In the early 1990s, as a moon-eyed undergraduate at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I often killed time between classes by straying into the Hopwood Room in Angell Hall. Named for Avery Hopwood (1882-1928), an alum and playwright whose Broadway credits include Getting Gertie’s Garter, the carpeted oasis lured few visitors—beyond faculty and students from the MFA … [Read more...] about Far from Frill—Large Investments in Campus Arts Facilities May Attract Higher-Tuition Students
Quick Study: An International Reckoning of Economic Losses from COVID-19 to the Arts
For this episode of the NEA podcast Quick Study, I discuss UNESCO's report, Cultural and Creative Industries in the Face of COVID-19: An Economic Impact Outlook. The full report is available here. A transcript of the podcast is at the NEA's website. … [Read more...] about Quick Study: An International Reckoning of Economic Losses from COVID-19 to the Arts
Arts Business Ownership – Statistics on Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
Soon after COVID-19 broke, a premium was placed on certain types of arts data—what losses the sector would sustain, how quickly it would recover, and how visitor/audience perceptions and expectations were likely to shift in the interval. Various surveys sprung up to address these topics. More or less in tandem—but tied to longer, systemic struggles—another class of data has … [Read more...] about Arts Business Ownership – Statistics on Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
Quick Study: Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Arts Education
For this entry, I’m sharing the latest episode of the NEA’s research podcast (Quick Study). This month, we look at promising study results from Boston’s public schools, where arts education has been linked to better attendance and overall school engagement, thanks to a unique research collaboration spanning more than a decade of data from 600,000 students. The full report is … [Read more...] about Quick Study: Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Arts Education
Sampling Beats and Youth Research Participants – in Real Time
In research terms, a convenience sample is a group of folks who feature in a study because—well, they happened to be there. Convenience samples do not permit truly random assignments of individuals into the cohorts being studied. For this reason, it is impossible to apply the study results to the general population, or to make claims about statistical significance. And yet, … [Read more...] about Sampling Beats and Youth Research Participants – in Real Time