The impact of art, storytelling, and STEAM-based approaches on creativity development in autistic youth and young adults: A mixed methods study protocol.

There are contradicting perspectives regarding autistics' ability to be creative. Some researchers cite autistics' underlying social communication and interaction differences, fixated interests, and inflexible patterns as fundamentally inhibiting creativity. However, many autistics refute this mindset and produce creative works as painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists. This protocol describes a mixed methods study that aims to determine the impact of art, storytelling, and STEAM-based approaches to develop autistic youth and young adult participants' creative self-efficacy, psychological empowerment, and design thinking traits. The primary research question is: How does a 120-minute workshop intervention impact the creative self-efficacy of autistic participants? We hypothesize that autistic participants' creative self-efficacy scores would linearly increase from the baseline measure. Exploratory research questions include: How does the workshop intervention affect the psychological empowerment and design thinking traits of the autistic participants? We hypothesize that autistic participants' psychological empowerment and design thinking traits scores would linearly increase from the baseline measure. We will use a design-based implementation research approach that values the collaboration between the researchers and educators who design interventions to understand when, how, and why learning happens. Recruitment began on 10 November 2023 and ended on 9 August 2024. The study's results are expected to be published in mid-2025. The study will provide crucial empirical evidence on the effects of an arts-based program on creative self-efficacy, psychological empowerment, and design thinking traits in autistic youth and young adults. We will use qualitative descriptive thematic analysis methods to analyze the digital images, stop motion videos, and participant presentations. Digital artifacts of the participants' creative process and the study team's analysis of the autistic youth's presentations will provide additional data to understand the study phenomenon's depth, meaning, and context. A mixed methods design is advantageous when exploring complex issues that require empirical evidence and contextual understanding.