Evaluation Resources

BYP Group is the Social Impact Evaluation Partner for Creative Victoria’s Social Impact, Diversity and Inclusion Programs, 2018-2020. As part of this work, we will be creating and sharing on this website a range of workshop presentations, tools, templates and resources for anyone wanting to monitoring and evaluate their social impact. We encourage you to review, adapt and share these resources, and your insights about what works.

Here is a quick summary of our approach to social impact evaluation in the arts.

How do I know my project has led to change?

Because arts projects generally don’t have the resources to do a big-scale piece of research like a randomised control trial, what you can do is work out:

Does my project have the qualities that are ALREADY KNOWN to contribute to social impact?

Did the participants in my project experience the kinds of change which are KNOWN DETERMINANTS of social impact?

In other words, you:

• Look at the existing research about what types of projects lead to that impact (See the evidence resources on this site for references and findings).

• See if your project has these qualities and outcomes.

It’s a shortcut, and it’s only indicative, but it is much better than nothing, and is a commonly used approach. It also helps you to challenge your assumptions about what you think leads to change versus what the research says leads to change.

How do I know if the answer is ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’ or ‘maybe a little bit’?

That is the focus of most of the evaluation resources on this site. Here are the basic steps:

1. Understand the impact you want to achieve and what leads to this type of impact

2. Develop an evaluation framework (this includes the impacts, outputs and process aspects of your project)

   • Impact evaluation framework

   • Process evaluation framework

   • Outputs evaluation framework

3. Develop the tools for data collection (interviews, surveys, questionnaires, arts-based tools…)

   • Quantitative vs qualitative data

   • Surveys

   • Qualitative tools and qualitative methods

4. Analyse, and share results

   • Write a report

   • Communicate results

Click on the below links to find out more about how you can measure and evaluate change.

For information on how to apply for the Evaluation Exchange, please visit Creative Victoria.

 The evidence-base for how the arts create social impact

There are hundreds of evaluation and research projects which have sought to establish the link between arts engagement and social impact, and a number of meta-literature reviews which have looked at the quality of the evidence. On this page we have summarised some of the key findings:

WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS

• 2 hours per week of arts engagement can support good mental wellbeing.

• The arts can have positive impacts on healthy eating, physical activity, mental wellbeing and social health.

• The arts can also have positive impacts on preventing tobacco use and harm from alcohol.

• Certain types of regular, active arts participation have been shown to have positive benefits for older adults’ health and wellbeing.

• Some types of arts activities lead to therapeutic outcomes and wellbeing for patients.

• Social arts activities can have positive social development impacts in early childhood.

• Some types of arts engagement have positive correlations with academic engagement and self-efficacy outcomes for school-age children.

• Some people are motivated to engage in arts-related physical exercise where mainstream activities (e.g. going to the gym, team sports) do not have a motivating impact

Sometimes, arts activities can support social cohesion, prosocial behaviours and increased connection and empathy.

KEY SOURCES

We have gathered some of the key findings from the following sources and included these below:

• (recently added) C. Davies & M. Pescud (2020) The arts and creative industries in health promotion: an evidence check rapid review brokered by the Sax Institute for The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, Sydney.

• (recently added) A New Approach (2019) Transformative: Impacts of Culture and Creativity, Canberra: Australian Academy of the Humanities.

• All-Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing (2017) Creative Health: The Arts for Health and Wellbeing, Inquiry Report, London.

• S. Tsegaye et al (2016) Everything We Know About Whether and How the Arts Improve Lives, Createquity.

  G. Crossick & P. Kaszynska (2016) Understanding the value of arts & culture: The AHRC cultural value project, London: Arts & Humanities Research Council.

• Evaluations we have done and other studies we have come across in our research.

 Explainers

There are a number of terms which we keep using in our work, and so we thought it would be a good idea to share our definitions. Let us know if you have other views of these concepts, or useful definitions you want us to add!