Research Proposal

INJECTING NEW TEACHING FORM: INTRODUCING MURAL ART PAINTING IN ART EDUCATION by Noor Fadzilah binti Adnan, December 2013

ABSTRACT

It is hoped that this research will serve as an introduction to mural projects for schools and in some small way kindle the creative spark towards this popular school activity. Other value might be derived from a mural activity that may be of greater importance to the primary students than the simple and usual mural. The direction taken on any mural painting activity should come from the teacher’s planning with children. The creative spirit of children needs only to be released.

 Acknowledgements

There are several kind-hearted individuals who have helped us to complete my research. First, I would like to take this opportunity to record my thanks to EDU 702 lecturer, Associate Professor Dr Johan Eddy@Luaran for his comments, wise advice and guidance in the preparation of this research.

I also would like to thanks my classmates for their help and contribution. This EDU 702 class really brought us together to appreciate the true value of friendship and respect of each other. Without every one’s help, this research would not be materialized.

Table of Contents

Abstract
Acknowledgement
CHAPTER 1
1.0       Introduction	1
1.1       Background of the study	2
1.2       Statement of Research Problem	3
1.3       Research Objective	4
1.4       Research Questions
1.5       Operational Definitions	5
1.6       Limitation of The study	6
1.7       Significance of The Study
1.8       Conclusion	7
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review	8
2.0        Introduction
2.0.1    The Mural
2.0.1.1             Border Murals	9
2.0.1.2             Panel Murals	10
2.0.2    Creating the School Mural	11
2.0.3    Material to Use	13
2.1       Conclusion
CHAPTER 3
Research Methodology
3.0       Introduction	14
3.1       Research Design
3.2       Instrumentation	15
3.2.1    Questionnaire
3.2.2    Population and Sampling	16
3.2.3    Unstructured Interview
3.2.4    Observation Scheme	17
3.3       Data Collection
3.4       Data Analysis	18
4.0       Conclusion	21
5.0       Bibliography
6.0       Appendices	22
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1          Example of Border Mural	9
Figure 3.2       Example of Panel Mural	10
Figure 3.3       Students is Constructing on Painting Mural	12
Figure 3.4       Brushes and Other Materials	13
Figure 3.5         Method of Data Analysis	20

  

Acknowledgements

There are several kind-hearted individuals who have helped us to complete my research. First, I would like to take this opportunity to record my thanks to EDU 702 lecturer, Associate Professor Dr Johan Eddy@Luaran for his comments, wise advice and guidance in the preparation of this research.

I also would like to thanks my classmates for their help and contribution. This EDU 702 class really brought us together to appreciate the true value of friendship and respect of each other. Without every one’s help, this research would not be materialized.

Table of Contents

Abstract
Acknowledgement
CHAPTER 1
1.0       Introduction	1
1.1       Background of the study	2
1.2       Statement of Research Problem	3
1.3       Research Objective	4
1.4       Research Questions
1.5       Operational Definitions	5
1.6       Limitation of The study	6
1.7       Significance of The Study
1.8       Conclusion	7
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review	8
2.0        Introduction
2.0.1    The Mural
2.0.1.1             Border Murals	9
2.0.1.2             Panel Murals	10
2.0.2    Creating the School Mural	11
2.0.3    Material to Use	13
2.1       Conclusion
CHAPTER 3
Research Methodology
3.0       Introduction	14
3.1       Research Design
3.2       Instrumentation	15
3.2.1    Questionnaire
3.2.2    Population and Sampling	16
3.2.3    Unstructured Interview
3.2.4    Observation Scheme	17
3.3       Data Collection
3.4       Data Analysis	18
4.0       Conclusion	21
5.0       Bibliography
6.0       Appendices	22
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 3.1          Example of Border Mural	9
Figure 3.2       Example of Panel Mural	10
Figure 3.3       Students is Constructing on Painting Mural	12
Figure 3.4       Brushes and Other Materials	13
Figure 3.5         Method of Data Analysis	20

  

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.0       Introduction

Mural is fun to make. There may be a number of reasons for providing a mural activity. A mural may be made purely for the pleasure student coming from creating. Perhaps they wish to decorate spaces that are dull and uninteresting in the hall and in the classroom. A mural maybe used to motivation interest in other subject areas. A mural activity may be provided to bring together into one large illustration the ideas of many individuals. It may also help students to learn to work together in teamwork. Students may need to learn to work freely with large areas a variety of materials.

