Pupils’ attitudes towards art teaching in primary school: an evaluation tool

Perceived ability and teachers’ background

The GLM test identified that there was an interaction of the variables perceived ability
and teachers’ background on the enjoyment (p< .05) and usefulness (p< .01) subscales.
The pattern of the interactions was again explored with the use of line graphs. These
showed that pupils with high confidence enjoyed and valued art, more than pupils with
low confidence, despite their teachers’ background. But it is important to note that the
level of enjoyment and the belief in art’s usefulness of pupils with low confidence was
significantly influenced by their teachers’ background. Pupils with low confidence and an
art specialist teacher were significantly more likely to enjoy art and attribute value to it
than the other pupils (see figure 2). It appears that art specialists were able to make a
significant impact where it matters most, on low confident pupils.

Figure 2

Conclusion

This paper describes the development of an instrument, the ASAES, which can be used to
assess pupils’ attitudes towards art experienced in school. It shows that the instrument has
acceptable levels of reliability and validity and therefore can be used to build a database
for pupils’ attitudes towards art experienced in school. The reliability of the four
subscales is demonstrated at a high level on the basis of internal consistency as
determined by Cronbach’s alpha. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis indicates that there
is a good fit of the model and that the four key dimensions identified are supported by the
data.

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