The Pennsylvania State University

The Graduate School

School of Visual Arts

THE IDENTIFICATION OF ARTISTICALLY GIFTED MALE STUDENTS

IN SUDI ARABIA: RELATIONS AMONG ART TEACHER SELECTION,

STUDENTS’ BELIEFS, AND ART MAKING ABILITIES

A Thesis in

Art Education

by

Fawaz Fahad Abunayyan

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

December 1994

ABSTRACT

The goals of this study were, first, to define artistic giftedness in Saudi Arabia and, second, to study the relative effectiveness of different means for identifying artistically gifted Saudi adolescent males. These goals were pursued through: (1) a review of the Saudi education system, an overview of art education programs, and an assessment of the current status programs for gifted students in the Kingdom; (2) an extended discussion of Saudi artistic traditions considered in light of Islamic artistic influences; (3) a discussion of the possible differences that might exist between artistic giftedness in Saudi Arabia and Western countries—and especially the United States; and (4) inquiry into relationships among different methods of identifying artistically gifted adolescent males.

These methods included (a) asking Saudi art teachers to list the characteristics of artistic giftedness, (b) comparing their definitions with standard Western definitions, (c) asking the same art teachers to identify the five most artistically gifted students in their school and to provide the names of five artistically average students, (d) constructing, administering, and scoring five performance tasks to the gifted and average students, (e) constructing and administering a belief questionnaire consisting of five-sub-batteries, and (f) studying the relationships among the three methods of identifying artistically gifted middle school students.

Although Saudi and Western artistic traditions are very different, the analysis of the teachers’ lists of giftedness characteristics and Saudi students’ performances on tasks relating to Saudi and Western traditions both present evidence that there are general features of giftedness that extend across both traditions. While some characteristics seem to e qualities that belong to gifted children in Saudi Arabia and the West, other characteristics listed by Saudi teachers belong more specifically to the cultural aspects.

The artistic performance of Saudi students revealed that seemed becoming almost “bi-cultural” in the sense that they excelled in both traditional Islamic tasks involving architectural and calligraphic design, while at the same time producing fantasy-laden drawings scenes, and graphic narratives that follow traditions borrowed from the West. Generally, artistically gifted students performed outstandingly on all five of the performance tasks and they received much higher scores on the belief inventory than the average students. Finally, there were high correlations among the three methods used for identifying artistically gifted students.