Exploring High School Students’ Artistic Value Judgments and Creative Perceptions in AI-Generated Image Art Classes: A Qualitative Study
TL;DR
By treating intention as a condition for symbolic functioning rather than a mental state, students illuminate a space Goodman left unresolved between intentionalism and exemplification, and AI-era art education should move beyond tool use toward mediating students’ reasoning about art.
Abstract
This qualitative study explores students’ artistic value judgments and creative perceptions in art classes using AI-generated images. At a public high school in South Korea, 433 third-year students (2024–2026) took a five-session Midjourney class; responses were analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2019), informed by Goodman’s (1978) functionalism and Dewey’s (1934) theory of experience. Intention/thought was the criterion cited most for judging art, while beauty was cited least, consistently across three years, suggesting students conceived art as a functional, symbolic condition rather than an aesthetic property. A conditionally reserved stance also emerged as students explored when AI images could qualify as art. Despite accepting AI as a tool, most students distinguished this from the artistic status of its outputs, and a majority assigned copyright to the user with intention. By treating intention as a condition for symbolic functioning rather than a mental state, students illuminate a space Goodman left unresolved between intentionalism and exemplification. AI-era art education should move beyond tool use toward mediating students’ reasoning about art.