A mural makes an effective wall decoration. Usually it is a large piece of work painted directly on the wall or applied to other flat material which is fastened to the wall. This may be done by the use of one or a great variety of media. Murals are different from other painted pictures in certain aspects. Some murals are designed to decorate a particular wall surface. “All teachers know that we must keep our students engaged for learning to take place.” (Todd Whitaker, 2004). The mural is a tool to be engaged and explore by teacher and students.

1.1       Background of Study

The word ‘mural’ comes from the Latin word ‘murus’, or wall (Fresco Lesson .p.4). When a teacher is looking for a visual to draw or illustrate an idea for students, a mural make it visualized because a mural may tell a story, record history and make it memorable. The reason why the researcher researches this study is to gain an understanding in mural painting in art education. Mural painting is hard to be able to do it because it has been done with more than 5 peoples. So by introducing the mural painting to the art education s a teaching tool, it might be able to help the students engaged more with the teachers.

            Besides that, the purpose of this study is also the developing the students skill in creating mural painting. As we know that mural painting is not easy, there is the teachers’ task to overcome the problem by arranging his students by teaching them how to create the mural. As mural is surrounded by material such as paint and brush, it could express the psychomotor of the students. it also could enhance their drawing and painting skill when doing mural painting

            Apart from that, it is the simplest way for art teacher to introduce materials that are engaged when doing mural painting. There are some tools that students are unable to recognize. So by letting them experience the mural painting, it could motivate and encourage them to draw and paint mural not only in school but also at home.

1.2     Statement of Research Problem

The purpose of the study is to introduce the teaching form that is mural painting in art education. The researcher has found that mural is not being overlooked by art teachers. Mural at schools in Malaysia are being painted by other people not the art teacher themselves. Most teachers seek ways of integrating art with other areas of learning. There is hardly an experience or a subject that does not lend itself to the visual expression. Children also need the opportunity to reflect their experiences in some form. Art may provide this visualization. This creative procedure adds interests, allows art principles to be put into practice and motivates children to actually bring to life subject matter which will be uninteresting and dull.

Through such devices as project or enterprise, there is a strong reason for art to be followed from subject to subject until its identity as a separate subject field is often lost in the interest of the mural process. In the modern school , student earn the profit more effectively from what is considered a more to learning process to allow them express their themselves so that they are able to realize the cross-relation exist among human activities and teamwork. Through art the students gives significantly events in his life. A classroom mural in history for example provides a natural integrative experience for children.

1.3     Research Objectives

The research objectives of this study are:

1. To gain an understanding in mural painting
2. To develop the students skill in creating mural painting
3. To identify materials to use in  mural painting

1.4     Research Questions

The research questions for this study are:

1. What is mural painting?
2. How to develop student s skill in creating mural painting?
3. What materials are used in creating mural painting?

1.5     Operational Definitions

1.5.1    Injecting: an injection is an infusion method of putting fluid into the body, usually with a syringe and a hollow needle which is pierced into the skin for the material to administer into the blood. But in this research, injecting means penetrate the mural painting as a new form in teaching art.

1.5.2    Teaching: the way teachers teaches student to draw or paint

1.5.3    Mural: A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface.

1.5.4    Painting : The representing of a subject on a surface by the application of paint or colours, the practice of applying to a canvas, etc., for any artistic purposes” (Oxford English Dictionanry,2005).

1.5.5    Art Education : is the area of learning that is based upon the visual, tangible arts like drawing, painting, sculpture and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings. Contemporary topics include photography, video, film, design, computer art and others.

1.6     Limitation of the Study

The study examines matters relating to the acquisition of mural painting that is confined to only a small sample taken. Nevertheless, this study is not an action research, even though it focused on introducing mural painting to the students.
However, the purpose of this study is to understand the mural painting in terms of what the teachers should be able to teach, how they teach and the problem they face in teaching mural painting. The primary goal of this study is to give art teacher and students embraced the realistic of teaching and learning mural painting.

