Publication Date

1983

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Mueller, Richard J., 1927-

Degree Name

M.S. Ed. (Master of Education)

Legacy Department

Department of Learning, Development, and Special Education

LCSH

Cerebral dominance; Creative ability; Cerebral hemispheres

Abstract

The problem under study in this thesis was the investigation of creativity as it relates to hemisphericity. More specifically, it was an attempt to ascertain to what degree, if any, artistic skill was a function of a person's hemisphere orientation. At the outset of the experiment subjects were identified as either right-, left- or whole-brain oriented. A measure of their artistic ability was also taken before the training sessions. As a pre-test, subjects were asked to draw four pictures which were evaluated on seven elements considered important in art. The criteria were established prior to all experimental sessions by qualified artists who judged the sketches in the experiment. The major emphasis of the training sessions was to teach subjects how to improve their drawing by utilizing techniques that required usage of the right hemisphere of the brain. The hypothesis of this study was that artistic skill is a function of the right hemisphere and can best be enhanced by focusing on that modality. Following the training sessions a post-test was administered identical to the pre-test. Average scores of pre- and post-test performances were then analyzed statistically to determine what effects the training sessions had on artistic ability. A measure of inter-rater reliability between the pairs of raters was found to be .78 for the pre-test and .75 for the post-test. A comparison of pre-test scores between subjects identified as right-brain oriented versus integrated yielded a significance at the .029 level of confidence in favor of the integrateds. Similarly, pretest scores obtained for right- and left-brain subjects were also found to be significant at the .029 level of confidence in favor of those individuals who were right- brain oriented. There were no statistically significant differences between the pre- and post-test scores of subjects whether identified as right-brain, left-brain, or integrated.

Comments

Bibliography: pages 43-44.

Extent

iv, 75 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

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