Formal Research Findings
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PrintAll programs at CAPE incorporate research to inform the participants and to share in the national and international dialogue around arts education and arts integration. The following reports show the broad spectrum of investigations done since the founding of the organization to the present.
Significant Works
US Department of Education Projects
CAPE Core Research
Significant Works
Over the years, noted researchers have determined CAPE methodologies to be benchmarks for what high quality art integrated practice can look like.
Moving Toward a Culture of Evidence: Documentation and Action Research inside Cape Veteran Partnerships
Gail Burnaford, Ph.D., Professor, Florida Atlantic University, 2006
This report is a culmination of three years of study of the impact on effective teaching of educators and artists engaging as partners in action research (inquiry based study of their own practice), in documenting the effects of arts integration on student learning (creating a “culture of evidence”), and in collaborating with other action research teams and with formal researchers to actively investigate qualities of teaching and learning at participating schools (what CAPE calls “layered research”).
Click to download a PDF of the executive summary of this research, CAPE’s first release in its Contributions to Arts and Learning series.
Click to download a PDF of the full research report Moving Toward a Culture of Evidence: Documentation and Action Research inside CAPE Veteran Partnerships.
How Arts Integration Supports Student Learning: Students Shed Light on the Connections
Karen DeMoss, University of New Mexico, 2002
Terry Morris, Consultant
Learning in and with the arts has been linked to increased student achievement, but the means by which the arts may support cognitive growth in students is relatively undocumented. Thirty students across ten classes in veteran teacher-artist partnerships were selected to help explore the processes and outcomes associated with arts-integrated learning units versus learning processes and outcomes in comparable non-arts units.
Click to download a PDF of the executive summary of this research, CAPE’s third release in its Contributions to Arts and Learning series.
Click to download a PDF of the research report How Arts Integration Supports Student Learning.
The Professional Artist as Public School Educator: A Research Report of the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
Lynn A. Waldorf, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, 2000-2001
Through these studies, it becomes increasingly apparent that the participation of well-trained teaching artists is a valuable, and in some cases vital, addition to the general education of youth. The presence and artistic know-how brought to the classroom by these talented, dedicated professionals can, and is, having notable, sustainable influence on whole school improvement through transforming the daily learning experiences of educators and students alike.
Click to download a PDF of The Professional Artist as Public School Educator.
Running Strong After All these Years
James S. Catterall, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, 2000
Karen DeMoss, Research Associate
In order to understand how effective arts partnerships are sustained through the years, Researcher James Catterall interviewed a CAPE teacher about the history of the CAPE partnership she helped to lead. Catterall and associate Karen De Moss analyzed this interview and identified patterns of program sustainability that they had observed in other CAPE partnerships. The researchers annotations are featured on the right-hand side of the interview text.
Click to download a PDF of Running Strong After All these Years.
Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning
James S. Catterall, Principal Investigator, 1999
Lynn Waldorf, Coordinator and Field Researcher
The purpose of this monograph is to highlight the development of CAPE and its effects through the multiple inquiry lenses trained on the program over its first six years. The story is one of development and learning by school communities, teachers, and artists as they became increasingly and more deeply involved in arts-integrated instruction. It is also a story of increasingly tangible and measurable effects on student learning as the program matured.
Click to download a PDF of Champions of Change.
US Department of Education Projects
CAPE has receiving multiple Arts Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) and Professional Development for Arts Educators (PDAE) grants from the US DOE. Findings from these reports have been shared and are an important part of the national dialogue on high quality arts education in American public schools.
Developing Early Literacies through the Arts
Larry Scripp, Ed.D., Founding Director, Center for Music-in-Education, New England Conservatory, 2007
The Developing Early Literacies Through the Arts (DELTA) project, made possible by an Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant from the U. S. Department of Education, consisted of a three-year collaboration between the Chicago Public Schools and CAPE, focusing on the contribution of arts integration to text literacy development in grades 1, 2 and 3. The DELTA study demonstrates how arts learning promotes multiple literacy learning processes that depend more on creative response, imagination, experimentation and aesthetic experience than do methods of learning that emphasize formulaic responses to rule-based literacy instruction.
Click to download a PDF of the executive summary of this research, CAPE’s second release in its Contributions to Arts and Learning series.
Click to download a PDF of the full research report, Developing Early Literacies through the Arts: A Final Report.
CAPE Core Research
Learning from our participating teachers, artists, and students is central to CAPE’s ability to grow, change and stay relevant. In the following research programs, participants engaged in the research, becoming co-researchers and exploring the nature of arts partnerships together with CAPE staff and outside researchers.
Veteran Partnerships
After School Program (SCALE)
Introductory Partnerships (Design Seminar)
Measuring the Seen and Unseen:
How the Veteran Units Foster Student Creativity
Laura Tan Paradis, CAPE Research Associate, 2010-2011
A core group of schools, teachers, and artists, called the Veteran Partnerships, has worked with CAPE for years to pioneer the latest developments in arts education. These Veteran partners commit to exploring new ideas in arts and education practice, documentation, research, and sharing and disseminating new understandings of teaching and learning.
CAPE’s evaluation team applied the “Five Indicators of Creative Thinking,” developed by sister organization CAPE-UK and published in Building a Creative School: A Dynamic Approach to School Development (2007). These indicators represent a set of outcomes for the development of student learning. In order to evaluate their progress in meeting these outcomes, the research and evaluation team developed a survey instrument to assist teachers and teaching artists in self-assessing whether or not these elements are addressed in their classroom. The research team collected this information in order to determine the extent to which student creativity is developed in the Veteran Partnerships. Click here to read the report.
Veteran Partnerships Year-End Report
Gail Burnaford, Ph.D., Professor, Florida Atlantic University, 2009-2010
In 2009-2010, CAPE program and research staff continued to explore and understand student creativity and teaching practice within Veteran Partnerships’ arts integrated units.
During this year program staff made a concerted effort to make explicit the relationship between student behavior and teaching practice by redrafting its assessment tools and focusing on professional development. Click here for the full research report.
Supporting Communities through Arts-Learning Environments (SCALE) After-School Project
Gail Burnaford, Ph. D., Professor, Florida Atlantic University, Olga Valesquez, Ph. D, Professor, Florida Atlantic University, Laura Tan, 207-2008
In 2007-2008, CAPE program and research staff investigated the effect of an arts-learning environment in an after-school program on students’ academic, social and emotional development as well as their art making skills in three Chicago elementary schools. Read the full report here.
Contemporary Arts Practices as a Learning Process
in Classrooms
Louanne Smolin, Ph.D., 2009-2010
This program evaluation assesses the current state of partnerships within Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education’s Design Seminar Program, with the intention of strengthening these partnerships. This inquiry focuses on contemporary arts practices (CAP) and art making as a key resource for learning in classrooms. This evaluation seeks to better understand the influence that teaching artists have in fostering contemporary arts practices in classrooms and how that can potentially impact the whole school environment. Specifically, CAPE will explore whether and how teaching artists’ and teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge has changed as a result of their participation in Design Seminar, and the potential implications for the whole school.
Through a focus on contemporary art making practices as a resource for learning in classrooms, the current evaluation facilitates recommendations and strategies for continued development of partnerships, the growth of the Design Seminar professional development program components, and the evolution of arts integrated curriculum. Read the full report here.
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A student in the Delta project in 2006.
Stop animation video is a popular after school class at Waters School. (Photo by Ron Gould Studios)
Veteran Partner Telpochcalli's visual arts program attracts and teaches more students each year.
A colorful drawing from a student at Daniel Hale Williams Prep School of Medicine.