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Implications for art education of strategies adopted by elementary school children during manipulation, recognition, and discrimination tasks Bergland, Donald Lowell

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to discover the kinds of strategies and abilities revealed by elementary school children in response to tasks relating to visual structure and to determine whether the nature of those strategies and abilities would support or refute the assumption that perceptual learning and development are uniform, automatic, and universal. The study was conducted with twelve elementary school children ranging in ages from 6 to 13. It consisted of the presentation of computer-generated images which involved the subjects in manipulation, recognition, and discrimination tasks. Subjects responded verbally to the images and the questions posed by the researcher. These responses were documented on video tape and later transcribed for analysis. The nature of the subjects' responses comprised data relating to the kinds of strategies used in manipulating, recognizing, and concealing a given shape, and evidence of the ability to recognize given shapes and discriminate specific visual masking techniques. The study showed that perceptual learning and development may not be uniform, automatic, or universal. Some children responded with different abilities and strategies to visual tasks. Children with specific strategies and the ability to base those strategies on structural knowledge were most successful in recognition and discrimination tasks. Implications for the utilization of the findings by art educators, in creating and designing art programs are discussed.

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