Creative Disciplines Research Articles

The Impact of Creative Arts on Student Engagement and Learning

The integration of creative arts in education has shown potential in enhancing student engagement and learning. This study investigates how creative disciplines such as visual arts, music, and drama contribute to deeper cognitive, emotional, and social engagement in primary and secondary education. Drawing on theories of creativity and constructivism, the research utilizes a mixed-methods approach, involving case studies and surveys, to explore the effects of creative arts on student motivation, problem-solving, and academic performance. Findings indicate that students participating in creative arts activities exhibit higher engagement, adaptability, and positive learning outcomes. The study highlights the transformative role of arts-based learning and calls for greater incorporation of creative arts in the curriculum to foster holistic educational development. Keywords: Creative Arts, Student Engagement, Learning, Visual Arts, Music, Drama, Cognitive Development.

‘Soft Rebellion’: Flow art, critical play, and wellbeing in the city

This article discusses the intersections between flow art, critical play, and wellbeing in urban contexts in Finland. Flow art as an art form sits at the intersection of several movement-based creative disciplines, including contemporary circus, dance, and the underground electronic music scene. It is based on DIY in terms of making one's own props and choreographies and peer teaching/learning. The flow artists make use of several props familiar to the circus arts, including contact sticks, poi, hula hoops, diabolos, dragon staffs, and fans. The article explores how urban artistic take-overs can be understood as critical play, including the potential for political subversion and changing the meanings of urban spaces. Further, the article discusses how wellbeing is understood holistically, relationally, and interconnected to the concept of flow. The article is a result of ethnographic research conducted with flow art communities in 2021–2023.

The Evolution of STEAM-Based Programs: Fostering Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Real-World Application

Background and Aims: STEAM education is critical because it combines technical and creative disciplines, fostering skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. This comprehensive approach prepares students to face complex, real-world challenges while also providing them with the adaptable skills required for the 21st-century workforce. This paper aims to investigate the Evolution of STEAM-Based Programs: Fostering Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Real-World Application. Methodology: This paper employs a comprehensive methodology, including a systematic review of existing STEAM education research. It examines key trends, case studies, and educational frameworks to assess how STEAM programs have evolved and how they affect critical thinking, collaboration, and real-world applications. The article brings together findings from various sources to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness and challenges of STEAM-based approaches in education. Results: The study discovered that STEAM education combines science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics to improve critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. This approach not only improves student engagement and academic performance but also prepares students for future careers by teaching them 21st-century skills. STEAM education transforms students into innovative problem solvers who are prepared to face complex global challenges by cultivating a combination of technical and creative abilities. Conclusion: STEAM education combines science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics to promote critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving abilities. This integrated approach boosts student engagement and equips students with the adaptable skills required for future careers and global opportunities.

Redefining creative education: a case study analysis of AI in design courses

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to explore the transformative impact of AI-augmented tools on design pedagogy. It aims to understand how artificial intelligence technologies are being integrated into educational settings, particularly in creative design courses, and to assess the potential advancements these tools can bring to the field.Design/methodology/approachThe research adopts a case-study approach, examining three distinct courses within a creative technology curriculum. This methodology involves an in-depth investigation of the role and impact of AI in each course, focusing on how these technologies are incorporated into different creative disciplines such as production design, fine arts, and digital artistry.FindingsThe research findings highlight that the integration of AI with creative disciplines is not just a passing trend but signals the onset of a new era in technological empowerment in creative education. This amalgamation is found to potentially redefine the boundaries of creative education, enhancing various aspects of the learning process. However, the study also emphasizes the irreplaceable value of human mentorship in cultivating creativity and advancing analytical thinking.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this research might include the scope of the case studies, which are limited to three courses in a specific curriculum. This limitation could affect the generalizability of the findings. The implications of this research are significant for educational institutions, as it suggests the need for a balanced interaction between AI's computational abilities and the intrinsic qualities of human creativity, ensuring that the core essence of artistry is preserved in the age of AI.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in its specific focus on the intersection of AI and creative education, a relatively unexplored area in design pedagogy. The value of this research is in its contribution to understanding how AI can be harmoniously integrated with traditional creative teaching methods. It offers insights for educational institutions preparing for this technological transformation, highlighting the importance of maintaining a balance between technological advancements and humanistic aspects of creative education.

