Exploring the impact of dance: intersectoral quantitative and qualitative methodological challenges, lessons learned, and recommendations.

Abstract

Dance-based interventions/programs are gaining popularity; however, interventions are rarely explicitly described, including the role of dance facilitators, and their effects can be difficult to measure. To address these issues, our intersectoral team collected quantitative and qualitative data. <i>via</i> a non-randomized pre-post study for six dance groups (teenagers with cerebral palsy, children with cerebral visual impairment, adults receiving outpatient physical rehabilitation, adults with Parkinson's disease, women who were formerly unsheltered, and community-dwelling older adults) outcome measures (heart rate variability-HRV, Multidimensional Outcome Expectation for Exercise Scale, Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale, Flow Sate Scale, and an in-house questionnaire) were collected with 34 participants up to five times to explore changes over time. Interviews, ethnographic observations, video recording and a qualitative thematic analysis were also conducted to describe the pedagogical strategies of one dance facilitator. HRV data were deemed unusable and other quantitative outcomes did not demonstrate statistically significant trends. Qualitative thematic analysis revealed important information about the adaptive verbal and non-verbal interactions between the facilitator and participants, linking to pleasure, effort, and body engagement. Even without significant trends quantitatively, results were encouraging, and qualitative analyses were illuminating. Lessons learned and recommendations for future dance research and policymakers are included.