Teachers opinion on art activities practiced in preschools

The purpose of this research is to determine the factors that affect the teachers' opinion related to art activities and their art activity practices. For this research, qualitative methods are used and the research is on screening model. Study group of the research includes 12 preschool teachers chosen with purposeful sampling method working in preschool classes in elementary and secondary schools connected to district directorate of education and independent preschools in Odunpazari and Tepebasi districts in Eskisehir on 2014-2015 academic year. Data collection sources on the research are the interview forms including open-ended questions developed by the researcher and the structured observation form developed from the content and order of the questions on interview forms. In the data collection process, preschool teachers participating in the research are interviewed and observed two times on their art activity practices. On the analysis of collected data, descriptive analysis method is used. Depending on the findings as the result of the research, it is identified that the teachers participated in the research are considering the art activities as motor development activities and practicing art activities that are focused on motor development. Findings came to conclusion of teachers being afraid of environmental factors such as receiving negative criticism from parents or colleagues and because of that focusing on art activities where all products are looking good in terms of visual arts.It has been noticed that cut and paste technique is frequently used. On the interviews and observations, differences are detected between their opinions about planning, practicing and evaluating processes of the art activities and their practices in real regarding those processes. It has been seen that the teachers are not developing processes of planning, practicing and evaluating art activities from a qualitative point of view. Because of the concern of presentation in art activities in class, it has been found that the teachers are not considering aspects of art that develop children's creativity. It is identified that the art education, teachers get on their undergraduate education and their personal interest in art, reflects on their practices on art activities.