Art criticism through multisensory instruction for visually impaired and blind students

Abstract

This study was designed to compare the effects of a multisensory art criticism approach with a traditional (visual) art criticism approach in interpreting a work of art. Parade (1960) by Jacob Lawrence was the artwork chosen for the study. Two groups of visually impaired and blind high school participated in this study. Group 1 received the multisensory instruction, which included music, and tactile stimuli, and then the traditional instruction. Group 2 received the same exercises but in the opposite order. All students (N = 18) completed two assessments on their knowledge and interpretation of the work on Likert-type affective scales. Assessment 1 came after the first treatment for each group and assessment 2 came after the second treatment for each group. Results implied that there was an interaction between scores based on which method was presented first. The scores indicated that multisensory instruction is more effective after traditional instruction is presented.