Survey of Public Participation in the Arts 1997 [United States]

Produced By: Westat Corporation, December 31, 1997, Washington, D.C.

Funding Agency/Sponsor: National Endowment for the Arts

Author: National Endowment for the Arts

Abstract (CPANDA): The 1997 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA), sponsored by the Research Division of the National Endowment for the Arts, provides information about Americans' participation in the arts, including ballet, opera, plays, museums, and concerts. Respondents were asked questions concerning (a) their attendance at live arts events, (b) their participation in the arts through broadcast and recorded media, and (c) their personal performance or creation of art. Additional questions were asked concerning the amount of exposure respondents received to the arts as children or in classes, barriers to greater participation in the arts, and music preferences. New questions asked in the 1997 SPPA include the extent to which home computers were used in learning about arts events and whether respondents subscribed to performance series or were members of art museums.

Methodology (CPANDA) : Telephone interviews were conducted with a random national sample of 12,349 U.S. adults ages 18 and over. Data were collected by Westat Corporation from June through October 1997. Households were sampled from randomly selected telephone numbers using list-assisted random digit dialing (RDD). The individual interviewed within each household was the adult with the most recent birthday. The survey had an overall response rate of 55 percent. The 1997 survey employed 8 question modules to allow a great number of questions to be asked, even though the number of respondents to particular sets of questions would be too small for detailed analyses. The sample for each module ranged from about 900 to 12,000 responses. All sub-samples received the modules containing questions about participation in live events and questions about personal background. Unlike previous waves of the SPPA, the 1997 SPPA was conducted as a nationwide, stand-alone survey. Previous SPPAs (1982, 1985, 1992) had been supplements to the National Crime Survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census. Although many of the questions in the 1997 survey were exactly the same as those asked in previous SPPAs, the differences in methodologies make the 1997 results difficult to compare with those of the earlier surveys.