Dance Engagement in an Urban School District: The SanArts Conservatory

Through a research partnership with the Santa Ana Unified School District in Southern California, Taylor designed and implemented a mixed-methods longitudinal research study to understand the school attendance rates, academic achievement, and motivational factors linked to adolescents engagement in the district’s sequentially designed dance programs. The study assessed dance participation across multiple school sites, including the districts’ pre-professional SanArts Dance Conservatory.

Utilizing a mixed-methods research design and quantitative and qualitative data sources — including seven years of student-level demographic and achievement data; a student survey to assess motivation and self-concept of ability; structured and semi-structured interviews with students and staff; observations of the dance classroom; and archival documents — descriptive statistics and covariate-adjusted regression analyses with school-level fixed effects were conducted. Qualitative data were examined using inductive and deductive analysis guided by the Scanlan Collaborative Interview Method and the Eccles Expectancy-Value Theory of Motivation.

Findings from the study provided dance program leadership with students’ school attendance rates, academic achievement outcomes, and the expectancies and values students attributed to their long-term dance engagement. Findings were used to support the continuous improvement and strategic planning of the districts’ dance education programs.