The Art Group Crit. How do you make a Firing Squad Less Scary
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i5.178Keywords:
Art (Crit) education, verbal feedback, assessment, emotion (fear)Abstract
The relationship between achievement and feedback and the fact that effective feedback improves achievement is well documented (Taylor and McCormack, 2004; Hattie, 2007). This is especially true of written feedback.àHowever in art and design education feedback will take place in an often emotionally charged face-to-face meeting where verbal criticism, both negative and positive, takes place in front of an audience. The forum for this feedback in art education is the Group Crit (Crit, Art Crit, or Group Critique) at which students are expected to present and perform. It is the studentsââ¬â¢ reception and perception of this oral feedback in todayââ¬â¢s quality-focused context, which is at the heart of this study.
This article presents a study into the impact of verbal feedback on achievement in art and design education via a survey taken amongst 60 undergraduate art and design students, at the University of Institution in 2009/10. The survey collected both quantitative and qualitative responses and identified a fundamentally emotional and fear-focused perception of the Group Crit, one opposed to its supportive and bespoke dynamic intentions. A stress factor (Pope, 2005; Anthony, 1991) is created when personalised feedback is perceived as a negative (critical) reflection on the student performance (at the Crit), their self worth and esteem and not the work presented. Criticism, and by implication feedback, is perceived as negative, personal and subjective and fraught with contradiction and loss of ââ¬Ërespectââ¬â¢ - in opposition to the studentsââ¬â¢ previous prescriptive and ââ¬Ëobjectiveââ¬â¢ educational experiences.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).