The digital revolution is changing and shaping the life of our societies. This has dramatic effects on the education sector, in particular within the field of aesthetic, arts and cultural education (ACE; Jörissen, Kröner, & Unterberg, in press; OECD, 2015). While digitalisation can cause substantial disruption (Zuboff, 2019), it has considerable promise for cultural education, and can provide enhanced access to cultural participation (Fromme, Jörissen, & Unger, 2008; KMK, 2016). Therefore, it is essential for us to develop a good understanding of the field through study. Unfortunately, published material referring to digitalization in the field of aesthetic and cultural education (D-ACE) is not keeping up with technical development. This is in part due to its fragmentation into many, only loosely connected, research fields within several academic disciplines (educational/social sciences, psychology, neurosciences, the academic study of the various arts such as music, theatre or visual arts; see Fink, Hill, Reinwand, & Wenzlik, 2012). Consequently, heterogeneous theoretical frameworks, partially incompatible approaches and a high level of diversity across the different spheres of activity of D-ACE obscure the state of knowledge in the field (Liebau et al., 2013). Moreover, research results often do not permeate the borders of their respective academic disciplines. For instance, publications concerning learning and entertainment in music or dance are not mutually recognized across subdiscipline borders. This fragmentation of (D-)ACE intensified during the last 15 years (Fink et al., 2012). This is a major obstacle for studying the field and generating evidence, as published research syntheses may not be recognized as relevant for D-ACE. Therefore, there is a need for a systematical search for existing reviews and their critical appraisal and integration in a tertiary review. Such a review of reviews would be a promising first step towards charting the field and identifying research gaps (Torgerson, Hall, & Lewis-Light, 2017). The present study aspires to catalogue and categorise meta-analyses and systematic reviews on D-ACE published in international, scientific, peer-reviewed publications listed in the research database Scopus. Screening and appraisal of title and abstract of N = 5124 hits resulted in n = 36syntheses. When classifying these according to spheres of activity, video games accounted for the highest amount of research syntheses (n = 23), while the field of digital social and cultural participation ranked second (n = 7 syntheses). Literature and film were described in n = 4 syntheses, followed by music (n = 3) and performing arts (n = 2).

Next, we determined which effects were described in the reviews. We found n = 10 papers reviewing effects of cultural activities on the subjective experiences and the enjoyment related to those pursuits (category 1). Moreover, there were n = 19 syntheses reviewing the effects of cultural projects on individual cognitive, affective, motivational or personality outcomes beyond the actual activity (category 2). Additionally, effects on experiences with cultural activities or the enjoyment thereof, resulting from specific design parameters or interface of the cultural digital artefact, were reviewed in n = 9 papers (category 3). In n = 5 papers, effects of design of the cultural artefact on individual cognitive, affective, motivational or personality outcomes beyond the activities were analysed (category 4). Finally, n = 5 sysntheses focused on the effects of individual predispositions on cultural activities or on the subjective experiences and the enjoyment related to those (category 5). Note that due to the wide variety of the examined effects, across many papers, it was not possible to narrow every research question down to a single effect. Regarding affiliations of the authors, colleagues from the USA and UK were responsible for the largest share (14 of 36 syntheses).

We first compiled a preliminary set of search terms related to the core facets of this review (digitalization, education and culture). All overarching terms were expanded using the synonym finder of thesaurus.com, as well as via brainstorming. To generate positive and negative anchor examples for the three main categories, i.e. a) aesthetic, b) arts, c) "cultural relation", "cultural education relation" and "digitalisation", we used a random sample of n = 30 papers for a preliminary screening. These anchor examples were utilized to inductively differentiate the three categories and to further develop our inclusion and exclusion criteria for screening and appraisal. Then, we applied this set in a search, which resulted in N = 5124 studies. Studies with irrelevant titles were excluded, leaving only n = 441 remaining articles for further consideration. Analogous to the screening of titles, we applied our in- and exclusion criteria to scrutinize the abstracts of the remaining article set. For this procedure, and for the subsequent full-text appraisal, only studies with content congruent to our inclusion criteria were selected. The screening of abstracts reduced our results to n = 73 articles, these were further analysed on a full-text basis. As a consequence, we excluded n = 34 studies due to a lack of direct relevance to ACE in the full text. Three additional papers were excluded, one for not being published within our investigation period, one due to the unavailability of the full text in English, and one for not satisfying our definition of digitalisation. The remaining n = 36 research syntheses (n = 22 systematic reviews and n = 14 meta-analyses) were further processed by assigning every paper up to three labels of spheres of cultural activity. Building upon a categorisation of central research topics, we identified each paper’s central research question(s) to enable a more differentiated classification of current research trends in D-ACE. In this, we rated each article's respective exo- and endogenous variables with a deductive two-dimensional classification scheme consisting of the aspects “cultural activity and experience” and “person”.

This tertiary review systematically charts the field of D-ACE across disciplinary boundaries. Our searches showed that an increasing number of meta-analyses and systematic reviews on D-ACE has been published in the last decade. Most of the reviews focus on the effects of either design of cultural activities or cultural experiences themselves on cognitive, affective and motivational outcomes. It is noteworthy that a major share was related to inherently digital fields such as video games and social and cultural participation via social networking sites. However, many other spheres of activity were either underrepresented or missing. This involved the more classical spheres of cultural activity such as music, performing arts, visual arts and museums. Whether this is merely based on a dearth of published material on these spheres or an indicator of an underlying lack of original studies with relevant research questions, is yet to be determined. These gaps in the current literature present a disadvantage for both investigators and practitioners. Thus, researchers interested in investigating effects of digitalisation on cultural education should systematically consider research in all relevant sub-disciplines of cultural education. To provide practitioners with guidelines in the field of cultural education, further systematic reviews are warranted. In subsequent tertiary reviews, additional research databases, non-systematic reviews as well as unpublished syntheses and original work should be considered to broaden the empirical basis of the analyses and thus shed more light on this issue. Together with our results, such research syntheses may further contribute to the unification of hitherto dispersed research on D-ACE.

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