Author: Stake, Robert E.

Publication Year: 1974

Media Type: Book

Summary:

This book hinges on two points: what-has-been and what-might-be. What-has-been is presented in an annotated bibliography covering evaluation of the arts-in-education in the last two decades. What-might-be is presented as a more responsive, more humanistic approach than art educators have thought has been available to them.

Abstract:

This book hinges on two points: what-has-been and what-might-be. What-has-been is presented in an annotated bibliography covering evaluation of the arts-in-education in the last two decades. What-might-be is presented as a more responsive, more humanistic approach than art educators have thought has been available to them.

The quick-silver nature of arts programs, the aesthetic subtleties in theatre, dance, film, poetry, visual arts and architecture, have been a source of embarrassment to many evaluators. They can be strengths. But it requires an evaluative approach responsive to the arts. In short, evaluating arts in education programs is not the same as evaluating spelling programs except with affective-domain tests. It requires different readiness by the evaluators, different data, different sensitivities and different interpretations.

Responding to the thrust and subtleties of an arts program - as with the spelling program - requires organization and checks upon validity and reliability. To achieve consistency and relevance in observation and in judgment demands systematic methodology. Fortunately, the skills of observation and judgment are natural in our society - arranging to have them and challenging their validity is the task of the responsive evaluator. This version of what-might-be is developed in the first six chapters.

Chapter 1, the Introduction by Kathryn Bloom, reveals the frank necessity of appropriate evaluation for arts in education. Her U.S. Office of Education experience in the heyday of federal support, 1965-68, and with the JDR 3rd Fund since then make her opening statement a timely and reflective pause before the detail of the following chapters.

In Chapter 2, To Evaluate an Arts Program, Stake reveals the contrast in approach of the preordinate evaluator with that of the responsive evaluator - the former with his attention on formal statements, data-gathering instruments, experimental designs, and researcher comprehension; the latter with his attention on program activities, portrayals, testimony, and audience comprehension. Stake's clock identifies twelve recurring events in the work of the responsive evaluator. He identifies situations where a more preordinate approach should be useful, and situations when a more responsive approach should be.

Stake presented a summation of these ideas at the 1974 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago. After the session Larry Braskamp and Jack Morrison cornered him and questioned his claims about what is special about responsive evaluation. The conversation turned on matters personal, social, political and aesthetic. A tape of that conversation provided the dialogue of chapter 3.

Judging the Quality of a School as a Place Where the Arts Might Thrive. Leslie McLean's chapter 4 provides a plan for environmental analysis. McLean alerts the reader to spirit-lifting and spirit-depressing conditions in and around our schools. His section onObserving and Recording offers a practical approach to a web of problems associated with the quality of the setting in which we find an arts-in-education program.

In Accountability for the Arts, Larry Braskamp and Bob Brown in Chapter 5 delve into the difficulties departments get into when they encounter state, district, campus or foundation demands for accountability. They suggest that the department can use its productivity, humanism, and sense of proportion to help the entire institution as well as to demonstrate the appropriateness of its uses of resources and its ability to keep promises.

In chapter 6, The Consumer's View of the Evaluation of the Arts in General Education, Jack Morrison characterizes the concerns of those who fund such projects, and why they are a particular kind of audience for evaluation reports. He states the responsibilities of those who provide funds and their need to provide information as to where and how their money was used.

Finally, Bernadine Stake provides An Annotated Bibliography for Arts in Education Programs, mostly from material published in the last few years. Basic Readings and Background Readings are included along with Readings on Particular Subjects and Examples of Evaluation Reports.

CONTENTS
Preface. (p. iv-vi)

Chapter 1. Introduction by Kathryn Bloom.
Chapter 2. To evaluate an arts program by Robert Stake.
Chapter 3. An interview with Robert Stake on responsive evaluation by 
                Larry Braskamp and Jack Morrison.
Chapter 4. Judging the quality of a school as a place where the arts might thrive by
                Leslie D. McLean.
Chapter 5. Accountability for the arts by Larry Braskamp and Robert Brown.
Chapter 6. The consumer's concern with evaluation of the arts in education by 
                Jack Morrison.

Bibliography for evaluation of arts-in-education programs by Bernadine Evans Stake and Robert Stake.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education