Art-based research on application of embroidery in elementary school junior and senior grades fine arts class

Abstract

Although the oral tradition is gaining more and more significance these days, it appears it is still undervalued or approached in an outdated manner in terms of methodology. For that reason, our project is an art-based research within a qualitative methodological approach, with the student assuming the role of an active researcher. The survey encompasses 272 elementary school junior and senior grades students, and the data is collected by means of systematic observation and interviews, as well as through an analysis of children's fine arts assignments. With regard to the research goals, they are designed with the results of the recent studies in the field of fine arts methodology in mind, advocating for the teaching model that is centred around the student as a creator of their own knowledge. Thus, the research aims at establishing whether the art of embroidery can serve as an incentive for junior and senior students' artistic expression, as well as at establishing the way in which students can realise this project and produce a work of art inspired by embroidery as a motif. In this respect, the findings show that the latter, in its entirety, can be adapted to fit the respective teaching units as designed by the Elementary School Curriculum of the Republic of Srpska. The art of embroidery as a fine arts motif, along with the possibility of applying various fine arts techniques, helps students develop numerous approaches to fine arts issues, resulting in specific and innovative solutions. Given the aforementioned, the paper offers recommendations for overcoming the shortcomings due to an inadequate number of fine arts classes in school, to traditional approach to fine arts teaching, and to specific teaching conditions as a result of the counter-COVID 19 pandemic measures. In that sense, the solution is in the constructivist approach to a research project application in the fine arts methodology.