Project Rationale
This project aims to investigate the benefits of creative expression in an after-school club called Studio Sessions. Benefits may include reduced stress and increased feelings of sense of belonging with school/classmates.
It is the intention of Studio Sessions to be a safe space for students to create, relax, and develop a sense of belonging in an arts-focused, ungraded way that is not currently fostered via art in other school sponsored spaces.
This project is a continuation of our study from last year on the same club. Last year we saw that students’ self-report of stress levels were lower at the end of our meetings than at the beginning. We also found evidence that students made new friends in our club and felt like they belonged. Students reported attending the meeting (via open-ended response) for a wide variety of reasons, but analysis showed that fell into two main categories: Art and Social Emotional. Examples included “I want to learn how to paint” which fell into the category of “art” and “I want to spend time with my friends”, which fell into the “social-emotional” category. This year, we aim to continue this project in order to determine if participation in Studio Sessions will provide the same benefits to our students and also look at the impact of adding mindfulness art practices and improved club structure on stress levels and sense of belonging.
Studio Sessions is a voluntary club for grades 6-12. The chosen grade level range allows for participation by students who do not have access to traditional art electives in their course schedule. While attendance numbers vary by meeting, our average attendance at Studio Sessions averages about 30 attendees per meeting.
Project Context
A.D. Henderson and Florida Atlantic University High School are part of the Florida Atlantic Laboratory Schools district. These programs provide highly rigorous instruction with innovative teaching strategies. A.D. Henderson is a K-8 school and FAU High School is a 9-12th grade school. The high school is unique in that students have to apply to enter the program in order to demonstrate their academic strengths and motivation to attend our program. In grade 9, students complete the typical high school courses and begin to take dual-enrollment courses. In grades 10-12, students take all of their classes at Florida Atlantic alongside the typical university students. They are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of extracurricular activities and university level opportunities such as internships and undergraduate research. Due to this style of program, our students are under a high level of stress while disconnected from the typical high school structure. They don’t get many opportunities to interact with students in other grades because of the split between classes at the high school building in grade 9 and the rest of the classes being taken at the university.
Our student population is stressed due to academic and personal pressures. Students do not have many creative outlets within the school community. They also lack a sense of belonging with peers across grade levels (Middle to High, within the HS program - Sazone & Perez, 2019). By increasing students' sense of belonging with their peers and providing space/time to engage in creative practice, students will build coping skills that will help them manage stress.
Students have the opportunity to participate in Open Studio in room 150 or a teacher or member-led workshop during each Session. Members volunteer to lead a session for their fellow members based on their intrinsic motivation to share their knowledge of the medium of their choice, i.e. crochet, watercolor, anime style drawing, origami. Teacher and member-led workshops are approximately 45 minutes long (allowing time for arrival, set up and clean up) and are different each week. This year, we will invite professional guest artists sourced from the FAU or Boca Raton community to run workshops at workshop at Studio Sessions.
Supportive Literature
Adolescents are faced with a wide range of stressors including academics, social pressures, extracurricular, and employment. These stressors are dealt with at home, at school, with friends, and online via various social media platforms. Greater than 1/3rd of adolescents (aged 10-19 years) have some form of depressive disorder, which has increased from by 14% in the past decade (Shorey, Ng, & Wong, 2022). High school students’ reporting feelings of sadness or helplessness has sharply increased by 40%, the number of students who have reported considering suicide has increase by 36%, and the number of students who share that they have made a suicide plan has increased by 44% between the years of 2009-2019 (Office of the Surgeon General, 2021). Supporting adolescents in their mental health challenges is difficult; first, because it can be difficult to define, diagnose, and address mental health disorders, particularly when they may not be serious enough to interfere with daily functioning. Second, accessing clinical care can be difficult when dealing with the stigma surrounding mental health issues, navigating health insurance, and finding the right health care provider to work with that individual.
