Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background of Study
Color mixing skill is among the most important
topic in visual arts education curriculum. This skill is contained in visual
arts education curriculum for all levels of lower secondary art education and
will be applied in proceeding art activities taught in higher secondary levels.
More importantly, the said skill is a must have because a large percentage of
marks during grading involves painting activities such as still life,
landscape, logo and poster drawing.
Color mixing skill is quite a difficult field for a
student to master. This is due to the fact that painting skills require a cognitive understanding of colors, color mixing
techniques and a good visual sensory combined with adequate psychomotor control,
which best describe as brushing control with
the ability to make choices on the application of necessary discipline
that has to be adhered with regard to the painting medium of choice. For example, some of those techniques are, dry
on dry, dry on wet, wet on wet and wet on dry for a water color painting medium. All these skills will be made
more difficult for the students to master if the teachers entrusted with the
teaching of the said subject are not adequately skilful.
It is a widely known fact that not many art
teachers received formal and proper education in this field. Apart from having
to acquire a high quality brushing skills, students must also understand color
mixing techniques in order to produce good art works. It is very clear that
colors in tubes that are available in the market are inadequate to fulfill the
color requirements of a good artwork unless through the skills of color mixing
to obtain the real and exact color as required. In order to achieve this
objective, all visual art teachers must strive to master the skills of color
mixing.
The state of
Sabah has an area covering 73,710 square kilometers while Sarawak has an area of 124,449 square kilometers.
The size of both these states exceeds the size of the whole of Peninsular
Malaysia which is only 131,598 square kilometers. Comprising of wide
geographical coverage, hilly and mountainous, comprises of numerous islands and
rivers; these give rise to scattered and loose communities with the lowest
population density when compared to that of the Peninsular. The Education Departments of both Sabah and
Sarawak face various challenges and setbacks in their effort to provide high
quality education to the students of these states especially in the often mountainous
rural areas.
Based on the analysis done by the Sabah State
Education Department, this state is, overall,
generally lagging behind when compared to other states in Malaysia,
mainly due to lack of infrastructure and amenities.
 |
| Plate 1 – Sabah Map |
The state of
education in Sabah is still lagging when compared to Malaysia as a whole,and
this is largely attributable to the lack of infrastructure and facilities. This
is mainly due to the fact that 72%33 of Sabah’s schools are located in rural
areas. As a result, the problems of rural education are magnified in Sabah.
In terms of
infrastructure and basic utilities, there is still much work to be done. Most
rural schools lack 24-hour electric supply, supply of clean water, access to
computers, and science laboratories. In terms of the availability of teachers,
the teacher-to-student ratio in Sabah is more favourably at 1:13.934, compared
to the Malaysian average ratio of 1:16.435. However, due to the geographical
spread of students, there is still a shortage of qualified teachers in Sabah.
(Sabah Development Corridor Blueprint
2008-2025)
This is due to the fact that about 72% of schools
in Sabah are located in rural areas (Kementerian Pendidikan Sabah 2008). Hence,
the problem of providing rural education is becoming more critical in Sabah.
From the available manpower perspective, the ratio of teachers to students in
Sabah is currently at 1:13.9, which is better when compared to the average
Malaysian ratio of 1:16.4.
Previous studies showed that most schools,
especially rural schools, experienced lack of teachers. This setback may have
resulted in teachers having specific teaching options not assigned to those
schools. Consequently this problem caused the school to face difficulties in
determining the appropriate teachers for any given subject matter. Lack of
qualified teachers to teach visual art education resulted in the school
administrators being forced to place teachers with different teaching options
to teach the said subject. Previous studies showed that there were situations
where visual art education was taught by religious, science and mathematics
teachers, among others. While this countermeasure will solve the problem where
lack of teachers occurs, it does not in any way help to improve or increase the
mastery of the various skills that should be acquired by the students as
specified by the education curriculum. These ad hoc teachers mostly do not possess basic knowledge in arts which
caused problems when they were delivering their lessons.
