| Review of the literature suggests that there is a positive relationship between student involvement in fine arts, creative thinking abilities, academic self concept, and enhanced academic achievement. The study examined the relationship between the degree of involvement of Hispanic students in the arts, and creative thinking abilities, academic self-concept, and academic achievement in mathematics and reading. Hispanic students in grades 3, 4 and 5, involved in either: (a) an intensive fine arts academy, (b) a rotational fine arts program, or (c) a minimal fine arts program were compared on five measures of creative thinking, three measures of academic self-concept, and achievement in mathematics and reading.; The areas of creative thinking, academic self-concept, academic achievement in reading and mathematics, were assessed through administration of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1962), the Self-Description Questionnaire - I (Marsh, 1987--1992), reading and mathematics scores from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) 2003 (TEA, 2003) for third grade students, The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TARS) (TEA, 1998) TLI mathematics and reading scores for the year 2002 for fourth and fifth grade students, and the "In-Tune" Music Listening Profile (UMI, 1993).; Significant main effects were found for creative thinking abilities, academic self-concept, academic achievement in reading and mathematics, music listening skills and the degree of involvement in fine arts. The study also found practically significant main effects between some of the areas of creative thinking, TAKS and TAAS reading and mathematics score, music listening scores, and the degree of arts involvement of students. Significant interactions emerged between method of instruction, gender, and Creativity and Originality (areas of creative thinking). |