Parents, clinicians, and educators are trying to understand and mitigate this rise in mental health disorders in a variety of ways, including self-expression through artistic outlets. For example, school counselor led art activities have been demonstrated to reduce self-reported levels of anxiety and stress (Lindsey, Roberston, & Lindsey, 2018). Research by Martin and Colp (2022) demonstrated that engagement in visual-tactile activities, particularly art-based activities, help adolescents engage in healthy mental states such as flow state and possibly have a long-term positive impact on mental health. In addition, engagement in art and cultural activities reduces adolescent antisocial and criminalized behaviors and increases self-control (Bone, Bu, Fluharty, Paul, Sonke, & Fancourt, 2022). Overall, research supports that stress and anxiety levels can be reduced through opportunities for artistic expression by allowing students to have a positive outlet, learn and practice coping skills, and problem-solving (Aggarwal, 2021).
In hospital and clinical settings, art-making has been used for decades as a form of stress relief (Eisen, Ulrich, Shepley, Varni, & Sherman, 2008). In the sphere of public health, researchers found active participation in arts activities supports coping skills and improves mental functioning and wellbeing (Wang, Wan Mak, & Francourt, 2020, p. 7). A meta-analysis of art therapy investigated the medium of art being created and the art therapists’ direct or indirect involvement in the therapeutic process and their impact on psychosocial problems. The research found that the specific medium or the level of involvement from an arts therapist was insignificant (Bosgraff, Spreen, Pattiselanno, & van Hooren, 2020). Therefore, giving adolescents open opportunities to create artwork may be effective in improving their mental health, even if specific art therapy techniques are not utilized and there is no trained art therapist present.
Despite the evidence that opportunities for creative expression have positive impacts on adolescent mental health and stress, the funding available for arts programs in schools has decreased (when adjusted for inflation and population change; Mukai, Stubb, & Mullaney-Loss, 2021). In many schools, extracurricular activities allow students to pursue activities that are not otherwise built into the school curriculum, but funding can be hard to find for the sponsors of these extracurriculars. The importance of extracurricular activities is undeniable; extracurriculars improve student motivation, GPA, attendance, and graduation rates, while providing opportunities to practice social, life, and leadership skills (Shaffer, 2019). Extracurriculars have also been demonstrated as being beneficial to students’ sense of peer belonging and beneficial for their mental health (Oberle, Ji, Guhn, Schonert-Reichl, & Gadermann, 2019). If schools cannot offer classroom based arts programs, schools may be able to offer extracurricular activities that are arts focused and still reap the benefits of an art program with a smaller budget.
Research Methods
Participants
A total of 58 students attended meetings of the art club, known as Studio Sessions (Mean meeting attendance was 26 students). These students are all currently enrolled at a public middle and high school in Boca Raton, FL. Students ranged from 6-12th grade (6th grade, N = 18; 7th grade, N = 9; 8th grade, N = 8; 9th grade, N = 11; 10th grade, N = 8, 11th grade, N = 4; 12th grade, N = 4) (Table 1).
Student Reflection Surveys
The authors/club advisors created three surveys to measure student perceptions and capture student reflections, weekly and quarterly. The weekly “Check-in” survey asked the students about their current stress level (on a scale of 1–5, 1 indicating not stressed at all and 5 indicating extremely stressed). Additionally, the survey asked an open-ended question, “what motivated you to come to Studio Sessions today?” The weekly “Check-out” survey asked students to rate their current stress levels (after the meeting) on the same 1–5 scale and other questions related to their experience such as; what activities they participated in, whether they taught an art lesson, previous experience and overall enjoyment felt during the activity. asked which activity in which they participated, did they teach a lesson during that meeting, how much experience they had with that activity before starting, and if they enjoyed the activity.
In the quarterly connection form, students were asked 13 questions (two of those questions were demographic questions), with three of these questions being of focus within this current study. Questions related to how the sessions impacted stress and the duration of stress reduction allowed students to reflect on how they felt the session impacted their overall stress levels. These questions were as follows: “How has studio session impacted your stress levels?” (choices ranged from “greatly increased” to “greatly decreased”), “If your stress level changed during the sessions, how long did that feeling last?” (answer options: just during the session, a couple of hours after the session, for the day, and another option where students can write in their own timeframe). New this year, we asked students “Do you use art to reduce stress outside of Studio Sessions”. Questions related to connection and sense of belonging gathered student perceptions of their connectedness with other students, feelings of belonging, being able to be themselves in the club, making friends, interacting with students outside of club, trusting other club members, feelings of acceptance and pride in being a club member. The questions measuring connection included “Over the past 3 meetings, how has your feelings of connection with the other students changed? Do you feel more connected to the other members of our club?” (answer choice ranged from “much more connected” to “much less connected”), and statement response questions that included “I feel I belong in Studio Session,” “I can be myself in Studio Sessions,” I have made new friends in Studio Sessions,” “I interact with club members outside of Studio Sessions,” “There are other students I can trust in Studio Sessions,” “Other students here like me the way I am,” and “I am proud to be a part of Studio Sessions,” (answer choices ranged from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”). Also included, was one open response question that asked “Why do you keep coming back to Studio Sessions?”
