Dear Colleagues,
I'm delighted to share initial findings from Art of Science Learning's National Science Foundation-funded experimental research, which I think will be of interest to many of you.
The data provides clear evidence of a strong causal relationship between arts-based learning and improved creativity skills, collaborative behaviors and innovation outcomes.
In our study, 65 high school students from Worcester and 69 early career STEM professionals from San Diego were assigned to control or treatment groups for five weeks of innovation training during which we measured the evolution of their creative thinking skills and collaborative behaviors. An expert panel of judges scored the innovation outputs, and follow-up was done several months later with a subset regarding transferability of skills. The study was conducted by Audience Viewpoints Consulting, an independent research firm.
The evidence shows that:
- Arts-based innovation training has a significantly stronger positive impact on the creativity skills of high school students than traditional innovation training.
- High school teams experiencing arts-based learning use significantly stronger problem solving strategies, leading them to create significantly more insightful and impactful innovations than teams learning innovation through traditional means of training.
Effects of this nature and strength were not found among the creative thinking skills of the adults or the innovation outputs of their teams. However, arts-based learning did have a strong and significant positive impact on a range of adult collaborative behaviors, an effect that was not seen among the adults experiencing traditional innovation training. These behaviors included:
- Sharing leadership
- Empathic listening
- Trust in moving toward a solution
- Transparency in communication
We'll be publishing a full report with detailed research findings later this year. Meanwhile, we've posted a high level summary of Art of Science Learning activities and outcomes to date, including these research findings, on our website:
Harvey Seifter
Director and Principal Investigator
The Art of Science Learning
230 East 48th Street
New York, NY 10017
