Investigating Early-Career Teacher Propensity for Arts-Based Pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigates the factors which support the use of arts-based pedagogy in elementary settings. To address the lack of a current profile of an early-career teacher (ECT) with a propensity to use the arts – music, theatre, dance, and visual art – this study illuminates ECT attitudes and behaviors related to arts-based pedagogy. The researcher administered Oreck’s (2001) Teaching with the Arts Survey (TWAS) and employed a non-experimental survey design using purposive sampling. The ECT population studied included currently employed elementary (1-5) teachers who completed the compulsory arts-based pedagogy class at a large Louisiana university in the fall of 2016, spring of 2017, or fall of 2017. Research questions related to the constructs of frequency, value, self-efficacy, and administrative support were analyzed using a variety of statistical routines including frequency analyses, correlations, independent samples t-tests, and one-way ANOVAs with relevant post-hoc tests. School-based administrative support emerged as a fundamental support to ECTs’ arts-based pedagogy. ECT’s current practice in an artform was also significant, however, the type of preservice arts class, i.e. arts-as-curriculum versus arts-integrated-curriculum, lacked influence on the constructs. These findings are important to arts-based pedagogy programming providers including institutions of higher education, teacher educators, district and school-based administrators, policy makers, and professional development providers from the private and nonprofit sector who are interested in factors related to the arts in elementary environments.