Schneider Verena, Rohmann Anette
Department of Community Psychology, FernUniversität in Hagen (University of Hagen), Hagen, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 15;12:623935. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.623935. eCollection 2021.
Arts education in schools frequently experiences the pressure of being validated by demonstrating quantitative impact on academic outcomes. The quantitative evidence to date has been characterized by the application of largely correlational designs and frequently applies a narrow focus on instrumental outcomes such as academically relevant competencies. The present review aims to summarize quantitative evidence from quasi-experimental and experimental studies with pre-test post-test designs on the effects of school-based arts education on a broader range of competency outcomes, including intra- and interindividual competencies. A systematic literature search was conducted to identify relevant evaluation studies. Twenty-four articles reporting on 26 evaluation studies were eligible for inclusion, and their results were reviewed in terms of art domains and outcome categories. Whilst there is some evidence of beneficial effects on some competencies, for example of music education on arithmetic abilities, speech segmentation and processing speed, the evidence across arts domains and for different outcomes is limited due to small sample sizes, small number of studies, and a large range of effect sizes. The review highlights that sufficiently powered (quasi-)experimental studies with pre-test post-test designs evaluating arts education are sparse and that the "gold standard" of experimental research comes at the expense of a number of other study characteristics such as sample size, intervention and follow-up length. By summarizing the limitations of the current (quasi-)experimental research, the application of experimental designs is critically assessed and a combination with qualitative methods in mixed-method designs and choice of relevant outcomes discussed.
学校中的艺术教育常常面临着通过展示对学业成果的量化影响来获得认可的压力。迄今为止的量化证据主要采用的是相关性设计，并且通常只关注诸如与学业相关的能力等工具性成果。本综述旨在总结来自准实验和实验研究（采用前后测设计）的量化证据，这些研究探讨了校本艺术教育对更广泛的能力成果的影响，包括个体内和个体间的能力。我们进行了系统的文献检索以确定相关的评估研究。24篇报告26项评估研究的文章符合纳入标准，并根据艺术领域和成果类别对其结果进行了综述。虽然有证据表明对某些能力有有益影响，例如音乐教育对算术能力、语音分割和处理速度的影响，但由于样本量小、研究数量少以及效应大小范围广，跨艺术领域和不同成果的证据有限。该综述强调，采用前后测设计评估艺术教育的有足够效力的（准）实验研究很少，而且实验研究的“黄金标准”是以牺牲一些其他研究特征为代价的，如样本量、干预和随访时长。通过总结当前（准）实验研究的局限性，对实验设计的应用进行了批判性评估，并讨论了在混合方法设计中与定性方法的结合以及相关成果的选择。