1.7     Significance of the Study

Only through researching the mural, students gain the ability to answer the questions who, what, when and where concerning the mural. For example, a simple internet research of the mural Pan American Unity reveals that the mural was painted by Diego Rivera. The mural, according to Diego Rivera, is a marriage of the artistic expression of the north and the south on this continent, blending the art of Indian, the Mexican, the Eskimos and others. It was painted in 1940 at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in the middle of San Francisco bay as an attraction for tourists. Today the mural can be found at the City College of San Francisco located on the Ocean Avenue campus in the Diego Rivera Theater.

            Group collaboration through the making of a mural can be applied to a variety of subjects. In the classroom, a mural can be a group projects that involves all the students in the planning as well as the creative process. For the art educator, creation and study of murals can bring them all the elements of art and principles of design.

Through mural painting, students learn by doing. When students do physical and mental work required in the mural making process, learning takes place. They are creating art that will be on public displays for years to come. “The value of pictorial image as an effective educator has been widely recognized but unfortunately seldom properly utilized.”’ (Knaths, 1936). This research will focus on the use injecting new teaching form that is mural painting.

1.8     Conclusion

This chapter has covered the background of study, the statement of the research problem, the research objectives, the research questions, the significance of the research, the operational definition on terms used in this study and the limitation of this study. The literature review of the topics related to this study will be presented in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0      Introduction

What the children said about colours...

“At first I could only see in black and white or grey and then was suddenly able to see in color I would be very happy and turn into a butterfly so that I could touch all those colors properly. I always feel like touching colors and then painting my face using them. I think I would enjoy most eating the colour pink because it is the colour of watermelon. Why did I blacken that picture at the end because I dreamt it all last night? A yellow sun always turns green in my pictures when a blur cloud passes over it. Detective stories are violet, grey and at the end yellow. I like wearing this T-shirt because I have painted it in blueberries myself. I stuck my picture out in the rain and immediately it looked much better.mum laughed that I had painted her in rosy colours and said that when she sometimes looked at me she saw black. John painted a self-portrait in such a way that he first colored his face and the covered it in paper. When I cry, it seems that black tears stream down my face”. (Karla Cikanova, 1993)

2.0.1  The Mural

Mural may be started in kindergarten. In each succeeding grade the techniques become more challenging. School mural usually consist of two types: the border mural and the panel mural. The effective of either type depends to a large degree on the space, colour, texture, design, technique employed.

2.0.1.1             Border Murals

A border mural may be a long continuous unit with a relatively complete story. Usually it conveys a central thought through out with the sequence often running from left to right. When several important points are highlighted in the mural, the interest is spread over the entire surface. The story of the history and pop culture could be shown on a continuous border. The spot to be highlighted would depend on what the children decide to do. Subjects possible for mural are Hikayat Hang Tuan, Puteri Gunung Ledang, The Red Riding Hood, Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan and others.

Figure 3.1: Example of Border Mural

2.0.1.2             Panel Mural

A panel mural may consist of one pictures or a series of related pictures. One large panel might cover an area from ceiling to the floor. Another may reach from wall to wall. The vacant spaces between windows and doors, or in corners of the room, may be filled with tall narrow panels. A long narrow panel might be covered with a series of small murals placed vertically or horizontally. The only thing these pictures might have in common would be the size of paper and the fact that they were arranged in series. Stories, themes, or patchwork and crazy quilt ideas, make excellent panel murals.

Figure 3.2: Example of Panel Mural

2.0.2  Creating the School Mural

The basic element of design may become an important thing in murals made by children. However to achieve good quality of design, children can be taught early to study the design colour found graphic art. The school can also provide the variety of famous pictures of old master as well as contemporary artists. Teacher should encourage students to express the own individuality rather than to copy other painting.

Selecting colour for mural should have been through the colour study. This is to differ the mistakes in choosing the wrong colours. A colour lends itself to discussion. Students can discover that any colour is good if used in proper relationships even though it may be uninteresting or monotonous if used alone.

