CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

2.0 Introduction

Students learn best by seeing the value and importance of the information presented in the classroom. If the students are not interested in the material presented, they will not learn it. In order to achieve the ultimate goal of student learning it is important to use a combination of teaching methods and to make the classroom environment as stimulating and interactive as possible. Students learn in many different ways.

Some students are visual learners, while others are auditory or kinesthetic learners. Visual learners learn visually by means of charts, graphs, and pictures. Auditory learners learn by listening to lectures and reading. Kinesthetic learners learn by doing. Students can prefer one, two, or three learning styles. Because of these different learning styles, it is important for teachers to incorporate in their curriculum activities related to each of these learning styles so that all students are able to succeed in their classes. While we use all of our senses to take in information, we each seem to have preferences in how we learn best. In order to help all students learn, we need to teach to as many of these preferences as possible.  While it may seem impossible to do this, it can be done through thoughtful planning and preparation. It does force us to conceptualize the class differently with a focus on the variety of ways in which students learn. The various inventories on learning styles allow teachers to gain insight into which areas they can use further development in and which are already well developed (Cuaresma, 2008).

2.1 Drawing skills

"Humans are animals who use tools": as Benjamin Franklin has said, human beings have, as an extension of hand functions, come to make tools according to the purpose. And the tools are refined to become easier to use, and eventually, they led up to not only being used for the purpose of survival, but also to the act of "drawing pictures" in order to enrich life. Pictures indeed tell of the drawer's existence, thoughts, and inner self. As well, people enjoy drawing. This is because drawing stimulates the universal desire to express oneself. By expressing oneself, the heart is released.

At the same time that drawing is this kind of individual expression, it also has the value of communication. Drawing tends to recount far more things to the reader than language. Children do not yet have sufficient capabilities for abstract linguistic expression, but they have symbolic communication methods such as drawing. Through pictures, children make communication with familiar people, they develop skills for living, and build a sense of trust.

Drawing for children, at the same time as being an expression of the inner self and a communication method, is something that reveals the development that accompanies a child's age. Children's drawings have an order of development, and that accompanies the development of motor skills, emotional development, psychosocial development and the development of perception. Children draw "what they know" in their own style. In other words, the perception functions, sensibility/emotions and motor functions interact, and there, the factor of social experience is added and the picture is drawn onto paper.

Research on children's drawings have arrived at the present day through developmental research phase (developmental approach), intellectual research phase (psychological measurement approach), and personality test phase (projection approach). In order to have an overall approach on the children's drawings, we must know about the above three researches. When we think about the developmental approach, as we focus on a child's drawing activities, the child's drawing naturally changes according to age. In order to draw what one is thinking, the skilled control and development of the fingers becomes necessary. As well, children draw what they know about. What they know, what they wish to communicate to others, these are expressed not simply as they are seen, but with the child's personal style. It follows that, the extent to which a child is conscious of the surroundings, in other words, the breadth of the child's world vision has a great influence on the contents of the drawing.

            In addition, in order to draw something, there is a need to have an interest in familiar matters and events. Sensitivity toward matters, things, feelings such as joy, anger, sadness and contentment, as well as the development of emotions, enriches the drawing activity.

As noted above, the development of various skills promote the development of drawing expression. And, the fulfillment of life experience and the expansion of worldview are greatly influences for the furthering of drawing activities. By expressing these in pictures, the consciousness becomes entrenched in the child, it enriches the world of creativity, and expands the substance of daily life. From this, there arise correlating effects such as progressing the child's overall skills or development of drawing.

The development of children's drawing expression follows basically the same path for every child. In addition, although there exist some differences in lifestyle, at the infant stage, all children around the world show a universally shared development process. In children's pictures, there may be the primordial shapes and forms of drawing activity.

Among these, the most well-known and the most often used is the DAM (Draw-a-Man), issued by Good enough in 1926. It is an intelligence test that is measured using portrait drawings and using IQ (intelligence quotient) as a basis. Drawing a person is, at the same time as expressing a subject that belongs to the category of people, also to express what kind of being the self is. Consequently, portrait drawings are an image of the self and an image of others, and it is necessarily drawn based on various perceptive information such as self-acceptance information, visual information, knowledge acquired by learning, and actual experiences (Joseph, 1996).

