Art Attitudes and Teaching Behavior

Abstract

While elementary school teachers are expected to teach a variety of subjects, the time and emphasis they spend on special enrichment areas such as art are for the most part self-determined. Consequently most classroom teachers include some art in their curriculum; however, in terms of emphasis and total time spent on special areas, there is a great variance among individual teachers' programs. If it were possible to explain some of the reasons for these differences, this knowledge might be helpful in developing teacher training curricula. Generally in our private lives our attitudes and interests influence our participation in various activities. It would seem only natural that a teacher's attitudes and interests toward a particular subject area such as art might influence the quantity and quality of instruction in that particular area. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between teachers' attitudes about their own artistic ability, their ability to teach art, and the behavioral consequences of these attitudes. It was hypothesized that teachers who were confident in their own artistic abilities, and their ability to teach art, and believed that children's artistic behavior was amendable to instruction, would spend more instructional time teaching art activities than those with negative attitudes.