Sarah Gaspari
Pre-Post Assessment Analysis
During the Fall Social Studies Practicum CRIN E05 experience, I taught a lesson on Sculpture
and National Symbols to a group of 18 first graders at Clara Byrd Baker Elementary School.
Pre-Assessment Results: For the Social Studies component of the pre-assessment, all students
recorded information about the history of the Statue of Liberty by identifying its sculptor. An
item on the pre-assessment asked students to match the sculptor Frederic-August Barthodi with
his most famous sculpture, the Statue of Liberty. Of the 18 students, 11 correctly identified the
Statue of Liberty, 3 students identified the painting “Starry Night”, 3 students identified the
sculpture “The Thinker”, and 1 student identified both the Statue of Liberty and The Thinker.
The most common answer for this question during the pre-assessment was the Statue of Liberty.
The mode was 10, the median was 10, and the mean was 6.4.
For the Arts component of the lesson, the pre-assessment asked students to identify a
picture of a sculpture from a collection of other art forms including a painting and a sketch. On
this test item, 8 students correctly identified the example of a sculpture out of the 18 total
students. On the remaining tests, 5 students chose the sketch, 1 chose the painting, 1 student
chose both the sculpture and the sketch, 1 student chose the sculpture, painting and sketch, and 2
students did not circle any of the options. The pre-assessment also asked students to draw one
example of a sculpture; however, due to a shortened class time, this part of the pre- and postassessment was omitted.
Based on the results from the pre-assessment, I determined that students could identify
the Statue of Liberty and that some students had basic knowledge about its history. Because 60%
of the class correctly identified Bartholdi as the Statue of Liberty’s sculptor, I decided that this
information should still be taught during the lesson, but recognized that it would be a review for
some. Two students cited visiting the Statue of Liberty, thus some of their background
information was based on personal experience. Because the mean was 6.4 but the median was
10, this told me that there was a great variance in students’ knowledge about the Statue of
Liberty. The pre-assessment also indicated that fewer than half of the students in the class were
able to distinguish and identify a sculpture from other forms of art. One lesson objective stated
that students will define and give at least one example of a sculpture; thus, I addressed these pretest results in the beginning of my lesson by spending more time defining sculpture and
providing details about the differences between sculpture and other art forms using examples.
Because students seemed unfamiliar with sculpture, I also adapted my lesson to allow more time
for students to describe the visual qualities and contents of sculptures. They would be re-assessed
on their ability to use visual qualities of sculptures to identify an example of one.
Post-Assessment results: For the Social Studies component of the post-assessment, all students
recorded information on the history of the Statue of Liberty. On a scale of 0-10 on the rubric, the
mean was 9.4, the median was 10, and the mode was 10. The increased scores are most likely
due to the PowerPoint lecture and class discussion about how Bartholdi constructed the Statue of
Liberty. For the Arts component of the post-assessment, students demonstrated their knowledge
of the visual qualities of a sculpture to identify an example. 16 students correctly identified the
example of a sculpture, and 2 students chose the sketch. These results demonstrate significant
improvements (100% increase in correct responses) in the student’s knowledge of sculpture, as
tied to the lesson objective. One change I would make would be to provide a greater variety of
examples of national symbols depicted in art forms to assess SOL Visual Arts 1.14. I would also
draw on students’ prior knowledge and experiences such as the experiences of students who had
visited the Statue to enhance the instruction. The overall instructional strategy was effective by
first defining and describing sculpture as an art form and then explaining how sculptures depict
national symbols using the Statue of Liberty as a case study to examine in detail.