In this study, we examined demographic patterns of participation and persistence in high school elective music ensembles. We extend prior research that has only compared music and non-music students by explicitly modeling persistence across multiple years of ensemble enrollment. The research draws on data from the High School Longitudinal Study of…

This cross-sectional study examined why Latinx adolescents participated in organized activities in comparison to White adolescents. This study, utilizing phone interviews for surveying, included 236 participants (53% female) of Latinx (64%) and White (36%) descent from four Southwest middle schools to answer these overarching questions: (1) What…

Background: Many adolescents are referred to Child Protective Services for possible maltreatment every year, but not much is known about their organized and unstructured activity participation. Objective: The purposes of this study are to provide a description of organized and unstructured activity participation for adolescents who were possible…

Art therapy students' art practice might influence professional identity and career commitment. Art therapy graduate students (n = 202) in South Korea participated in a survey. This study introduces the Art Practice Scale and associated exploratory factor analysis, which identified 2 subvariables: art competency and attitude toward artwork. The…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate self-efficacy as a potential mediator in the relationship between the amount of time students spent during high school participating in the arts and their current science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) motivation levels. The study participants (N = 68) were between the ages of…

The desire to understand the "home advantage" has spurred a large body of research describing the contribution of differences in family background and parenting styles to school readiness and the achievement gap. Using the National Household Education Survey at two time points provides a fuller picture of the trends in parenting and…

This paper shares the results of an exploratory study that measured the change in Executive Function (EF) skills of At-Risk third-grade students with varying Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) before and after an Arts-Integration (AI) program. Student EF skills were measured using the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS) and a statistically…

The role of arts education has been discussed at length throughout the United States for many years. Arts educational programs have maintained resounding successes in graduation and attendance statistics. However, it is unclear if there is a correlation or causal relationship between arts education programs and students' self-efficacy and sense of…

This longitudinal study draws on positive youth development frameworks and ecological models to examine the role of school-, home- and community-based arts participation in students' academic (e.g., motivation, engagement) and nonacademic (e.g., self-esteem, life satisfaction) outcomes. The study is based on 643 elementary and high school students…

The purpose of this study was to investigate advocacy influences that may impact school arts programs using data from the 2009-10 National Center for Education Statistics elementary and secondary school surveys on arts education. Regression models were employed to assess the relative effectiveness of variables representing community support,…

The purpose of this study is to qualitatively explore students' interpersonal perspectives (i.e., "psychological safety," "value diversity," "trust" and "social interdependence") on, conceptions of and approaches to learning in an online peer assessment activity required for creating digital artistic works.…

Our purpose is to offer children tasks so they can make drawings as diverse and different from each other whilst trying to avoid imitation. Achieving this goal involves the increase of children's creativity. The paper is theoretically based on the consideration of creativity as the ability to create "something new, original, and in accordance…

The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a most to least prompting procedure in the learning of practical leisure skills for adults with autism. The selected activity was making a basket form from clay and was carried out with two adults in the clay studio at a private center for special education for individuals with autism. A…

The aim of this investigation was to measure the impact of arts-related activities on the perceived or experienced quality of life. In the fall of 2006 a questionnaire was mailed out to a random selection of 2000 households in each of five British Columbia communities, and 1027 were returned completed. The total and individual community samples…

This study focuses on behavior associated with young art students' developing artistic talent ("skills and art-making behavior") and creativity ("personal expressions of visual information"). The study examines the role of personal expertise in a student's development of problem finding, domain-specific technical skill,…