Evaluation of Guided Exploratory Teaching Method in Teaching Geometry of Patterns to Undergraduate Students of Handicrafts

Choosing a right teaching method is essential in increasing the quality of the teaching process and has a profound impact on learners' understanding. Due to the nature of art and handicraft courses, it is necessary to choose methods that along learning pay attention to what is important in art. The present study aimed to assess the level of learning and teaching satisfaction of undergraduate students of handicraft entering Arak University in 1397. It tried to investigate the methods of direct and exploratory education guided in the course called ‘Geometry of patterns in Iranian Handicrafts 1’. The research tries to answer questions: a) what effect does the guided exploratory teaching method have on the learning rate of students in the course of Geometry of Patterns in Iranian handicrafts? b) how much satisfaction of learning does the studentsdraw from a guided exploratory teaching method? The research method has been quasi-experimental using two experimental and control groups randomly selected. The data collection tool is a joint final practical test as well as a researcher-made questionnaire on the Likert scale and consists of 20 questions and 4subscales to assess the level of learning satisfaction. In order to analyze the data obtained from the practical test, three qualitative components--‘discovery of drawing method’, ‘ideation and drawing of original designs’ and ‘time’ as well as the average scores obtained by both groups—were measured, and for the data obtained on learning satisfaction questionnaire, the mean of responses was used. The findings indicate that the guided exploratory teaching method has a greater impact on the students' deep learning process in this course. Also, the rate of students' acquired grades and their satisfaction with teaching in the guided exploratory method were higher. In general, such a method will be able to increase the creativity of students in this course.