An evaluation of an arts program for incarcerated juvenile offenders

Journal of Correctional Education, Sep 2003 by Ezell, Mark, Levy, Michelle

Youth participation in the workshops was voluntary, as was their involvement in the evaluation. In the first year of the program, 17 workshops were held in six institutions involving 265 participants1 of whom 86 participated in the evaluation. In the second year, 11 workshops in six institutions involved 117 participants, 57 of whom participated in the evaluation. The program's third year saw six workshops in five institutions with 41 participants who all completed evaluations. Workshop offerings varied slightly each year. Over the three years, workshop types included visual arts, creative writing, music, wood sculpture, graphic design, murals, poetry, photography, drama, cartoon art, collage and papier-mache.

Data Collection

First Year Evaluation. Several measures were used in a pre-test post-test design to measure changes in self-- esteem, peer relations, cultural awareness, and community identity. Youth self-reported on the first two and staff recorded their perceptions on the latter two. In all cases, multi-item scales were used. The self-esteem scale was a version of Rosenberg's (1979), and the peer-- relations scale was adapted from Hudson (1982). Both scales had adequate levels of reliability with coefficient alpha equal to .74 and .81 respectively. The items used to measure community identity focused on the youth's ability to differentiate between life in an institution and life in the community. The cultural awareness items reflected the degree to which youth expressed cultural awareness, identification, and pride.

Teachers assessed the accomplishment of learning goals for each workshop by indicating whether they observed little or no progress, moderate progress, or substantial progress for each participant. In most cases, two workshop goals were developed in each of the three categories: Academic; Vocational; and Behavioral/ Social. An example of an academic goal was, "To learn how to read the work of his peers in a way that will enable him to acquire insight about craft, and to provide constructive criticism to his peers." The following are illustrative vocational and behavioral goals from the first year of the evaluation: "Increase knowledge of the safe and proper use of power hand tools," and "To increase his tolerance for others by learning to treat their literacy efforts with respect."

Second and Third Year Evaluation. Numerous changes were made in data collection procedures after the first year. Data were collected directly from youth and artists on several quantitative and qualitative instruments following completion of workshops. Data were also obtained from correctional facility staff as well as court records. Described below are the methods used to measure key variables and collect the data.

Skill Acquisition. An open-ended survey was designed to collect information from youth on skills learned in workshops, socio-emotional outcomes from the workshop, self-learning from the workshop, ability to collaborate with other students, and feedback on the workshop. Open-ended items allowed youth to explore their growth in both skills and self-awareness in an unbounded manner. Each youth's response was recorded and all the responses were analyzed for core themes. Categories were developed in which to fit each response.