Due to the complexity of this situation, the researcher
chose the Keningau district as his research and study location. 90% of the
population in Keningau are Dusuns and Muruts, 8% are comprised of Chinese and other
indigenous locals. Based on Banci Penduduk 2000, Jabatan Perangkaan Malaysia ,
the breakdown of ethnic groups are:
- Dusun -
55,607
- Murut -
23,823
- Chinese -
9,082
- Bajau -
9,009
The actual population of Keningau is however
much larger than the recorded figure above, as illegal immigrants from
Indonesia and the Philippines form a major population component of the
district. These illegal immigrants can enter Sabah easily via the open
surrounding seas or the porous inland border with Indonesia. Traditionally, the
communities living in this area are involved in agricultural activities such as
paddy planting but there are also those that hunt or fish along the rivers.
The town of
Keningau is located at about 138 kilometers from Kota Kinabalu. The said
research area covers about 3532.82 square kilometers. Geographically this
district is huge valley that is surrounded by the Crocker Range in the west and
by the Trus Madi Range in the east and south. However, in an area of this size,
there are only 11 secondary schools catering to the local population, and they
are:
(i)
SMK Tulid
(ii)
SMK Apin-Apin
(iii)
SMK Keningau
(iv)
SMK Keningau II
(v)
SMK Sook
(vi)
SMK Gunsanad II
(vii)
SMK Bingkor
(viii)
SMK Gunsanad
(ix)
SMK Ken Hwa (CF)
(x)
SMK St. Francis Xavier
(xi)
SM Teknik Keningau
An analysis
made on students achievements in SPM examination 3 years ago clearly suggested,
that in schools where the teaching staffs do not possess the appropriate art
education option, showed unsatisfactory examination results. This phenomenon is
very obvious in almost all the schools where art education is taught by
non-optioned art teachers in the research area of interest.
Sabah
Education Department, in its special publication Sabah Development Corridor
2007, has stated that the
level of education in Sabah is generally still lagging behind when compared to
the rest of Malaysia. This is mainly due to lack of infrastructure and
ammenities available. This problem is compounded by the fact that 72% of the
schools in Sabah are located in rural areas. Hence, the problem of providing
education in the rural areas is still in a critical stage in Sabah. (Sabah Development
Corridor Blueprint 2007)
According to the Education Development Master plan
(PIPP) as announced by the Ministry of Education in 2007, teachers that are
required to provide their services in rural schools will be provided with new
incentives and ammenities. Even though the Ministry of Education plays an
important role in addressing issues of teaching qualities, the incentives given
to teachers that are willing to teach in rural schools show that lack of
teachers still cause a huge problem to the nation. Teaching qualities that were
mentioned also described the efforts to provide and enable teachers with the
appropriate degrees and options to teach in their respected fields.
In
Sabah, especially in the rural areas, shortage of teachers still exists. Art
education, for example, is still being managed by non-optioned teachers. A
quick survey done on several secondary schools discovered that there are many
higher secondary students whom have not mastered basic art techniques such as
color mixing which should have been acquired since in lower secondary years.
The subject
of art education has often been described as easy-to-pass during exams. All any
candidates require to pass the paper is to understand the needs of the
questions and subsequently produce artworks pertaining to the needs. However,
this is not enough to justify getting excellent marks. The candidate should be
able to produce a convincing artwork focusing on the given topic, exhibit good
brushing technique, apply a mature color selection, detailed in producing 2D
objects and shows enough creativity. Surely all these skills will be difficult
to handle by any teachers not optioned in art education.
Nevertheless,
it cannot be said that the failure of students in obtaining excellent grades in
art education can be solely blamed to the subject being taught by non-optioned
teachers. We fully realized that the failure to achieve excellent grades in any
fields or subjects are also caused by other related problems. Mediocrity can
also rise from issues affecting school management and culture, parental
influence, surrounding communities, apart from other factors such as ammenities
and economy. Moreover, several studies had stated that the proficiency in this
subject does not provide good prospect in obtaining a career. This is made
worse by government regulations that provide more emphasis on other subjects
resulting in demoralisation of teachers and students alike, thus dampening
their spirits in maximizing their efforts for achieving excellent grades during
examinations.
Whatever the
reason, efforts to solve this problem must continue. Attempts to improve the
situation in a stage-by-stage, focussed, deliberate and continuous manner,
enhanced by the application of relevant technologies, should be allowed and
encouraged.
