The Impacts of Arts Interventions on Students’ Well-Being Outcomes: A Systematic Review with Pedagogical Outcomes

What the paper says

Although there is a growing interest in unpacking the mental health benefits of arts especially in therapeutic contexts, limited studies have directly linked arts with students’ well-being. Studies that explored arts and well-being often occur in individuals with mild to severe clinically significant conditions, neglecting the broader impact of the arts on students’ everyday school experiences​. This systematic review aims to qualitatively summarize existing studies on the types, theoretical bases, modalities, features, and findings of arts-based interventions for students’ well-being in school contexts. Studies were rigorously extracted from the ERIC, Web of Science, PsycINFO (via EBSCOhost), and PROQUEST Dissertations and Theses databases through a three-stage review procedure, resulting in 27 eligible studies. Results showed that most studies used quantitative approaches (n = 18; 67%) to assess the effects of arts-based interventions on well-being outcomes. These interventions mainly combined arts forms (n = 11) and face-to-face intervention (n = 24). Further, most findings demonstrated that arts-based interventions yielded positive impacts on socially oriented well-being outcomes (n = 9), and relatively few studies have investigated their positive effects on intrinsic psychological processes, such as sense of identity, personal growth, and optimism among others. Our review indicates that arts-based interventions generally yield positive effects on both socially and intrinsically oriented well-being outcomes. The findings also underscore the importance of conceptualizing, implementing, and evaluating innovative arts-based interventions that address students’ diverse abilities, socio-economic, cultural, and developmental backgrounds.