Shaping the future of creative education: the transformative power of VR in art and design learning

Addressing a critical gap in the understanding of virtual reality (VR) in education, this study develops and validates a predictive model to elucidate the influence of usability and spatial ability on learning satisfaction among art and design undergraduates. Utilizing structural equation modeling on data from 105 art and design students in Mexico, we demonstrate that enhanced usability and spatial ability in VR significantly predicts increased learning satisfaction, which in turn, positively affects motivation, cognitive benefits, reflective thinking, and perceived learning. Our findings reveal a direct correlation between VR environment design and educational outcomes, suggesting that meticulous attention to usability and spatial navigation can substantially elevate the learning experience in art and design students. This research contributes to educational technology by offering empirical evidence on optimizing VR for higher education, with implications for curriculum design and pedagogical strategies in creative disciplines.

Mapping the Scene: Creative Ecosystems in Post-Secondary Jazz Education

Abstract: The jazz world is built on exploration and innovation, which makes the genre and its practice tediously difficult to define. Practitioners use performance spaces as venues to not only share their art but to teach new musicians. That model is hard to replicate, but music programs in higher education have sought to do this since the 1940s. As part of that practice, we theorize that the institutional environment, particularly in the creative disciplines, is a critical input factor for jazz programs necessitating further research. This study investigates the creative ecosystem in jazz degree-granting institutions (JDGI; n = 90) through a mapping of higher education programs offering jazz degrees. We use these data to create a profile of an archetypical collegiate jazz program and present a snapshot of contemporary jazz education while offering a novel baseline for future research in the field.

Research on Teaching Methods of Integrating Watercolor Techniques and Information Technology in Higher Education Art Education

Abstract Watercolor painting is a visual and creative discipline, which is closely related to the development of digital technology, which also affects the methods and means of basic art education in China. In this paper, we detect the trajectory of gesture movement after preprocessing the gesture data collected from students in watercolor painting using a Leap Motion sensor. We use Euclidean distance and nearest neighbor laws to identify and classify gesture movements in order to recognize students’ gesture movements in art education. Then, the virtual interactive system is designed with Unity 3D software, and finally, the art teaching method combining watercolor techniques and information technology is established. The results of teaching practice show that the level of students’ watercolor technique skills in all dimensions under innovative teaching is much higher than that of students under traditional teaching, and the significance values are all less than 0.05, which indicates that the use of VR technology has a very obvious impact on the teaching of watercolor painting. Meanwhile, the scores of students’ watercolor painting works were also improved with the assistance of VR technology. This study can provide a case reference for the subsequent research on the application of augmented reality technology and related teaching resources to art education and can enrich the construction of a new model of art learning activities in colleges and universities with technical support.

Does Artificial Intelligence have the Possibility of Taking Over Designers' Jobs in the Future?

Technological advances in tools such as artificial intelligence have made it easier for architects, planners, interior designers and urban designers to visualize their designs easily and save time. Today, AI (Artificial Intelligence) is integrated into many different professions, and the design sector is no exception. Also, new design technologies, for example, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Dall-E 2, and Mid Journey, quickly dissolve the lines between what humans do at work and what machines and algorithms do. Despite the fact that design is a highly creative discipline that calls for a special blend of technical expertise, aesthetic judgment, and user empathy, AI systems are currently unable to fully recreate these skills. They only provide output in accordance with system input. They are unable to independently innovate new things. And indeed, we discovered that AI fundamentally alters the practice of design. Traditional problem-solving tasks performed by designers are increasingly computerized into unrestricted volume and speed learning loops. This situation raises the question of whether artificial intelligence will replace the job of designers in the future. This essay would attempt to give an explanation of two factors, first, how AI technology would mitigate designers’ duties, and second, the reasons why it would not be able to replace designers and architects in the near future. The article seeks to do a discourse, summarizing the studies on the effects of AI on the professional activity of designers and projecting where future designers will stand in their respective fields. Furthermore, this paper discusses the implications of artificial intelligence on the profession of designers, such as job displacement, job redefinition, and changes in the skill set required to be successful in the profession. Finally, the outcome of the essay is to understand the revolutionary impact of AI tools in design sectors in the future.

Sense of place: How should we think about urban planning practices today?

