The Impact of Time on Art Learning: Intensive vs. Concurrent Scheduling in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper investigates the hypothesis that intensive education, which allows the student to focus on one subject in depth for a concentrated period of weeks, offers a valid and perhaps preferred format for art classes when compared to traditional concurrent scheduling, in which the student pursues several unrelated courses during a regular semester. A nationwide survey of 407 students enrolled in studio and art history courses at 18 randomly selected colleges and universities during the January 1980 interim term compared the two approaches. Analysis of the data indicated that students have a significantly greater preference for intensive study for reasons of structure effectiveness, meeting personal needs, goals, and educational standards, ability to arouse interest and motivation, and fostering teacher enthusiasm. Manuel Barkan was one of several art educators who have stressed the importance of understanding the effects of in developing a quality art program at all learning levels. Barkan pointed out that the arbitrary length of a standard class period is often inappropriate for instruction in the visual arts, and stated that learning in visual art courses is often inhibited because many subject-matter fields must compete with one another for the student's few study periods; thus the teacher of art is eternally confronted with the frustrating pull of time (1974, p. 44). During the sixties, the National Art Education Asso