Order to read into pictures, firstly, it is important to constantly pay attention to the first impression of a drawing. Rather than interpreting a picture, it is more important to emphasize the first feeling that the reader had. The person who interprets must become conscious of the impression that he or she feels, and must keep this information until much later. Sometimes, there is a possibility that the first impression that was felt means that there was close contact with the drawer’s unconscious world. Also, instead of putting the focus on finding symbols, there is a need to look at the picture as a whole. The integrated whole is larger than a total sum of its parts. This is called the "pre-eminence of the whole”.

 

2.2  Assessment of the visual arts

         Assessment in Visual Arts does not just involve test and measurement but overall evaluation. Overall assessment allows students to combine their understanding of the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Indirectly, the evaluation emphasizes focus on actions that elicited student thinking skills and produce students who are able to make decisions. Effectiveness of these subjects can be measured through School-Based Operations Assessment undertaken in school level.

          The evaluation of Visual Arts of the Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah  have the four elements of school-based assessment, evaluation of a flexible, assessment with accountability, and fair assessment.

          School-based assessment should be planned and managed on an ongoing basis in terms of construction and administration of assessment tools. Flexible assessment emphasizes assessment taking into account the needs of the school and its pupils themselves in terms of student learning styles and intelligences. Evaluation can be done individually or in groups. Teachers are fully responsible for carrying out assessment with accountability such as planning, determination of the instrument, as well as its implementation. In addition, teachers should also record achievement of students, analyze the marks, and report to the relevant actions. Assessment in Visual Arts is just because of the way, form, and content should be in accordance with the conditions and characteristics of students. Pupils are assessed in terms of their knowledge, how they think, and their psychomotor ability.
          

There are three methods of assessment in Visual Arts, in particular, the observation, oral and interaction, as well as writing. Observation method involves observation of work processes and observations. Observations made by teachers during the student do the work known as the observation process useful for teachers to assess mastery of practical skills and the development of pupils. In addition, teachers can assess mastery of social skills, students practice and observe labour emotions and feelings.

 

The level of student creativity can also be detected by observation. Achievement abilities and skills of students who demonstrated in the work done by looking at the specific criteria for evaluation work. The criteria selected for evaluation is composite, interpretation, skill, function, originality, creativity, and finishes. This is known as a view of the work. Oral and interaction methods can help teachers assess students' mastery of artistic aspects through the activities. For example, the questionnaires, quizzes, discussions, brainstorming, poetry, interviews, storytelling, acting, and singing. 


2.3      The Definition of Learning Styles

Learning styles may be defined in multiple ways, depending upon one’s perspective. Here are a few definitions of learning styles. Brown (2000) defines learning styles as the manner in which individuals perceive and process information in learning situations. He argues that learning style preference is one aspect of learning style, and refers to the choice of one learning situation or condition over another. Celcia-Murcia (2001) defines learning styles as the general approaches—for example, global or analytic, auditory or visual—that students use in acquiring a new language or in learning any other subject. The manner in which a learner perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning environment. Learning style is sometimes defined as the characteristic cognitive, affective, social, and physiological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment” (MacKeracher, 2004).

2.3.1   General Learning  Styles

There are three main learning styles; visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. The definitions of these learning styles are as follows: 

A. Visual

Visual learners think in pictures and learn best in visual images. They depend on the instructor or facilitator‚ nonverbal cues such as body language to help with understanding. Sometimes, visual learners favour sitting in the front of the classroom. They also take descriptive notes over the material being presented.

 B. Auditory 

These individuals discover information through listening and interpreting information by the means of pitch, emphasis and speed. These individuals gain knowledge from reading out loud in the classroom and may not have a full understanding of information that is written.

 

C. Kinesthetic Learner

Individuals that are kinesthetic learn best with and active  approach. These learners favour interaction with the physical world. Most of the time kinesthetic learners have a difficult time staying on target and can become unfocused effortlessly.

