Assessment techniques practiced in teaching art at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman

Assessment in general, and in art and design in particular, is a problematic issue. Nevertheless, it is essential to inform teaching and learning n art and design education and to identify patterns of art achievement and development within different student groups. Assessment also provides a basis for art education epartments to be accountable to their communities for student learning in all visual art disciplines. In this study, the researcher draws attention to a number of important issues regarding the assessment techniques used in assessing students’ work at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Oman. The data from this research provide some indication of the problems of using a non-standardized system for assessing creative art courses at SQU. It appears that there is a need to re-think the assessment techniques practised in teaching art studio ourses at SQU for better preparation of art teachers as well as to try to find new mechanisms for implementing commonly practised assessment methods in art education. As a result, it is important to have appropriate approaches to the assessment of art-studio courses, and they should take into account developments in the field.