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Andrea Kárpáti: Assessment of the Alternative Curricula Developed the Leonardo Project

The Leonardo Project developed five alternative curricula for visual arts education that were taught in 12 elementary schools between 1988 - 1992. The perceptive and creative visual skills and abilities of the students as well as some factors of their mental development were tested before and after the experimental teaching project. The control groups selected to match each age group of the experimental population received a high quality, conservative art instruction based on the acquisition of historic values of fine arts and techniques of linear perspective drawing. This study describes the tests and tasks used for the assessment of visual skills and abilities and also utilisable for regular classroom evaluation and the diagnosis of visual talent, then discusses the changes identified through the contrastive analysis of pre- and post-test results to show how different strategies of art education result in differences in the development of visual and mental skills. The aim of the project was to reveal the effects of visual arts in education provided they will be given a fair position in the curriculum but our results also show some of the unfulfillable promises of otherwise successful arts curricula.

MAGYAR PEDAGÓGIA 96. Number 1. 3-34. (1996)

Levelezési cím / Address for correspondence: Andrea Kárpáti, Department of Education, Loránd Eötvös University, Ajtósi Dürer sor 19–21. H–1146 Budapest.

 
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Magyar Tudományos Akadémia