Considering the recent socio-technological, psychosocial, political, and economic developments, will the urban planning practices (in the systemic sense of its exercise) be able to adapt to a growing, changing urban culture? Noting the diverse variety of contemporary spatial practices in which methods, concepts, and discourses tend to be sealed off from one another, this reflection calls for a reevaluation of the plurality dimensions and layers in the construction of the urban reality, questioning in this process, the predictable hegemony regarding the supremacy of Architecture in shaping modern and current urban imagery. This essay seeks to foster a reflection on new contemporary paradigms of Western urban life, tracing a retrospective view that allows us to look systemically at what we have built. In this process, the aim is to stimulate a future collision path, a conceptual and operational dialogue between the creative disciplines of Architecture and Contemporary Art on the current urbanization courses, proposing this possible relationship as an inseparable disciplinary set in the process of producing public space and urban territory. Putting forth the hypothesis of reassessing the established models of contemporary urban planning, the goal is to explore the possible operationality of the bauhausian canon in its historical disciplinary triad (architecture/art/design) while, in a process of symbiotic interaction, considering them as complementary tools in urban design concept, promoting a pluralistic and expanded dialogue between the processes of designing, requalifying, and resignifying the future places.

Reframing, embodying and in-betweening: A conversation about experiences of doing practice-based research and research-creation

This article presents a conversation between one professor and two students in the Ph.D. programme at The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, the first in Canada to offer a dedicated practice-based Ph.D. opportunity to candidates from all creative disciplines. The discussion covers our own experiences of practice-based research and research-creation and describes how this can be an extraordinarily powerful way to explore issues of identity, community, exclusion and inclusion, creativity and human existence. We each share our individual pathways to practice-based research through the lens of garment-making, performance and music making, and how we have each found a place in the university to explore ideas and research through these mediums. We consider our experiences of making, doing and thinking about practice, and what this means as an impactful and transformational source of knowledge.

Designing assessment funds for the bachelor's degree program «art education in visual arts»: problems and solutions

Introduction. The research of tools for assessing the achieved educational results and the effectiveness of the educational process is a necessary mechanism for improving the quality of education and educational systems. Despite the accumulated experience in the formation of funds of assessment tools, the problem of assessing the formation of general professional and professional competencies of students, taking into account the specifics of the educational programme, remains relevant. The aim of the research: the search for procedures, types of tasks and the development of a model of complex FOS, allowing to assess the formation of all levels of competences of professional training of an art-pedagogue, including those reflecting the formation of competence in the field of visual arts. Materials and methods. The research materials were normative documents regulating the design and implementation of higher education programmes; Russian and foreign studies; survey data of 187 teachers of the Herzen State Pedagogical University. Methods: analysis of sources and regulatory documents, survey, quantitative assessment of data (percentages), typical selection. Results. The analysis of normative documents and theoretical sources revealed a contradiction between the need to standardise assessment procedures and the specifics of assessing the competences of an art-pedagogue. The results of the survey of teachers confirm this contradiction: the most acceptable form of objective assessment of competences is an oral test/exam (75.4%), practical assignment (70.1%). Among the main problems of designing assessment funds, teachers highlight the assessment of validity and reliability of the Funds of Assessment Tools (57.2%) and the possibility of assessing the competence as a whole (54%). The analysis of the research materials allowed the authors to propose a comprehensive model of assessment funds, including structural, content and assessment components. The proposed structure, logic of organisation and types of tasks (tests, professional tasks of artistic and creative disciplines, etc.), including invariant and variant parts of tasks for independent work, are the basis for valid assessment of the formation of all levels of competences, including professional ones, reflecting the specificity of training of art-pedagogues. Conclusion. The results of the analysis, the proposed model, procedures, types of assignments, and the described recommendations can be used in the design of funds of assessment tools for educational programmes of higher education in the context of training an art-pedagogue.

TVOŘIVOST A JEJÍ VNÍMÁNÍ STUDENTY V CZ/USA SPOLEČNÉM VÝTVARNÉM SEMINÁŘI: VÝZKUMNÁ STUDIE ZALOŽENÁ NA UMĚNÍ

Creativity is one of the most emphasized competencies in education. Despite the consensus on its importance, the concept of creativity is understood differently in various cultures. This study presents selected aspects of research on the perception of creativity among Czech and American art students in a joint online class. The project was realized by Art Based Research (ABR) method during the winter semester 2022/23 at KVKTT PdF, UHK, with 11 Czech students and 10 American students of Bc. studies. The project findings show different evaluations of creativity, self-efficacy, and creativity of artworks between the two groups. They make visible the formative influence of cultural context and education on creativity, even within the art discipline. The chosen method demonstrates the possibilities of action research, which, through the process, enables the participants' knowledge to be shaped through active participation. The mutual confrontation or overlapping of different concepts of creativity thus offers inspiration for teaching creative disciplines.

