Evaluation

Ready to get started with Arts Link? Our program provides evaluation materials for teachers and teaching artists to assess student learning through the arts. Teachers and teaching artists can also access the evaluation results of the four-year Arts Link study and prior study results.

The purpose of this section is to provide you with resources to assess the success of your arts-integration efforts. It includes several sample surveys and other data collection instruments that can be downloaded and modified to fit your needs. The goal with any evaluation is to tell the story about your project or initiative using data to support your insights and conclusions.

Evaluation Primer

This guide covers the steps needed to formulate a basic evaluation plan.

Step 1: Begin the process by formulating a list of activities and the outcomes associated with each activity.

Step 2: Define your population. Who are you going to include in the evaluation?

Step 3: Formulate a connection between what you are doing (this is often referred to as the “treatment” or “intervention”), the expected outcome and the longer range impact of your activities on your target audience. This is best done in a series of statements. For example, our class is constructing _____ to reinforce _____ concepts to result in _____ for participating students.

Step 4: Choose your data collection tools. It is best to think of the data collected here as three distinct types:

Outputs: What did you do (for example, hours of instruction or number of class sessions)?
Outcomes: What happened because of your activities (for example: students learned the fundamentals of adding fractions, students learned how to collaborate with peers in developing a group project)?
Impact: What is the longer-term result of your outcomes (for example, reduction in math anxiety, greater interest in school, improved attendance rates, improved standardized test scores, increased homework completion rates.)

Step 5: Choose your data analysis methods. In most cases, you are going to be using descriptive data analysis methods that is presented in the form of the “percentage of participants reported _____, or the % of participants who agreed or strongly agreed with a statement on a survey.

Step 6: Formulate your findings. Once you have analyzed your data, you are able to make statements that demonstrate what you have learned through your evaluation. For example, we conducted _____ hours of mathematics instruction resulting in __% of students meeting our educational standard for that topic. __% students reported a greater interest in math and % of students reported greater confidence in their ability to successfully complete classroom math assignments.