Examining Secondary School Students’ Attitudes Towards Visual Arts Course

Art education is thought to be quite an important factor in helping students find their own selves. Guiding students to help them determine their skills at an early age and to take education in the fields appropriate to their skills is the key to children’s success in their professional lives. The purpose of this study was to determine secondary school students’ attitudes towards Visual Arts Education. In order to collect the research data, “Attitude Scale towards the Course of Art and Drawing on the Basis of Multi-Field Art Education Method” developed by Orhun (2003) was used. The data were analyzed with the package software of SPSS 18. The participants in the study were 350 students from eight secondary schools located in two districts of the city of Diyarbakır. The results revealed that there were significant differences in the students’ attitudes towards the Visual Arts Course with respect to their gender, computer use and having family members interested in visual arts. On the other hand, no significant difference was found in relation to the students’ ages, their parents’ educational backgrounds or use of the Internet for the Visual Arts Course.