Examining the Effect of Socially Engaged Art Education with Virtual Reality on Creative Problem Solving

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of engaging students in socially engaged art (SEA) education to create 3D virtual worlds for fostering creative problem-solving (CPS) skills. The study was conducted with 135 students (aged 16) of boys' high school in Korea who participated in the SEA program through four stages: Stage 1 - appreciation and interpretation of artwork about social issues; Stage 2 - discussion on the potential solution to the selected social issue; Stage 3 - creating a 3D virtual world k to express proposed solutions; and Stage 4 - experiencing and sharing 3D virtual worlds. The following research questions guided the study: (1) What is the effect of SEA education with VR on students' CPS? (2) How are the students' CPS as expressed in their artifact (essay and VR work)? (3) What are the relationships between students' CPS and their artifact (essay and VR work)? For data collection, we administered the instrument to measure students' CPS skills in three areas (higher-order thinking, divergent thinking, and problem-solving) and also evaluated student essays and VR work to examine CPS specific to art education. Overall, the results indicate that the students improved their CPS skills significantly after participating in the SEA program. The CPS skills had significant relationships with the essay scores, whereas only one significant relationship was found between CPS and VR work. This study provides empirical findings concerning how the formal school curriculum can introduce students to an authentic context concerning social issues through artmaking practices with VR.