Data_Sheet_2_The Impact of an Intergenerational Dance Project on Older Adults’ Social and Emotional Well-Being.PDF

There has been strong interest in intergenerational arts practice in the United Kingdom since the 1980s; however, there is a generally weak evidence base for the effectiveness of intergenerational practice regardless of the domain. The aim of this study was to investigate the outcomes of an intergenerational arts project on participants’ social and psychological well-being using a mixed-methods, short-term longitudinal design. Generations Dancing brought together community artists with students (n = 25) and older adults (n = 11) living in Bedford. Over an 11-week period, participants worked together to produce a new dance performance and photography exhibition. Focus groups were conducted with the participants to explore their feelings about the collaboration across generations and communities. Participants also completed a battery of questionnaires preproject and postproject, to assess any change in their levels of well-being. Results indicate that the older adults showed increased confidence and willingness to connect with others; they got immense enjoyment from talking about their experience with others. Furthermore, the project helped to address negative stereotypes that the older adults had of working with the young people. The older adults enjoyed the students’ company and felt encouraged and supported by the young people. While a small number of challenges were identified, including difficulties in traveling to the workshops for vulnerable participants, most challenges were overcome through the older adults’ engagement in the project. For example, initial anxieties regarding the performance seemed insufficient to affect the participants’ overall enjoyment of the project. The findings were supported by the increased scores in relatedness, affect, and social well-being over time, but were not statistically significant. The results of this study indicate that intergenerational dance and arts projects can have wide-reaching positive impacts on both social and psychological well-being. However, there were a number of methodological challenges, including difficulty in recruiting sufficient numbers of both experimental and control groups for a robust quantitative evaluation of the data. These challenges highlight that “real life” settings and scenarios can influence the amount, nature, validity, and reliability of data collected. Going forward we encourage researchers to continue to consider innovative ways to address such methodological challenges.

自20世纪80年代起，英国对代际艺术实践的关注度持续走高；然而，无论应用于何种领域，代际实践有效性的实证支撑均普遍薄弱。本研究采用混合方法短期纵向设计，旨在探究代际艺术项目对参与者社会福祉与心理福祉的影响效应。“世代共舞（Generations Dancing）”项目将社区艺术家与居住在贝德福德的25名学生及11名老年人汇聚一堂。在为期11周的活动周期内，参与者通力合作，共同打造了全新的舞蹈演出与摄影展览。研究人员针对全体参与者开展焦点小组访谈，以挖掘他们对跨代际、跨社区合作的主观感受与体验。参与者还在项目开展前后完成了成套问卷，用以评估其福祉水平的变化情况。结果显示，老年人的自信心与社交联结意愿均有所提升；他们在与他人分享自身参与体验的过程中，获得了极强的愉悦感。此外，该项目有效消解了老年人对与年轻人合作的负面刻板印象。老年人十分享受与学生们共处的时光，并感受到了年轻人给予的鼓励与支持。尽管研究过程中发现了少量挑战，例如弱势参与者前往项目工作坊时面临的交通困难，但绝大多数挑战均通过老年人对项目的积极参与得到了解决。例如，参与者最初对演出的焦虑情绪，似乎并未对其参与项目的整体愉悦体验造成负面影响。随时间推移，参与者在人际相关性、情感状态与社会福祉方面的得分均有所提升，该结果为研究发现提供了支撑，但该差异未达到统计学显著性水平。本研究结果表明，代际舞蹈与艺术项目可对参与者的社会福祉与心理福祉产生广泛的积极影响。然而，本研究存在若干方法论层面的局限，例如难以招募足够数量的实验组与对照组，以开展严谨可靠的量化数据评估。这些局限凸显出，“真实世界”场景会对所收集数据的数量、性质、效度与信度产生显著影响。未来，我们呼吁研究者持续探索创新性方法，以应对此类方法论层面的挑战。