 

2.3.2  Visual, Auditory and  Kinesthetic Learning Styles

 

According to Dunn and Dunn (1978), only 20-30% of school age children appear to be auditory learners, 40% are visual learners, and 30-40% are tactile/kinesthetic or visual/tactile learners.  (Milone, 1981)stated that for grade school children the most frequent modality strengths are visual (30%) or mixed (30%), followed by auditory (25%), and then by kinesthetic (15%). Price, Dunn, and Sanders (1980) found that very young children are the most tactile/kinesthetic, that there is a gradual development of visual strengths through the elementary grades, and that only in fifth or sixth grade can most youngsters learn and retain information through the auditory sense. Carbo (1983), investigating the perceptual styles of readers, found that good readers prefer to learn through their visual and auditory senses, while poor readers have a stronger preference for tactile and kinesthetic learning. Previous studies into the learning styles of EFL students have generally reported that they favor Kinesthetic and Tactile styles, and disfavor Group styles. Two empirical studies that investigated non-Chinese EFL students based on Reid's typology are Rossi-Le (1995) and Hyland (1993). Rossi-Le surveyed adult L2 immigrants in the US. They favoured Kinesthetic and Tactile styles and did not disfavor any styles. Hyland's Japanese learners favored Auditory and Tactile styles, and disfavored Visual and Group styles (1993). Hyland also reports that senior students favored kinesthetic styles. 

 

 

 

 

 

2.3.3 Importance of Learning Styles

 

One of the most significant issues in learning to learn is an individual’s taking the responsibility for his/her own learning. The individuals should know what their own  learning styles are and what characteristics this style has and they should thereby behave according to this style. In this way, the individual can acquire the constantly changing and increasing amount of information without need for the assistance of others. When the learner takes the responsibility of his/her own learning, s/he attributes meaning to the process of learning. S/he develops an understanding of his/her own form of learning style and becomes much more satisfied with the environment s/he interacts with. Every opportunity for learning is a chance for him/her. It is in the learner’s hand to use different ways and develop the learning styles to some extent (Coffield, 2004).

 

Learning style is important for many reasons; however, there are three vital ones. First of all, people’s learning styles will vary because everyone is different from one another naturally. Secondly, it offers the opportunity to teach by using a wide range of methods in an effective way. Sticking to just one model unthinkingly will create a monotonous learning environment, so not everyone will enjoy the lesson. In other words, learning and teaching will be just words and not rooted in reality. Thirdly, we can manage many things in education and communication if we really recognize the groups we are called to. Of course, we may not know every detail; however, being aware of our students’ learning styles, psychological qualities and motivational differences will help us regulate our lessons appropriately and according to the conditions (Coffield  2004).

 

2.3.4 The advantages of identifying learning styles

 

Learning style has an important place in the lives of individuals. When the individual knows his/her learning style, s/he will integrate it in the process of learning so s/he will learn more easily and fast and will be successful. Another advantage of the identification of the own learning style by the student is that it will help the student to become an effective problem solver. The more successful the individual is at solving the problems s/he faces, the more control she/he will take over his/her own life (Biggs, 2001). It is important that individuals receive education in areas suitable for their learning styles. A person educated in an area having no relationship to his/her learning style may lack confidence and she/he may be less successful; she/he may as a result become frustrated.

 Knowledge of learning style also provides information to the student as to why s/he has learnt in a different way than others. It helps to control the process of learning. It is vital because one of the most important signals in learning is to learn to be autonomous, that is, for the individual to take responsibility for his/her own learning. Because of this, she/he should know what learning style is. This has to be part of the learning process to enable the individual to obtain knowledge, which constantly shifts and changes, without any help from others. Briefly, confidence in learning will consistently rise when learners know how to learn.

Learning to learn and grasping knowledge in a suitable manner will lessen the need for an overbearing control by teachers. At this point, teachers guide the students. The students take responsibility for their learning, they are at the centre of the process and everything is under their control. They search answers to the problems and benefit from their unique performances and preferences in their learning styles. Those people will identify their aims, unlike those whose learning style preferences are not identified. They know what they want to learn and “how.” This awareness will change their perspectives on learning new things (Fidan, 1986).

 

2.4      Summary

 

Only relevant literature was reviewed in this chapter. Concepts like the terminology in Malay, definition and  the curriculum is essential to understand the following chapters. Due to limitation of literature it is hope that further study will be done by other researchers benefit others.

 

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