On the Integration of Machine Agents into Live Coding

Co-creation strategies for human–machine collaboration have recently been explored in various creative disciplines and more opportunities for human–machine collaborations are materialising. In this article, we outline how to augment musical live coding by considering how human live coders can effectively collaborate with a machine agent imbued with the ability to produce its own patterns of executable code. Using machine agents allows live coders to explore not-yet conceptualised patterns of code and supports them in asking new questions. We argue that to move away from scenarios where machine agents are used in a merely generative way, or only as creative impetus for the human, and towards a more collaborative relationship with the machine agent, consideration is needed for system designers around the aspects of reflection, aesthetics and evaluation. Furthermore, owing to live coding’s close relationship with exposing processes, using agents in such a way can be a useful manner to explore how to make artificial intelligence processes more open and explainable to an audience. Finally, some speculative futures of co-creative and artificially intelligent systems and what opportunities they might afford the live coder are discussed.

Team-based learning in online education: the development of students' creative thinking skills in digital art.

A person cultivates their creative skills influenced by various types of activities. The purpose of the work is to study the peculiarities of the development of students' creative thinking skills, which are interrelated with the development of appropriate stages of team teaching, as well as to determine the impact of creative thinking on the indicators of academic performance and motivation to learn. The authors used the methods of sociological survey, which allowed them to determine that the largest number of students had mastered the skills of discipline (27%) and emotionality (21%) to a greater extent at the initial stage of the study. The results showed that 11% of the students in creative subjects (painting, digital art) and 7% of students in general disciplines (history, sociology, pedagogy, mathematics, physics, Chinese, cultural studies) had their academic performance at a high level before the start of online learning. The process of online teaching to paint was based on teamwork using the technologies of online education through educational online platform in the context of digital art. The results of the survey showed that the students had developed their creative skills significantly after training. The development of creative manner (29%) and analytical thinking (28%) were most popular. The authors determined that 88% of the students had received high grades in creative disciplines and 83% of the students in general academic disciplines after training. Most students were characterized by a high level of knowledge. The results are valuable for researchers who study the relationship between the development of creative skills and knowledge in general academic subjects, as well as strive to develop new curricula.

The case for team-based learning in higher education scriptwriting programmes: A narrative literature review

Team-based learning (TBL) is a collaborative learning method that has been successfully adopted across a number of disciplines since its inception in the early 1970s. This article provides an exploration as to how it has been implemented and why it has not been adopted by arts-based disciplines on quite the same scale as those of scientific, medical, engineering and business-related subjects. The findings indicate that the time required to design a TBL course is a major hindrance to adoption. Other factors such as students’ reluctance to engage with the unfamiliar, unsuitable working spaces; the lack of guidance as to how to design the integral problem-solving exercises; an institutional culture not open to adopting new working practices and limited empirical evidence of the impact of TBL in arts and creative disciplines such as scriptwriting are all reasons given as to why TBL has not crossed wholesale into the study of arts-based subjects. Students are changing and it is therefore imperative that as educators we investigate and discover new ways to teach scriptwriting and arts-based subjects that meet the needs of the requirements of future generations.

In touch and between: a tactile toolkit for creative practitioners to navigate touch within their creative practice

Touch in performance and movement practice is not a new concept, although it tends to inhabit movement therapy, partnering techniques, alignment studies, and ethics. However, this article addresses the importance of touch in creative practice with reference to holistic embodied movement, sense of self, one’s agency and situatedness. Employing a somatic methodology and phenomenological lens, this article presents tactile practice as research carried out from 2019 to 2022 with master’s students and professionals delivered in the space and online as a lecture-workshop at People Dancing UK’s Perspectives on Practice. This overarching framework highlights methods of touch prior to the pandemic demonstrating how one perceives and responds to contact from another body whilst retaining authenticity; shifts in tactile engagement during the pandemic and how it aids solo practice; and opens up conversations on reintroducing touch post pandemic with possible cross-disciplinary practice. The research investigates/investigated tactile stimulations within passive, active and intra-active touch as a listening tool in the solo body and between bodies. Through various case studies, these are examined in relation to creative inquiry and artistic identity. The article aims to challenge power relations and conventional connotations around touch and practice as well as offer new tactile engagements within solo creative practice. It also proposes touch as a collaborative mesh for cohesion and keep us in touch through a practical tactile toolkit. This will resonate with somatic movement practitioners in particular, however its inclusive nature means specific approaches may resonate with practitioners in other creative disciplines.

