Evaluation of Community Dance as an Educational Project

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The evaluation of measures - especially with regard to the impact of projects - is a complex and demanding task that can only be accomplished to a very limited extent within the framework of student research projects such as a single Master's thesis. At the same time, this topic, which is in high demand from practitioners, is a worthwhile subject for theses in the Social Work and Social Economics study programs. The Social Work specialist area has invited organisations in the social sector to submit topics of interest for research workshops or Master's theses. Tolerance, among others, responded to this invitation, which led to the development of this co-operation project.

Duration of phase 1:

May 2014 to April 2015

A film about dance for tolerance, which gives an insight into the work of the project.

Tanz die Toleranz is part of the community work department of Caritas of the Archdiocese of Vienna and sees itself as an art and social project. It offers contemporary dance as a form of encounter for people from different backgrounds, with different talents or physical movement repertoires. Tanz die Toleranz has been active in various formats in Vienna, the provinces and internationally since 2007 and is widely networked with cooperation partners from the economic and social work sector.

The aim of the organisation is to obtain a comprehensive evaluation with regard to the effective achievement of objectives, as well as the medium and long-term effects of the entire project, and also to determine the social impact of the project, i.e. which effects are achieved in the long term at a social level. As this requirement is very complex, a multi-stage project design is being developed, the first phase of which is supported by internal FH funding.

In phase 1, an innovative, long-term teaching concept will be developed in which the multi-layered offerings of Tanz die Toleranz will be explored selectively in a network of several seminar and master's theses. The aim of this field exploration is to develop an evaluation design that does justice to the subject matter on the basis of the knowledge gained from the students' work. At the same time, publications on this teaching concept and the insights gained with regard to the evaluation design will be produced.

In the subsequent phases, unresolved issues and more in-depth content will be realised in further Master's theses, but also in an offer for contract research. The realisation of such a contract would continue the link between teaching and practice at a high level.

In this way, a co-operation project could be launched that aims to provide learning experiences for both sides: For the practice institution, for example, what data needs to be systematically collected and what processes need to be implemented in order to implement a comprehensive (impact) evaluation? For the training programme at the university of applied sciences, there is the opportunity for research with a high degree of practical and application relevance. This enables students to learn which process-orientated and methodological challenges need to be overcome in order to achieve useful evaluation results.