IRB

  1. Human Subjects Involvement and Characteristics.The primary objective of this______is to help ____ adult male and female teachers improve knowledge andability to create and teach art,as well as desire and ability to integrate arts instruction into other subject specific classroom activities.
  1. Sources of Materials. Project personnel will use interviews, surveys, observations, and standardized tests to assess the impact of the ______programs. Project personnel will obtain this data for research purposes.
  1. Recruitment and Informed Consent. Four of the five school districts will submit applications to ______for the professional development training and mentoring. This evaluation will follow 2 cohorts of participants over a 5-year period. Each cohort will consist of 8 schools (24 classrooms in each cohort) with 4 schools participating in the ______program and 4 schools participating in the ______program only. Each cohort will be involved with the project for three years. A total of 16 schools will participate in the project evaluation as the treatment group. Evaluators will randomly select treatment schools from the applicant pool and randomly assign those schools to a cohort, and ___ treatments.

To properly evaluate the impact this project might have, evaluators will select 16 additional schools as a control group. Because the treatment and control group schoolsexist as intact units (i.e., existing classrooms and schools), evaluators will use a purposive matched sampling technique to maximize the similarity of the comparisons groups under investigation. Evaluators will select control group schools from the application pool (i.e., schools not selected to participate) and other district schools, and will match control group schools based on factor similarities with the treatment group schools (e.g., location, SES, prior achievement, school size, etc). Evaluators will obtain baseline and impact data for teachers and students in treatment and control group schools for comparison purposes. Project personnel will obtain informed consent from school administrators, teachers, students, and parents as applicable.

  1. Potential Risks. There is minimal risk associated with this study. Possible risks include mental and/or physical anxiety associated with a classroom teaching environment.
  1. Protection Against Risk. Project personnel will minimize anxiety by providing adequate information on project activities and arts integration skills. Project personnel will ensure data confidentiality by assigning identification numbers in lieu of names or other identifiable information.
  1. Importance of the Knowledge to be Gained. The ______develops programs that improve the quality and quantity of _____education in the elementary schools in the five school districts that make up the ____. All increases and additions to the original ____ model are in response to participant feedback and preliminary research data on the previous four years of implementation. The _____ projects that evaluating the improved ______models will demonstrate measureable improvement in student performance of art skills and selected reading and math standards.
  1. Collaborating Sites. Project personnel will conduct research within the 5 school districts that comprise the BYU A.R.T.S. Partnership. These districts will provide teachers to attend and offer feedback for the AA and AA+ training and teacher ability to integrate the arts into math and reading learning. Districts will also provide student standardized test data for analysis.