Second and Sixth Grade Students' Art Historical Interpretation Abilities: A One-Year Study

Abstract

This study reports on second and sixth grade students' art historical interpretation abilities through one year of intensive art history instruction. Four assessments through the year measured students' abilities to refer to the historical artist, the historical viewer, and the historical culture as students attempted to interpret artworks historically. The first hypothesis, that second and sixth grade students' ability to refer to historical evidence would increase with instruction, was partially confirmed. The second hypothesis, that sixth grade students would refer to art historical evidence more consistently than second graders, was confirmed. The third hypothesis, that both second and sixth graders would show increasingly consistent references to historical artist, historical viewer, and historical culture respectively, gained some support from the study. The scoring procedures for measuring art historical interpretation abilities may be useful in designing future studies in teaching and learning art history.