A class act: The problem with ‘identifying’ into a class

This personal essay explores the social, philosophical and ethical issues that arise when individuals and groups self-identify as a particular class. The broadening of what class is understood as through various academic and creative disciplines has also opened up questions and problems that need addressing. Drawing on sociology, environmental, evolutionary and social psychology, I unpack different markers of class and identity, their interplay and interconnections, and consider the fragmentation of class-specific cultures and communities. These ideas are interrogated through personal reflection, literary criticism and with reference to popular culture to appraise the ways class focus has shifted and the obstacles arising in its wake.

In praise of orthographic projections: Cinematic plans, history and application

This article offers insights for architectural and design educators that teach emerging cinematic and filmmaking practices. Due to its interdisciplinary nature and its practice-based methodology, this article presents the research, pedagogy and practice for educators in the field of architecture and spatial design as well as other creative disciplines such as film, animation and digital media. The argument is substantiated by empirical observations and qualitative analysis of student filmmaking projects and first-hand experiments in a design studio environment. Direct observations made from experiments in a design studio environment in which more than 50 students were trained and numerous internationally awarded architectural films and animations were produced. The research outcomes illustrate how traditional orthographic drawing techniques can operate as highly useful instruments in the process of designing narrative pieces of digital media, animation and film about architectural projects. The pedagogical approach has the potential to have implications on the discourse, practice and pedagogy of the emerging common ground between architecture, spatial design principles, digital media and filmmaking.

Features of artistic and creative training in the field of industrial design in diverse universities of modern China

The processes of modernization of the Chinese higher education system are changing the content of educational activities of educational institutions and emphasize the need to train specialists with the ability to think innovatively in industrial production. The author of this article focuses on the peculiarities of the organization of the educational process in the specialty industrial design in leading educational institutions of different profiles and the role of disciplines related to the formation of artistic abilities of students in it. The purpose of the research is to study the educational process in modern Chinese art and non-art universities and to identify those components of it that condition the training of a future specialist capable of productive professional activity in production conditions. The object of the research is the process of formation of professional knowledge and skills of future specialists in the field of industrial design in modern Chinese art and non-art universities. The subject of the study is a characteristic of the ratio of artistic and creative disciplines and other subjects during the preparation of students of the specialty "Industrial Design". The author of the work notes that educational institutions in China consider the ability to create sketches in different techniques, materials and stylistics as basic for future specialists, but drawing, composition and color theory are not taught in all universities as independent disciplines. At the same time, they are necessarily present in creative research projects as a mandatory component.

The Influence of Individual Personality Traits on the Result Creative Work

The article deals with the analysis of the process of students’ creative activity in connection with a set of individual personality traits. The process of teaching students showed that the result of the final product of creative activity is directly affected by the individual characteristics of a person. The stage of inspiration and creative drive alternates with the stage of loss of interest and motivation when creating the author’s concept, which characterizes the main problem of the presented article. The purpose of this work is to find and determine the reasons for the lack of motivation for learning among students of various educational institutions (college, university), courses and areas of study (design, advertising), where creative disciplines are introduced into the curriculum. The classical method of a sociological survey was taken as the main research method, according to the results of which a number of reasons were identified that affect the lack of motivation among students of creative profiles. The decisive issues were the lack of faith in the future, the denial of any teacher on the basis of their own convictions, which automatically creates a reflection on the discipline taught, the desire to replace the learning process with entertainment activities. The factors influencing the formation of a successful personality are identified: self-discipline, motivation, inspiration, an example of a teacher (as an example of an error-free algorithm of actions). As well as the influence of the typology of individuality (based on the theory of C. Jung: introversion and extraversion) on building one’s own image and the result of creative work. Introverts tend to stick to a laconic style and achromatic colors in both clothing and work. Extroverts, on the other hand, prefer bright colors and extravagant style.