How Study of THE ARTS Contributes to STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT & SUCCESS

 

A growing body of studies, including those in the research compendium Critical Links, presents compelling evidence connecting student learning in the arts to a wide spectrum of academic and social benefits. These studies document the habits of mind, social competencies and personal dispositions inherent to arts learning. Additionally, research has shown that what students learn in the arts may help them to master other subjects, such as reading, math or social studies.

 

Students who participate in arts learning experiences often improve their achievement in other realms of learning and life. In a well-documented national study using a federal database of over 25,000 middle and high school students, researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles found students with high arts involvement performed better on standardized achievement tests than students with low arts involvement. Moreover, the high arts-involved students also watched fewer hours of TV, participated in more community service and reported less boredom in school. (12)

 

The concept of transfer, in which “learning in one context assists learning in a different context,” has intrigued cognitive scientists and education researchers for more than a century. (13) A commonly held view is that all learning experiences involve some degree of transfer both in life and learning outside the school as well as learning within the school. However, the nature and extent of these transfers remain a topic of great research interest. Recent studies suggest the effects of transfer may in fact accrue over time and reveal themselves in multiple ways.

 

Researchers continue to explore the complex processes involved in learning and the acquisition of knowledge and skills. One promising line of inquiry focuses on how to measure the full range of benefits associated with arts learning. These include efforts to develop a reliable means to assess some of the subtler effects of arts learning that standardized tests fail to capture, such as the motivation to achieve or the ability to think critically.

 

The SAT and Arts Learning

 

The relationship between arts learning and the SAT is of considerable interest to anyone concerned with college readiness and admissions issues. The SAT Reasoning Test (formerly known as the SAT I) is the most widely used test offered by the College Board as part of its SAT Program. It assesses students’ verbal and math skills and knowledge and is described as a “standardized measure of college readiness.”

Many public colleges and universities use SAT scores in admissions. Nearly half of the nation’s three million high school graduates in 2005 took the SAT.

 

Multiple independent studies have shown increased years of enrollment in arts courses are positively correlated with higher SAT verbal and math scores. High school students who take arts classes have higher math and verbal SAT scores than students who take no arts classes.

 

Arts participation and SAT scores co-vary—that is, they tend to increase linearly: the more arts classes, the higher the scores. This relationship is illustrated in the 2005 results shown below. Notably, students who took four years of arts coursework outperformed their peers who had one half-year or less of arts coursework by 58 points on the verbal portion and 38 points on the math portion of the SAT.

Source: 2005 College-Bound Seniors: Total Group Profile Report, The College Board, 2005, Table 3-3; SAT Scores of Students Who Study the Arts: What We Can and Cannot Conclude about the Association, Kathryn Vaughn and Ellen Winner (Fall 2000).

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MATHEMATICS SKILLS

 

Certain types of music instruction help develop the capacity for spatial- temporal reasoning, which is integral to the acquisition of important mathematics skills. Spatial temporal reasoning refers to the ability to understand the relationship of ideas and objects in space and time.

 

The association between music and mathematics achievement is an area of great research interest. A recent literature review turned up over 4,000 published and unpublished references on this topic alone. Among the strong body of evidence linking student involvement in music to high school math proficiency are these two large-scale studies:

 

• An analysis conducted of multiple studies confirms the finding that students who take music classes in high school are more likely to score higher on standardized mathematics tests such as the SAT. One explanation is musical training in rhythm emphasizes proportion, patterns and ratios expressed as mathematical relations. (18)

• Students consistently involved in orchestra or band during their middle and high school years performed better in math at grade 12. The results were even more pronounced when comparing students from low-income families. Those who were involved in orchestra or band were more than twice as likely to perform at the highest levels in math as their peers who were not involved in music. (19)

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THINKING SKILLS

 

Thinking skills (sometimes referred to as cognitive skills) is a broad term that refers to the operation of various thought processes. Reasoning ability, intuition, perception, imagination, inventiveness, creativity, problem-solving skills and expression are among the thought processes associated with study of the arts.

The relationship between music and spatial-temporal reasoning as it pertains to mathematics skills was discussed earlier. Participation in other arts forms, such as dance or visual arts, also lends itself to the development of thinking skills, as evidenced in these examples, which also ask the question whether such skills transfer to other subjects:

 

• In an experimental research study of high school age students, those who studied dance scored higher than nondancers on measures of creative thinking, especially in the categories of fluency, originality and abstract thought. Whether dancers can use their original abstract thinking skills in other disciplines is an important area of exploration. (20)

 

• A group of 162 children, ages 9 and 10, were trained to look closely at works of art and reason about what they saw. The results showed that children’s ability to draw inferences about artwork transferred to their reasoning about images in science. In both cases, the critical skill is that of looking closely and reasoning about what is seen. (21)

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SOCIAL SKILLS

 

Certain arts activities promote growth in positive social skills, including self-confidence, self-control, conflict resolution, collaboration, empathy and social tolerance. Research evidence demonstrates these benefits apply to all students, not just the gifted and talented. As the studies described below demonstrate, however, the arts can play a key role in developing social competencies among educationally or economically disadvantaged youth, who are at greatest risk of not successfully completing their education:

 

• A group of boys, ages 8 to 19, living in residential homes and juvenile detention centers for at-risk youth, discovered that learning to play guitar and performing for their peers boosted their confidence and self-esteem. The research suggests the opportunity to perform may be a powerful tool to help youth overcome fears and see that they can succeed. (22)