Next, choosing the subject is as important as the colour. One of the, main objective of the art education program is to help children experience the fact the art is an integral part of everyday life not a thing apart. The idea of making mural may come from the students themselves. A teacher should guide their thinking and make list suggestion to help them.

Planning the mural is on teacher’s responsibility. Organized the planning before the children begin to work. These plans should be flexible so that they may be altered to fit the needs of the murals as the activity progressed.

Arranging committees can play an important role in the making of a mural. Groups or committee may be formed by the children themselves, each committee

assuming the responsibility for one phase of the mural. A leader maybe selected by the group if one is needed. Small groups or teams do not always need a leader.

Teachers order student to start painting the background colour. As they have more experience, their background colours are more important and include many details. Students may follow very much the technique until they completed the mural paintings.

Figure  3.3: Students is Constructing on Painting Mural

2.0.3 Materials to Use

            Students may follow very much the same practice using brush, colour, colour paper, coloured pages of magazines, cloth, similar items may be torn or cut into shapes, arranged and pasted paper. They also could use buttons, stones, seashells; plastic may be cemented on plywood or tiles. They also used the main tool that is brushes. The paintbrushes used most extinctive in schools beside the bristle, soft hair and stencil brush.

                 

Figure 3.4: Brushes and Other Materials

2.1     Conclusion

. Most teachers seek ways of integrating art with other areas of learning. There is hardly an experience or a subject that does not lend itself to the visual expression. Children also need the opportunity to reflect their experiences in some form. Art may provide this visualization. This creative procedure adds interests, allows art principles to be put into practice and motivates children to actually bring to life subject matter which will be uninteresting and dull.

CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.0 Introduction

This chapter explain the research approach of this research, the population and sample of the research, data collection methods and data analysis. All this matter will be presented in the next chapter.

3.1     Research Design

            Qualitative and quantitative type of research has been chosen by the researcher for this study. Under this quantitative program, a survey research program has been created to be used in the instrumentation. The researcher used the qualitative as research methodology which was grounded in it class. Researcher is filled related to attempt the understanding, the meaning of the events and interactions between teachers and students through the mural painting. The main aim for the researcher is to understand the objectives of the research. The researcher try to know the problem such as what are the teachers teaching methods towards mural painting? , how do these teachers interact with their students during mural painting? And what are the outcome that student gets when do mural painting? As part of participant in observation process, interview session was a primary research tool of qualitative research that allowed the researcher to discover the participants’ reality of teaching mural painting to students. Hence, the purpose of the interview session is to try to understand the experience of teachers when doing mural painting.

            The interviewers gave additional addiction insight into what had been observed by allowing the mural painting process. Field observation was being done. it was another primary tool and helped to verify the information acquired from interviews. Through observing classes, teachers, students, writing filed noted and interpreting what the researcher see, the researcher began to constructed the theme to interpret the mural by students and teachers.

In conjunction with the interviews, which was the primary research instrument, the researcher follow on doing the practical strategies used in the research.

A. Literature review of mural painting and studies through manual and computer searches of mural journals, journals in art education, and art textbooks.

b. Development of a purposeful convenience sampling strategy for choosing a program to be studied (mural painting)

d. Development of a pilot study of the research method in which the researcher observed in two classes at SRK Seksyen 6, Shah Alam, SRK Seksyen 7, Shah Alam (one Year 2 Gigih class and one 2 Perkasa Class)

e. Taping interviews of participants (Seidman, 1998),

f. Participant observation, (Anderson, 2000; Eisner, 1998),

g. Taking field notes (Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 1995),

h. Taking digital photography of teaching environments and students’ artworks (Bogdan & Biklen, 2003),

i. Implementing educational criticism strategy (Eisner, 1998; Anderson, 2000) for coding and interpretation.

3.2     Instrumentation

3.2 .1 Questionaire

The researcher has chosen some type of instrumentation to be inserted in this study. The preparation of this instrumentation is by creating 10 questions consist of the mural subjects. The questionnaire consist of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Questionaire will be distributed to some of the respondents that is art teachers in two primary school in Shah Alam that is SRK Sekyen 6, Shah Alam and SRK Sekyen 7, Shah Alam. The questionnaire is the proof of the understanding of art teachers about the mural painting being injected in art education. The questionnaires consist of 10 questions that are depictions towards the research questions. The questionnaire is included in the appendix section.

