Enhancing Junior High School Students’ Reflective Thinking in Art Appreciation through “Outsider” Perspectives

From Group Members to Conversational AIs

Abstract

This study proposes that four types of “outsider” perspectives—those of 1) group members, 2) art historians, 3) artists, and 4) conversational artificial intelligence (AI)—can be used to cultivate appreciation of art through reflective learning in junior high school students. The first three types are extracted from the literatures on the development of art appreciation capabilities and art psychology. This study summarizes the methods of applying these perspectives in reflective learning in art appreciation, which have been proposed in previous research in Japan and China, and examines the practical challenges in those applications. Next, we investigate the applications of conversational AIs, such as ChatGPT, in art criticism, curation and museum tour guides, and school education research. The findings of our investigation indicated the feasibility of applying conversational AIs in promoting reflective learning in art appreciation.