Procedure
Meetings were held weekly on Tuesdays from 3 - 4 pm. In each meeting, students were asked to sign in to the meeting using the “check-in” form. After checking in, students could choose to participate in a facilitated art lesson or they could participate in “open studio”, where they could use whatever art supplies they wanted and make a creation of their choosing. At the end of the meeting, students were asked to complete the “check-Out” form before leaving. At the end of each school quarter, students were asked to complete the “Quarterly Connection Survey”.
Results
The results of the pre-post stress levels show decreased stress levels with a 10% reduction at the highest stress level (5) and a 13.4% reduction in stress levels at the level 4 range.
Pre-meeting stress levels:
Conclusion: Similar to our results last year, the weekly meetings have a positive impact on the students’ self-reported stress levels.
The results of the longer term impact of attending Studio Sessions on stress levels also showed positive effects. Eighty-five percent of students reported a decrease in their stress levels.
The stress reduction also seemed to last beyond the timeframe of the meeting itself with over 59% of students reporting that their stress levels were reduced for up to a couple hours or even for the entire day.
Again, similar to the findings last year, our students sense of belonging and connection within the club was positive.
- Over 76% of students reported feeling more connected to other students in the club.
- Over 83% of students report feeling like they belong.
New this year, we asked students to tell us if they used art to reduce stress outside of Studio Sessions. Over 56% of students reported that they use art to reduce their feelings of stress outside of studio sessions.
Another new thing we implemented this year was adding monthly mindful art practices and asked the students if they benefited from the mindful technique (Does not apply means that in that meeting, the activity that week was not a mindful art practice.) After removing the “Does not apply answers, 85.6% of students reported that they benefited from the mindful technique.
Implications
The results this year, just like last year, demonstrate that this club has a positive impact on the students’ stress levels and sense of belonging/connection. These results were expected based on the literature about the positive impacts of art and the results from last year’s study. Soon we will compare the results of this year to last year to see if there was an increased positive impact but that result remains to be seen.
Of greater interest are the new questions we asked about the lasting effects of stress reduction after a meeting, the mindfulness practice we implemented, and if our students are using art independently to reduce stress. First, we did see that most students reported that their stress levels were lower for at least a few hours after the meeting and sometimes up to a day. This is greatly beneficial for our members because when they leave our meeting they return to their home lives and have to complete homework.
Next, the students indicated that they felt the benefits of our mindful art lessons. At this time, we don’t know if the students truly benefited from the activities or if the suggestion of “this is a mindful activity and mindfulness reduces stress” was the reason they felt they benefitted. Literature does suggest that mindfulness practices are beneficial for students' stress levels and feelings of self-worth, but we didn’t measure these directly. We would like to investigate if there is a greater drop in self-reported stress levels on the weeks that mindful activities are done.
Last, we surveyed the students about their use of art to reduce stress levels outside of our club meetings. Many students reported that they do use art to relieve stress and we next asked them what types of art they do and how it makes them feel. One student responded “Over the weekend (last weekend) I was feeling overwhelmed with school work and I took a break to draw a bunch of eyes with one marker. It was cathartic.” Another student wrote “Crochet, making paper stars, arts and crafts - makes me feel calm and allows my mind to unwind.” These quotes give us a glimpse of how impactful art can be outside of a supervised club setting.
Overall, the impact that our club, Studio Sessions, has had on our students seems highly beneficial. School administrators around the country should invest in art education for their students, especially in light of the mental health crisis facing today’s adolescents. Having opportunities for artistic expression might be one small way to help students reduce their feelings of stress, give them an outlet for emotions, work on skills that are not directly academically focused, and connect with others with artistic interests.