3.2.2  Population and Sampling

The researcher chose 10 art teachers from two schools nearby that are SRK Seksyen 6 and SRK Seksyen 7 Shah Alam. The reasons in using these art teachers are to examine their understanding of mural painting. These art teachers have a lot of experience and knowledge in teaching art to students. Some of them had been teaching for more than 10 years in their school. Since that the art teachers are the closest person that are going to contributed or practice this mural painting to the students, so it is advisable to provide them with the basic understanding in creating the mural. Simple random methodology will be applied in this research which It defines as the process of selecting a sample is such a way that all individuals got equal and independent chance being selected as a sample. Apart from that, the involvements of two headmasters are also will be interviewed to receive their point of view in injecting mural painting in art education.

3.2.3  Unstructured Interview

The researcher creates the unstructured interview to gain secondary information for the respondents. The questions are not pre-arranged. The interviewer is able to discover important information which did not seem relevant before the interview and ask the interviewee to go further into the topic. It is also to allow the respondents to build better rapport with the researcher due to it’s just same as normal conversations. In gaining more honest responses, whereas structured interview are considered intimidating due to their formality and can often make the respondent to some social bias.

3.2.4  Observation Scheme

The researcher applied the observation scheme in this study to gain the information that results in the estimation of the value of a feature property, and involves application of a specific procedure. This procedure may be applied with the respect to the sampling location and people. Use of a common model for observation allows the data collection to be combined differently and across the boundaries. Observation details are also important for data discovery and for data quality estimation. An observation is defined using some terms such as feature of interest, observed property, result and others.

3.3                   Data Collection

The researcher merged the data collection gain from the 3 instrumentations. The results from that instrumentation important to make a conclusion before analyze it. After distributing questionnaire to the art teachers from the schools, the researcher will calculate the answer from the questionnaire. Almost all the art teachers agreed with the idea in injecting mural painting in art education. The teachers answer the questionnaire for about 5- 10 minutes.

For the interview session, the researcher attached creating a video by smart phones to all the respondents. This is to secure the information and as a proof into the research. The 10 teachers are being interviewed along with the 2 headmasters from both schools. The interviewed took place on both schools within 3-5 minutes per person. The questions are more on their understanding and accepting mural painting in art education.

Last data was reached from observation scheme. The researcher observed the teachers painting skills and previous mural that used to create before from other teacher in the schools. They are willing to apply mural teaching to their student because the teamwork effort brings out the best consequences towards their students. Furthermore, the observation had resulted that the mural painting could create the co-operations between the students themselves and also their teacher as well. So the observation is focus on the teacher’s skills and willingness to teach mural painting.

3.4                   Data Analysis

The data from the questionnaire will be measured using some simple statistic approach. The data will be summarized and insert to the form for descriptive. The media, the form and the frequencies could be gain from the questionnaire. From the data analysis, the researcher will be able to measure the variables.

For the unstructured interview, the result gain from it will be insert in a form to be compared the conclusion gain from it. As the interview will be review, the respondents will be analyze by the researcher to make the judgment. The interview result will be inserting in category based to the research questions in chapter 1.

The result from observation scheme could be used as data collection by inserting the result in a form. When the data is summarized, a simple statistic approach will be used to conclude the result. The observation scheme includes the certain aspect that the researcher could only express it out through words. The notes that the researches have jotted down would be useful in categorization the results.