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• Dance also can affect the way juvenile offenders and other disenfranchised youth feel about themselves. One study demonstrated that when a group of 60 such adolescents, ages 13 to 17, participated in jazz and hip hop dance classes twice weekly for 10 weeks, they reported significant gains in confidence, tolerance and persistence related to the dance experience. (23)

 

MOTIVATION TO LEARN

 

The arts nurture a motivation to learn by emphasizing active engagement, disciplined and sustained attention, persistence and risk taking, among other competencies. Participation in the arts also is an important strategy for engaging and motivating students at risk of dropping out of high school and for those with special needs, as these studies show:

 

• Students at risk of not successfully completing their high school educations cite their participation in the arts as reasons for staying in school. Factors related to the arts that positively affected the motivation of these students included a supportive environment that promotes constructive acceptance of criticism and one where it is safe to take risks. (24)

 

• An ethnographic study of seventh grade boys in special education revealed use of the visual arts helped them become more sophisticated, less reluctant readers. Described as learning disabled, the boys were encouraged to use visual forms of expression to convey their understanding of reading assignments. After a nine-week course of “visualization training,” they also took a more active role in reading and began to interpret text rather than passively reading it. (25)

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ENDNOTES

1 U.S. Department of Education, No Child Left Behind Web site, http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov.

2 Education Commission of the States (2005), State Policies Regarding Arts in Education. Denver, CO: ECS.

3 Deasy, Richard J. (editor) (2002), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

4 Americans for the Arts (2005), “New Harris Poll Reveals That 93% of Americans Believe That the Arts Are Vital to Providing a Well-Rounded Education,” News Release, http://www.artsusa.org.

5 See Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga (2002), “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: Extending an Analysis of General Associations and Introducing the Special Cases of Intensive Involvement in Music and Theatre Arts.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP. Vaughn, Kathryn and Ellen Winner (2002), “SAT Scores of Students Who Study the Arts: What We Can and Cannot Conclude about the Association.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

6 Deasy, Richard J. (editor) (2002), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

7 Murfee, Elizabeth (1995), Eloquent Evidence: Arts at the Core of Learning, Washington DC: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

8 Herbert, Douglas (2004), “Finding the Will and the Way To Make the Arts a Core Subject: Thirty Years of Mixed Progress,” The State Education Standard, Vol. 4, Number 4, Washington, DC: National Association of State Boards of Education.

9 U.S. Department of Education, No Child Left Behind Web site, http://www.nochildleftbehind.gov.

10 Arts Education Partnership (2005), No Subject Left Behind: A Guide to Arts Education Opportunities in the 2001 NCLB Act. Washington, DC: AEP.

11 von Zastrow, Claus with Helen Janc (2004), Academic Atrophy: The Condition of the Liberal Arts in America’s Schools, Washington, DC: Council for Basic Education.

12 Catterall, James S. (2002), “Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

13 Catterall, James S. (2002), “The Arts and the Transfer of Learning.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

14 Deasy, Richard J., “Don’t Axe the Arts!.” National Association of Elementary School Principals, Volume 82, Number 3 (January/February 2003).

15 Goodman, Jennifer Ross (2002), “A Naturalistic Study of the Relationship between Literacy Development and Dramatic Play in Five-Year-Old Children.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

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16 Page, Anita (2002), “Children’s Story Comprehension As a Result of Storytelling and Story Dramatization: A Study of the Child As Spectator and Participant.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

17 Moore, Blaine H. and Helen Caldwell (2002), “Drama and Drawing for Narrative Writing in Primary Grades.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

18 Vaughn, Kathryn (2002), “Music and Mathematics: Modest Support for the Oft-Claimed Relationship.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

19 Catterall, James S., Richard Chapleau, and John Iwanaga (2002), “Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: Extending an Analysis of General Associations and Introducing the Special Cases of Intensive Involvement in Music and Theatre Arts.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

20 Minton, Sandra (2002), “Assessment of High School Students’ Creative Thinking Skills: A Comparison of the Effects of Dance and Non-dance Classes.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

21 Tishman, Shari, Dorothy MacGillivray, and Patricia Palmer (2002), “Investigating the Educational Impact and Potential of the Museum of Modern Art’s Visual Thinking Curriculum: Final Report.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

22 Kennedy, John Roy (2002), “The Effects of Musical Performance, Rational Emotive Therapy and Vicarious Experience on the Self-Efficacy and Self-Esteem of Juvenile Delinquents and Disadvantaged Children.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

23 Ross, Janice (2002), “Art and Community: Creating Knowledge through Service in Dance.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

24 Barry, N., J. Taylor, and K. Walls (2002), “The Role of the Fine and Performing Arts in High School Dropout Prevention.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

25 Wilhelm, Jeffrey D. (2002), “Reading Is Seeing: Using Visual Response To Improve the Literacy Reading of Reluctant Readers.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

26 Catterall, James S. and Lynn Waldorf (2002), “Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE): Evaluation Summary.” In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.

27 Nelson, C.A. (2002), “The Arts and Education Reform: Lessons from a Four-Year Evaluation of the A+ Schools Program, 1995-1999.” Executive Summary. In R. Deasy (Ed.), Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Achievement and Social Development, Washington, DC: AEP.