Examining the instructional quality of multidisciplinary creative art courses in youth palaces in Guangzhou City, China: a brief research report

Although arts-based learning supports creativity and holistic development, instructional quality in non-formal, multidisciplinary arts institutions such as China's Youth Palaces remains underexplored, and prior work has rarely linked it to institutional management. Addressing this gap, this research examined the extent of instructional quality in multidisciplinary creative art courses in Youth Palaces in Guangzhou City, China, and its relationship with institutional management initiatives. A descriptive-correlational design involved 358 teachers and 120 administrators from 17 Youth Palaces and children's activity centers, selected through stratified sampling sized per stratum; because sampling fractions differed sharply, results are reported by group and composites are population-weighted. A validated researcher-made questionnaire covered seven instructional quality dimensions with excellent reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.98 and 0.91). Weighted means, independent-samples t-tests with Cohen's d, and Pearson's r were used for analysis. Instructional quality was highly manifested across all dimensions for both groups, with composite means clustered between 3.46 and 3.67 on a four-point scale—a uniformly positive profile showing a clear ceiling effect. No significant differences emerged for six of the seven dimensions; administrators rated learning objectives slightly but significantly higher ( p = .032), a small effect (d = 0.23). Strong, significant positive relationships were found between all dimensions and management initiatives (r = 0.849–0.880, r 2 = 0.72–0.77, p < .001), indicating that stronger management practice accompanies stronger instruction. Given the uniformly high ratings, lower-rated practices are interpreted as areas with more room for growth. A context-dependent instructional management plan was developed, and its transferability is discussed.