1.2 Problem Statements
As someone
that has acted as an art teacher in the rural area, the researcher had found
that the skill level of students in forms 4 and 5 in color mixing is low. It
has been realized that the situation has been caused mainly due to the teachers
in lower secondary grades are not from the art option. This basic art skill has
not been emphasized because the teachers themselves lack understanding or do
not possess enough knowledge and skills to conduct teaching and learning of the
subject.
Based on
data from Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah
Keningau, the numbers of teachers involved in teaching visual art education
in secondary schools in Keningau are 72 teachers, which can be categorized into
the following:
|
Category
|
Non-graduate
Teachers
|
Graduate
Teachers
|
||
|
Visual
Art Option
|
Non-Visual
Art Option
|
Visual
Art Option
|
Non-Visual
Art Option
|
|
|
Quantity
|
3
|
18
|
7
|
44
|
Table 1: The
numbers of teachers involved in teaching visual art education in secondary
schools in Keningau
From the figure shown, out of 72 art teachers in
Keningau, only 10 art teachers are of the art option whereas 62 do not possess
such option. This data revealed that 86% secondary school art teachers in Keningau
are not from the art option. Due to shortage of teachers, non-art optioned
teachers have been appointed to handle the teaching and learning of this
subject. This is one of the factors that has to be considered by the researcher
in developing the interactive software for color mixing skills. It is a
way that can be offered as a solution to the situation where there exists a
lack of qualified teachers in visual art education especially in rural Sabah.
Creating a specific software or courseware that
will enable teachers to enhance their understanding on color mixing in art
education is the right step that has to be supported, especially by those who
realise the importance of art in contributing to developing the nation, hoping
that the subject of art education will develop and prosper as enjoyed by other
subjects. Priority should be given to inject immediately, knowledge and
understanding to art teachers that are not that of the art option, one of the
most important topics in the syllabus of visual art education which is color.
1.3 Significance of the Research
Although art is not a principal
subject in secondary school and is optional in SPM, we should be concerned
about the problem below par performance of non-option art teachers. Are they competent enough to carry out their
task as an art teacher? Can their students paint well and produce a nice
painting? In fact, the performance of students in painting also depends on the
effectiveness of their teacher in delivering lessons in the classroom.
The
application of interactive multimedia in education has been widely used,
especially as teaching aids for helping students gaining knowledge in effective
and attractive way. Its benefit can be applied on art teachers as well. It can
be a self-taught approach for them. When the software concerning color mixing is developed, it will be
beneficial to art teachers in secondary schools, whose knowledge in color
mixing are minimal and needs to be improved.
It will help art teacher to develop and enhance their skill and
knowledge in color mixing. They can produce any new colors they require after
receiving guidance from this software. It also enables to facilitate their understanding in the shortest time
possible.
Even though the target group is art
teachers in secondary school, art students will also benefit from this software.
They even can use it to get knowledge about color history, color theory and
color mixing. Then, they can transfer their newfound knowledge to their
palettes and sketch books to experiment what they have learnt from the
courseware.
Furthermore, this courseware also
can be used by beginner painters. They can gain basic art knowledge from this
courseware and try to paint by themselves.
1.4 Aims
and Objective
This aim of the research is to discover the
appropriateness of interactive software usage among secondary school visual art
teachers in increasing their understanding of colour mixing.
The objectives of the research are:
(i)
to identify whether there is any interactive
software concerning colour mixing provided by Ministry of Education as art
teachers’ resource material.
(ii)
to develop an interactive software relating to
colour mixing.
(iii) to identify whether the develop interactive
multimedia is compatible for secondary school art teachers in learning about
colour mixing.
1.5
Hypothesis
Interactive software usage offers a
simple way for art teachers to learn and understand theory and technique of
color mixing.
1.6 Limitations of Study
1. The developed interactive software
will not consist a large numbers of value ranges of colors.
2. The developed interactive software
will not be applicable to all brands of watercolors in the market. The
production of a new color from mixing color technique depends on the brand of
the watercolor. The result may vary.
1.7 Delimitations of Study
1. This research is confined to
secondary school art teachers who teach in Form to Form 5 in Keningau, Sabah.
2. This courseware focuses exclusively
on the mixing of watercolors and it is
subjected to the approved art syllabus.
3. This study concerns only on the
appropriateness of interactive software usage in helping secondary school art
teachers increase their understanding about mixing colours. Measuring the
effectiveness of the developed interactive software is not within the scope of
this research.
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