The Effects of Specific Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria in Creative Art Education: Do educators and Students have the Opportunity to Teach and Learn Vital Transversal Skills?

Abstract

Within the courses offered at bachelor levels at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technologys (MCAST) Institute of the Creative Arts (ICA), students are led through a number of units related to the specific art they chose over a three-year period. Although there is a large emphasis on the practical and artistic components, the structures of assessment and unit building imposed on the lecturers might often restrict the flexibility needed to teach their art form in the way they see most fit. Instead of adopting pedagogies usually associated with the creative arts, such as studio work, and (artistic) research to strengthen the importance given to the practical element within vocational education and training (VET) in the creative arts, the current structures of assessment criteria used also create situations where students simply carry out a box-ticking exercise, spending very little time or effort on the project itself and yet achieving the grade but not the intended learning outcomes.Through interviews with lecturers from different departments at MCAST ICA, this study will determine how lecturers build their units around the learning outcomes, assess the work of the students based on the assessment criteria, and if they feel restricted and need to find creative ways to circumnavigate these restrictions in order to deliver the unit. The interviews also determine how much thought and importance is given to creating the opportunities for the transversal skills to be learnt by the students.