Art of Science Learning Proof of Impact..The Facts, just the facts

By Patricia Frischer

We have been waiting for several years for the final reports from the Innovation Incubation project from the Art of Science Learning. As you may remember this was a three city project with the hub in San Diego, but funded on the East Coast by Harvey Seifter through the NFS. . The project put together artists and scientist but gave both a crash course in collaboration with added thinking skills. The idea at the end of the project was to do a test to see if this learning actually affected the number and quality of the innovation outcomes. The report is now published. It confirms what many of us know, but these vital recording of the facts and figures are so important for future funding and to convince a wider audience of the worth of the arts in science learning. As you can read below and in the full report four major areas were tracked. Students gained creative thinking skills. Adults improved their collaborative capacity. Student had a better results in their STEM learning and there was a knock positive affect on their problem solving in everyday life.

Here is the article intro written by Harvey Seifter

Arts-Based Learning Leads to Improvements in Creative Thinking Skills, Collaborative Behaviors and Innovation Outcomes

 

In 2012, with the support of the National Science Foundation, we set out to test the hypothesis that integrating the arts into STEM-related innovation training results in enhanced creative thinking skills, more robust collaborative processes and stronger innovation outcomes. 

Today, we are pleased to publish Audience Viewpoints Consulting's independent report of our four year effort. Its findings provide clear evidence of a strong causal relationship between arts-based learning and improved creativity skills and innovation outcomes in adolescents, and between arts-based learning and increased collaborative behavior in adults.

The full report, as well as an executive summary, can be downloaded from our website at:

www.artofsciencelearning.org/phase2-research-findings

KEY FINDINGS

Arts-Based Learning Improved Creative Thinking Skills in Adolescents
High school groups using arts-based learning showed statistically significant increases in a wide range of creative and critical thinking skills.

Arts-Based Learning Increased Collaborative Behaviors in Adults
STEM professionals using arts-based learning showed significant increases in sharing leadership, empathic listening, trust, respect and emotionally intelligent behavior. Control groups only showed an increase in emotionally intelligent behavior, and in that behavior the arts-based groups outperformed the control groups by a statistically significant margin.

Arts-Based Learning Led to Stronger STEM Innovation Outcomes in Adolescents
Expert panelists rated the STEM innovations created by the high school teams using arts-based learning significantly higher in terms of insight, clarity, problem solving and impact than those of the high school control teams.

Arts-Based Learning Helped Adolescents Apply STEM Learning to Their Everyday Lives
High school students experiencing arts-based learning reported a significantly greater rate of transferring their innovation learning to subsequent academic work, home life and extracurricular activities than did the control group.

We are grateful to Americans for the Arts, American Association for the Advancement of Science and Association of Science-Technology Centers, our national partners, for their advice and support over the years; and to Balboa Park Cultural Partnership and EcoTarium, who hosted our research.

We are especially grateful to the National Science Foundation’s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program, which made this research possible with its generous support.