual arts and education at the

undergraduate level and on gender and arts at the post-graduate level. Her research interests

include pupils' learning preferences, attitudes, motivation, initial and continuing teacher

education, and art and new technologies.

MARIA KAMBOURI is lecturer in research methods in education and psychology at the

Institute of Education, London. Her main research interests are in adult learning, in

particular through the use of Information and Communication Technologies, pedagogies

using ICTs, digital inclusion issues for learners with low literacy skills, and computerised

assessment and evaluation. She has conducted numerous evaluation studies contributing

towards both research, policy and development in these areas.

Correspondence: <[email protected]>


Appendix: The Four Subscales of the ASAES

Subscales Items

Enjoyment

1. I like art lessons.

2. I don't like drawing.

4. In an art lesson I often count the minutes till break-time.

7. I don't like art lessons because we cannot choose the theme or the materials.

9. Art lessons are enjoyable because you have choices about how to draw something

or what to draw.

12. I am bored in art lessons.

14. For me art is relaxing.

22. I don't enjoy art because I get dirty.

25. I like drawing at school.

Confidence

6. I am often able to draw what the teacher wants me to do.

10. I like participating in art competitions.

13. I am good at doing careful, detailed work in art lessons.

16. I am usually satisfied with my pictures.

19. Art is hard because you need to be very careful and you need to pay attention to

details.

21. I can easily express my ideas, thoughts and/or feelings in pictures.

24. I find art difficult because I really need to concentrate.

31. Art lessons are hard.

Usefulness

3. Art is useful for me because I learn how to use different materials.

5. Art at school is useful because when we grow up we can have it as a hobby.

8. What you learn in art lessons is not useful in everyday life.

11. Art won't be of much use to me when I grow up.

15. Art doesn't offer me any knowledge.

17. Knowing how to draw is not important.

18. Most of the art I do at school is a waste of time for me.

20. Art is useful because I can use my imagination

23. For me art is useful because I learn how to draw.

26. The subject of art is useful for me because I learn how to express my feelings.

Support needed

27. My teacher doesn't seem to have the time to give me individual attention.

28. During art lessons my teacher tries to make me work as well as I am able.

29. The teacher offers lots of suggestions and ideas.

30. The teacher helps me when I am having difficulties.

32. The art teacher listens carefully to what we have to say.

33. The teacher explains the theme and the procedure well.

34. The teacher uses some of the time in art class to do another subject.

Documents

PUPILS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS ART TEACHING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL: AN EVALUATION TOOL