Research Questions	Instrument	Method of Analysis
What is mural painting?	a)    Survey Questions b)    Observation Scheme c)    Unstructured Interview	i.        Statistics approach      ii.        Measures of variables     iii.        Fill in a form
How to develop student s skill in creating mural painting?	a)    Survey Questions b)    Observation Scheme c)    Unstructured Interview	i.        Statistics approach      ii.        Measures of variables     iii.        Fill in a form    iv.        Reading     v.        Identifying    vi.        Judging
d)    What materials are used in creating mural painting?	a)    Survey Questions b)    Observation Scheme c)    Unstructured Interview	i.        Statistics approach      ii.        Measures of variables     iii.        Fill in a form    iv.        Reading     v.        Identifying    vi.        Judging

Figure 3.5: Method of Data Analysis

4.0     CONCLUSION

This chapter has covered the research design, the sample population, the instrument, the data collection method and the data analysis. The next chapter will be discussing on the finding of the study.

5.0     BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arne W. Randall, 1956, Murals for Schools Sharing Creative Experience, Davis Publications, Worchester, Massachusetts, USA

Charles M.Dom, Stanley Madeja, F.Robert Sabol, 2004, Assessing Expressive Learning A practical Guide for Teacher-Directed Authentic Assessment in K-12 Visual Education, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates ,New Jersey

Alexander Sesonske, 1965, What is Art? Aesthetic Theory from Pluto to Tolstoy University of California, New York, Oxford University Press

Al Hurwits, 1972, Program of Promise, Art in Schools, , Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc

Roy Sparkes1973, Teaching Art Basics, Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Karla Cikanova, 1993, Teaching Children To Paint, Craftsman House BVI Ltd, Australia

Joseph Orze, 1960, Art From Scrap, Carl Reed, Davis Publications, Worchester Massachusetts USA.

6.0     APPENDICES

INJECTING NEW TEACHING FORM:

 INTRODUCING MURAL PAINTING IN ART EDUCATION

                        A survey on understanding of mural painting

Dear Respondent,

I am doing a survey for my research methodology (EDU 702). The purpose of this questionnaire is to get feedback on understanding of mural painting. As we know, not many teachers in Malaysia understand of mural painting. But, in other countries such as United States of America, Germany, France, Italy and United Kingdom, mural painting is known and it is one of the main in art activities. So, from my questionnaire, I do hope to obtain useful information on understanding of mural painting. I hope you could help me by completing this questionnaire. 

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

                                                                                                           

NOOR FADZILAH BINTI ADNAN

MASTER OF EDUCATION (VISUAL ART)

UITM SHAH ALAM

A.  A Respondent’s Profile

Please tick (X) for each question.

( Sila tandakan (X) pada setiap soalan)

 

1.    Gender ( Jantina )                                  Girl (perempuan)                    Boy (lelaki)     

2.    Age (Umur)                                          < 20 years old                             31- 40 years old                                    

                                                                          21 – 30 years old                        > 41 years old

                                                                                                                                                                                

3.    Occupation (pekerjaan)                         Government (kerajaan)                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                          Non- Government (Bukan Kerajaan)

                                                                           Art Teacher (Cikgu seni)                              

                                                                                          Place (tempat): 

B. Perception of Mural Painting

Please tick (X) for each question.

( Sila tandakan (X) pada setiap soalan)

Please respond to each statement on the scale provided where

NO	QUESTIONS	YES	NO
1	Do you love art?  (Adakah anda menyukai seni?)
2	Do you know about art and design in Malaysia? (Adakah anda mengetahui mengenai seni lukis dan seni reka di Malaysia?)
3	Do you know about the mural painting? ( Adakah anda tahu mengenai lukisan mural?)
4	Do you know about art educationin Malaysia? (Adakah anda tahu mengenai pendidikan seni  di Malaysia?)
5	Do you know about the making of mural painting ? (Adakah anda tahu akan proses membuat lukisan mural”?)
6	Do you know think that mural painting is important? (Adakah anda tahu akan kepentingan lukisan mural”?)
7	Do you  interested in learning mural painting ? (Adakah anda berminat untuk belajar  membuat lukisan mural”?)
8	Do you think that student should learn  mural painting ? (Adakah anda fikir pelajar sekolah harus belajar  membuat lukisan mural”?)
9	Do you think that teacher should teach mural painting ? (Adakah anda fikir ,guru harus mengajar lukisan mural”?)
10	Do you think that mural painting should be taught in art education? (Adakah anda tahu guru perlu mengajar lukisan mural didalam pendidikan seni”?)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP