I feel a little more confident in my research skills since I wrote this literature review. I hope my grade reflects my confidence. I think the assignments leading up to our literature review helped organize my ideas and thought which made the writing process easier. Which I would like to thank the instructor for the way it was all set up for us to suceed. Instead of researching the sources for the review all at once it was easier to have the assignments explain different kinds of sources and follow up with the ones you need to keep. The understanding of the importance of the arts in education was expanded due to the analysis of my literature review by teaching me the other aspects I had not seen. For example the perspective of high school students regarding art. I don’t feel that there are any questions unanswered about my research but instead I feel it further strengthens my beliefs on the importance of the arts in education and I want to learn more on teacher’s views.

 

This week I learned a little more about my research topic because I included another very important journal. The search path to locate them was through Leatherby Libraries and refined my search so that it would be closer to the topic I needed which is on art education and the importance of it in our school systems. There aren’t very many aspects of my research question that are unanswered and so far I am enjoying the new information I look up each week because it further confirms the fact that we need to keep the art in education and raise the level of priority in teaching it as well. I feel like the aspects of my research topic are important to a wide audience because we all care about education and if we keep stressing the value it has to our children then it will not become extinct.

Why is it important to include the arts in education?

Thomas, M. K., Singh, P., Klopfenstein, K., & Henry, T. (2013). Access to High School

Arts Education: Why Student Participation Matters as Much as Course Availability. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21 (83) Retrieved June 12, 2016, from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1224

 

This article touches on the importance of the role of arts education for achievement and developing creativity. It also gives a few tables on the level of participation from students based on its availability. One of tables shows that the participation rate in a Texas high school is less than .63% from 9th to 12th. This table also shows that the involvement in the arts engages students in their overall learning experience. This article is relevant to my research because it gives observations from schools that have art course resources and its participation rates. The findings in this article can show how important it is to include the arts in education. The information from the article is from 2013 and up to date for my topic. I looked at a variety of sources and this one was the most relevant because it answered my research question. The authors of this article are qualified because they are from Education Research Center at The University of Texas at Dallas and Education Innovation Institute of the University of Northern Colorado. The information is supported by the tests they made on students to access how detrimental arts education is to lower dropout rates. The purpose of the information from this article is to inform readers of the advantages of arts in education.

 

Manifold, M., & Zimmerman, E. (2011). Everyone Needs an Art Education: Developing Leadership through Positive Attitudes Toward Art Methods Courses. Art Education, 64, 33-39. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed June 4, 2016).

 

In this article the authors do a study using focus-group student discussions and focused interviews with instructors of art method courses. This article is relevant to my research because it specifically answers my research topic with important data taken from students that share their experiences from art method courses. The studies where made to explore how group activities impacted students in a positive way with the right art experiences and right attitude. The study goes into detail to explain what characteristics instructors need to focus on in order to teach art. The article also shows pictures on how groups interact with each other and collaborate to develop affirmative views of art which are relevant to my research. The timeliness of the information of this article is recent since it’s published in 2011. The intended audience is for teachers and parents because it does into depth about the teaching methods. The authors of this study are professors of art education at Indiana University.  This a reviewed article and the tone of this article is not biased. The purpose of the information is based on facts because of the teachers who used art lessons in order to support the idea that art is important in education.

 

Art In Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Approach To Creativity And Analytic Practice

Goldstein G. (2013). Available from: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)

http://search.ebscohost.com

 

This book talks about how art affects creativity and the way children develop a way to show emotions. The author of this book is a psychoanalyst that partners with others to write each chapter on different views. She uses views from a medical doctor, clinical professor of psychiatry and medical psychiatrist. This journal would be relevant to my research topic because it touches on some important points that discuss the effect modern art has on children. The organizational affiliations are with IPA “Psychoanalytic Ideas and Application” series. The author’s qualifications on the topic of creativities importance to education are relevant for this topic since it is based on the mind of children and their understanding of art. There is no contact information on this eBook.

 

Bjokman, A.E, Bjorkman, C. (2016). Patterns of awareness-preschool teachers’ integration of art and mathematics: International Journal of Education through Art, 12, 167-180.

Doi: 10.1386/eta.12.2.167_1

 

This journal investigates how preschool teachers use art and mathematics together. They also have a specific research question similar to mine. They want to know how much does art contribute to a child’s learning development. The topic of this journal is relevant to my subject of research since it discusses how important the arts are in education from firsthand experience of the teachers. The timeliness of this journal is very recent and some of the studies are from 2013 as well. The intended audience would be teachers and parents since it is informational. The authors of this article are from Sweden and they both are from a University.  This study comes from Sweden and there are no errors in the grammar. The purpose of this information is to compare the guidelines that we have here in the United States so that we can learn from the examples we are given by other educators.

