The Investigation of aesthetic development stages among Tehrani students

This research studies the stages of aesthetic development among Tehrani students. Total sample size was 156 students including 5 age groups (7-9,9-11,11-13,13-15, 15-17 years old). Two primary goals were considered: (1) determining the stages of aesthetic development of the Tehrani students, and (2) determining the ability of these students to differentiate the aesthetic from the nonaesthetic hand-paintings. To determine the stages of aesthetic development, 8 paintings, 2 samples from each of the 4 different famous styles, were selected. Each student was asked to watch all the 8 paintings, one by one, and explain in writing whatever they could perceive about the paintings. After careful statistical analysis of the data, different aesthetic development stages were recognized. To investigate the second goal of this research, 20 painting subjects were chosen. Four different designs were developed for each of the 20 paintings subjects, that is, 80 designs in total. Each student was asked to put the four paintings in each of the 20 categories in descending order (i.e, the most beautiful to the ugliest). The scoring criteria was so that one total score was assigned to each student for his/her aesthetic ability. The results showed three essential stages in aesthetic development which were called: Objectivism (7-9,9-11,11-13 age groups), Story telling-Affectivism (13-15 age group), Evaluation-Symbolism (15-17age group). Other results showed that with increasing the age, the ability to identify aesthetic paintings from nonaesthetic ones increases. Comparing the findings of this research with findings from researches in other countries (for example, Housen,1992 and Parsons,1987) indicates similarities and differences on the aesthetic development stages in different countries.