The effects of cooperative learning on visual art teacher candidates' problem solving skills

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of collaborative learning on the problem-solving skills of visual arts teacher candidates. The study was carried out with pre-test post-test control group pattern of experimental method which is among quantitative research methods and the study group is composed of 64 pre-service teachers who have education at art teaching department of fine arts education at a state university in fall semester of 2016-2017 academic year. Subject matching method was preferred in forming experiment and control groups in the study. Random assignment was done while forming the groups and groups were created in shuffle. In the study, the problem solving inventory developed by Heppner and Peterson and adapted to Turkish by Şahin, Şahin and Heppner was used. The lessons were processed in the experimental group in accordance with the Cooperative Learning approach and in the control groups based on the traditional teaching. Experimental study with the study group was performed during 5 weeks. In the process of analysis of the data, firstly it has been checked whether the assumptions of "data must be intermittent or proportional", "data must comply with normal distribution" and "group variances must be equal", which are among the assumptions of parametric tests of data were met or not. The Shapiro-Wilk normality test and kurtosis-skewness values were examined to determine whether participants in the experimental and control groups had normal distributions of data collection scores. Findings show that the collaborative learning approach influences visual arts teacher candidates' problem solving skills. Based on the results of the research, it can be said that the collaborative learning approach should be used with the education of visual arts teachers. Keywords: Cooperative learning, problem solving, visual arts education,painting-art education