Relative Contributions of Talent, Interest and Exposure to Artistry

Abstract

This research sets out to find the relative contributions of Talent, Interest and Exposure, three important artistic factors, to artistry.  The experiment was applied to students of Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo, Nigeria who did not have prior knowledge of Fine and Applied Arts but were offered admission to study the course as a beginners-course in the college. 20 students were randomly selected from the 2007/2008 set. Five drawings and five paintings of each student were chronologically selected from their first semester. Another set of five drawing and painting was selected at the end of their course in 2009/2010. Standard coefficient was used to, first, weigh the composite contributions of the independent variables (talent, interest and exposure) to the dependent variable (artistry).  A sociometric marking of the works were done by 3 teachers of art. The result showed that the joint contribution of the independent variables to the dependent variable was significant and that other variables not included in this model may have accounted for the remaining variance. The result of the sociometric marking showed that the students have developed almost professional artistic skills compared to when they were admitted. The standard regression coefficients was used to determine the relative contributions of the independent variables for the explanation of the dependent variable, Interest, (B=0.446, t=4.064, P<0.05) is the most potent contribution to the prediction, followed by Talent (B=0.373, t=2.718, P<0.05) and Exposure (B=0.0397, t=0.436, P>0.05) in that order.

Keywords: Fine and Applied Arts, Talent, Interest, Exposure, Artistry