Background

Ashlee Lewis earned her Ph.D. in Foundations of Education from the University of South Carolina in 2013. She completed an M.Ed. in Educational Research from the University of South Carolina in 2008. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music (vocal concentration) from Columbia College.

Research

Lewis' work spans a variety of areas, focusing primarily on program evaluation, classroom assessment, and applied research. Her program evaluation work is often mixed methods with an emphasis on utilization-focused evaluation methods and qualitative methodologies. She has examined arts education programs across South Carolina through evaluation and research work with the South Carolina Arts Commission and the ABC Institute. Lewis serves as the director of the South Carolina Arts Assessment Program. Much of her program evaluation work has centered on teacher professional development and efforts to retain teachers in the classroom, including evaluations of the Carolina Teacher Induction Program and Carolina CrED. Lewis also serves on the leadership team for SC-TEACHER. She is currently the lead evaluator for Arts Grow SC, the Community Assistance for Rural Arts Education (CARE) Project, the Carolina Teacher Induction Program (CarolinaTIP), CarolinaCrED, and MUSC’s Teen Science Ambassador Program. She also serves on the evaluation team for the Carolina Family Engagement Center.

Teaching

Lewis has taught EDRM 736: Program Evaluation, EDFI 300: Schools in Communities, EDRM 423: Classroom Assessment, and EDFI 731: Qualitative Research in Education.

Selected Publications

Jiang, N., Rogers, B. D., Fan, X., Hu, X., Lewis, A.A., & Cai, B. (2021). School-level factors related to visual arts achievement for 4^th-graders: A longitudinal analysis. Studies in Art Education, 62(1), 47-62. https://doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2020.1858263

Skeen, N.S., Lewis, A.A., Van Buren, C., & Hodges, T.E. (2020). Helping hands for new teachers: Induction program builds a bridge between university and classroom. The Learning Professional, 41(6), 28-32.

Fan, X., Jiang, N., & Lewis, A.A (2020). Factors associated with fourth graders’ music achievement assessed by SCAAP.  International Journal of Music Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761420926664

Bryan, M. & Lewis, A.A. (2019). Culturally Responsive Evaluation as a Form of Critical Qualitative Inquiry. In G.W. Noblit (Ed.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.545

Lewis, A.A., Burgess, Y. & Fan, X. (2019). The South Carolina Arts Assessment Program. In T. Brophy & J. Longtin (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Assessment Policy and Practice in Music Education. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Lewis, A.A. (2016). Making meaning of race and racialization in the lives of five international graduate students. In K. Bista & C. Foster (Eds.), International Student Mobility, Services, and Policy in Higher Education (pp. 59-80). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.