 

Wilson, J. M. (1998). Art-making behavior: why and how arts education is central to learning. Arts Education Policy Review, (6), 26.

 

This journal was relevant to my research question because it was supporting the thesis that the arts are central to learning. It talks about art educators and how the arts are important to human survival.  It is not too recent but from 1998 so it should be updated. This journal did not have much information on.  The author but goes straight into the topic using other references. The information comes from various research from other Universities.

 

Ashworth, Elizabeth Laura Auger. "Elementary art education : an expendable curriculum?." (2010): British Library EThOS, EBSCOhost (accessed June 20, 2016).

 

This journal is relevant to my research question because it explains how art education can be considered an endangered subject. The information form here is up to date since it is from 2010. There are a number of observations made from this article to inform parents and teachers. There is a need to add the arts into our core education since right now it is considered non-core subject. The teachers also need to have more of a background in visual arts in order to implement the right ideas from art instruction. Since teachers lack the comfort teachers have to teach art can be otherwise seen as non-effective implementation. The author is from a University from Glasgow.

  

In this week’s readings I learned a little more about plagiarism. I think that when you use terms like “copying” it definitely takes away the real meaning of it because it is literary theft. I think that getting a refresher in this topic was important because as I do research I need to have this in mind. The concepts addressed and the research skills developed so far influence my approach as I do my research by keeping me focused on the citation methods I’ve learned. I need to practice annotation more and what I usually do to stay away from using the summary that they give in the beginning of each book is that I try to skim through the journal or book I’m using fro my research project, that way I use only my own words. There aren’t any aspects of academic integrity and plagiarism that are unclear.

 

The new ideas that I discovered with the empirical research articles was that the arts in education is valuable in many ways and what teaching characteristics are necessary. From what I discovered from the research articles I have not reconsidered the focus of my research question but instead it has affirmed my beliefs in the importance of the arts in education. I know that my interest for teaching and the arts is what has kept my attention on this research question.  There were other studies mentioned in the literature reviews mentioned that I want to look into because they further support my research topic. I did not find the same author in the articles I researched. I feel like my research skills are getting better. It still takes me awhile to find what I need but I think that everyone has to take time to find research articles you need and that will be useful. I had a hard time understanding chapter 4 in Badke book because I’m still learning research terminology. I think that I just need more practice with researching and read over some of the chapters we have already gone through to see if they can help me better understand Badke.

The articles that I looked at this week gave me a little more insight on teaching and the arts. My research is based on looking for the importance of the arts in education. As I went through some of the articles I found that after a while of teaching teachers found that they needed to make changes to their lesson plans in order for the students to gain better understanding of the arts. The search strategies particularly helpful in locating the article was that you could refine your search and look up articles that are PDF Full text that you could go back to later rather than trying to remember certain information and forgetting where you found it. I also liked that you are able to go into Academic Search Premier and add Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) search in order to get the most specific information you need for research. I took notes on each step I took and it didn’t always lead me to where I needed to go so it was helpful to play with it for a while until I figured out what I needed to do to get to the site I needed each time. The only difficulty was looking through the article and realizing it didn’t have the right information I needed but I think that’s normal part of research. As I continue to research my topic I hope to find better books and articles that talk more about teacher experiences. I feel like these kind of books speak for themselves by giving the right information on the arts and its importance in education.

I learned more about the importance of creativity in the arts by one of the books I chose to read through. It was also describing the path of various artists who used art in particular to express themselves and the way they developed as adolescents with art as a form of distraction. The new search strategies that were helpful this time where the advanced search in Leatherby and selecting eBooks. I was able to email some of the pages to myself that way I can print them and read through them more carefully. I like to highlight important lines that will be useful in my research topic so this helps me gather my thoughts. As I went the Leatherby Libraries I selected advanced search and underneath that I also highlighted eBooks. I skimmed through a few until I found one that was more relevant to my topic. I’m still trying to find the right question for my research topic and I know I want it to be based on teaching and the importance of creativity but since I don’t have that concrete idea I’m struggling with my research. The search has not been as frustrating as trying to find the right topic and question. I have been doing a lot of reading to see if that will make me find the question but I’m not sure if that’s the best strategy at this point. I hope to find out I’m making this harder than it should be but then again I’m sure they call it research for a reason. I hope that I can find my topic and question soon so I can get better at researching.

I learned a little more about my topic, teaching and the correlation with creativity, throughout the research I conducted so far. It’s very interesting to learn how important creativity can be for us in the long run. I think that the arts are a way to begin to teach children about creativity and I enjoy learning how important that is for education. I was glad to learn that google has more search tools than I knew about. Since we had to complete our assignment with the most current information it was helpful to use the advanced search feature on google. I like to mark pages that are important for me to go back to by adding it to my favorites also. The aspect of my topic that I would like to research further is the benefits of creativity and how teachers can implement ideas that will stay with students in order for them to use these skills later in life.