College and Career Counseling of High Ability Visual Artists

Jennifer Fisher, Ph.D.

University of Missouri - St. Louis

Missouri Art Education Association 2023 Spring Conference, Springfield, Missouri

My Background

• Associate Teaching Professor of Art Education at University of Missouri - St. Louis
• Former K-12 Visual Art and Gifted Education teacher
• 10+ year participant at Missouri Scholars Academy

High Ability Visual Artists (HAVAs)

• HAVAs are students who exhibit behaviors or produce artworks with visual artistic aptitude and skills above average compared to their age-mates (Fisher, 2016).
• There is a marked lack of art educator training and professional development regarding HAVAs (Fisher 2019, n.d.), meaning that their career, social/emotional, and academic needs may often go unmet.
• In this study, we sought to examine the self-efficacy of secondary school counselors in providing career counseling to HAVAs. Per Bandura (1977, 1986, 1997), self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in their ability to demonstrate control over their motivation, behavior, and social environment.

Background

• Harrison (2018) holds that professional visual artists are vulnerable to unique emotional challenges and clinical issues, as a level of poise that is common for gifted children might be mistaken for emotional maturity and results in the usual childhood needs of gifted students being ignored.
• Herr and Cramer (1996) point out that many gifted students have trouble determining whether they should pursue careers that others expect from them or pursue other career trajectories that they might find more appealing.
• Colangelo and Kerr (1990) determined that most gifted students choose narrow career paths such as business, engineering, pre-med, pre-law, and communications, regardless of the diversity of their skillsets.
• Ozcan (2017) found that the largest number of gifted students surveyed wanted to become doctors, citing money and prestige as significant reasons for pursuing medicine.

Research Questions

Research Question 1: What are school counselors’ experiences providing career counseling to HAVAs?

Research Question 2: What are school counselors’ levels of self-efficacy in career counseling with HAVAs?

Research Question 3: How do school counselors' self-efficacy levels in career counseling with HAVAs differ with previous training?

Research Questions 4: How do school counselors’ levels of self-efficacy in career counseling with HAVAs differ between school counselors who were or were not identified as gifted artists or artists?

Answering the Research Questions

Research Question 1: What are school counselors’ experiences providing career counseling to HAVAs?

Findings: Most school counselors (60.1%) said they had never provided career counseling to a gifted artist.

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Research Question 2: What are school counselors’ levels of self-efficacy in career counseling with HAVAs?

Findings: Secondary school counselors who participated in this study reported feeling mostly confident (Item M = 2.81) in their ability to provide career counseling services to gifted artists.

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Answering the Research Questions

Research Question 3: How do school counselors' self-efficacy levels in career counseling with HAVAs differ with previous training?

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Findings: There was no statistically significant difference (p > .05) between the self-efficacy scores of participants who had received professional development to work with gifted artists at their current school (n = 6, M = 75.17, SD = 18.9) and those who had not received training to work with gifted artists or students (n = 253, M = 65.72, SD = 21.15) on the overall CCSES-Modified or any of the CCSES-Modified Subscales.

Answering the Research Questions

Research Questions 4: How do school counselors’ levels of self-efficacy in career counseling with HAVAs differ between school counselors who were or were not identified as gifted artists or artists?

Findings: There was no statistically significant difference (p > .05) between the scores of participants school counselors who were identified as gifted artists as secondary aged students (n = 15, M = 73.60, SD = 19.4) and those who were not identified as gifted artists as secondary aged students (n = 242, M = 65.47, SD = 21.8) on the CCSES-Modified or on any of the subscales.

Participants who were identified as gifted in other non-art areas as secondary-aged students (n = 81) scored higher on the CCSES-Modified (M = 70.85, SD = 17.9) than those who were not identified as gifted in other non-art areas as secondary-aged students (n = 176). The differences in mean scores between both groups were statistically significant t(255) = 2.55, p = .012, with a medium effect size d = 0.34.

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Answering the Research Questions

Though school counselors reported high levels of self-efficacy, they reported receiving little to no training regarding how HAVAs’ career counseling needs might be met. This finding presents a pattern consistent with previous research showing that K-12 art educators feel overwhelmingly confident in their ability to meet the needs of their HAVA students, even though they indicate that their preservice and in-service training surrounding the education of HAVAs was largely insufficient (Fisher, 2016, n.d.).

Implications

• Administrators and educational leaders responsible for facilitating professional development opportunities for their school counselors can intentionally include information regarding the career counseling of HAVA students as a professional development topic.
• Teams comprised of art teachers, gifted teachers, and school counselors may collaborate to share combined knowledge and prepare holistic career counseling plans that meet student needs from each perspective.
• All school counselors must know that gifted education at the national level includes the arts (NAGC, 2014), not simply a limited number of school subjects as outlined in some state definitions.
• Recognizing that HAVAs are gifted learners is a crucial understanding that must be communicated to all school counselors.

Practical Questions for Consideration

• Is this student gifted in one or multiple areas?
• What is this student’s socioeconomic/financial situation?
• What home or domestic responsibilities does this student have?
• What is this student’s emotional maturity level?
• What is the best option for this student? Apprenticeship? Community college? Four-year college or university? Art school? State school? Private school?
• Is ART the best option for this student? Is there a better option for this particular student? (i.e. business degree with a minor in art for a student who wants to open their own fine art gallery)

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Questions?

How to contact me:

Email: fisherjc@umsl.edu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/maeadistrict8

Twitter: @UMSLart

Instagram: umslartanddesign