Students at the Fine Arts Academy View on Average Five Movies Per Semester

Crystal Bridges; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; School Tour © 2013 Stephen Ironside/Ironside Photography
Bo Bartlett – "The Box" –  2002 • Oil on Linen • 82 10 100 – Photographer is Karen Mauch

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The schoolhouse field trip has a long history in American public education. For decades, students take piled into yellow buses to visit a variety of cultural institutions, including art, natural history, and science museums, as well as theaters, zoos, and historical sites. Schools gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips because they saw these experiences as central to their educational mission: schools be not simply to provide economically useful skills in numeracy and literacy, but besides to produce civilized immature men and women who would appreciate the arts and culture. More-advantaged families may have their children to these cultural institutions outside of school hours, but less-advantaged students are less likely to accept these experiences if schools practice not provide them. With field trips, public schools viewed themselves equally the corking equalizer in terms of access to our cultural heritage.

Today, culturally enriching field trips are in decline. Museums across the land study a steep drop in schoolhouse tours. For case, the Field Museum in Chicago at one time welcomed more than 300,000 students every year. Recently the number is below 200,000. Between 2002 and 2007, Cincinnati arts organizations saw a xxx percent decrease in educatee omnipresence. A survey by the American Clan of Schoolhouse Administrators found that more than than half of schools eliminated planned field trips in 2010–xi.

The determination to reduce culturally enriching field trips reflects a variety of factors. Financial pressures strength schools to make difficult decisions about how to classify scarce resources, and field trips are increasingly seen equally an unnecessary frill. Greater focus on raising student functioning on math and reading standardized tests may as well lead schools to cut field trips. Some schools believe that student fourth dimension would exist ameliorate spent in the classroom preparing for the exams. When schools practice organize field trips, they are increasingly choosing to take students on trips to reward them for working hard to amend their test scores rather than to provide cultural enrichment. Schools take students to amusement parks, sporting events, and flick theaters instead of to museums and historical sites. This shift from "enrichment" to "advantage" field trips is reflected in a generational change amid teachers most the purposes of these outings. In a 2012‒xiii survey we conducted of nigh 500 Arkansas teachers, those who had been teaching for at to the lowest degree fifteen years were significantly more than probable to believe that the master purpose of a field trip is to provide a learning opportunity, while more junior teachers were more likely to see the master purpose every bit "enjoyment."

If schools are de-emphasizing culturally enriching field trips, has annihilation been lost as a result? Surprisingly, we have relatively little rigorous evidence nigh how field trips affect students. The inquiry presented here is the first large-scale randomized-command trial designed to measure what students learn from school tours of an art museum.

We detect that students acquire quite a lot. In particular, enriching field trips contribute to the development of students into civilized immature men and women who possess more than knowledge near art, have stronger critical-thinking skills, exhibit increased historical empathy, display higher levels of tolerance, and have a greater taste for consuming art and culture.

Design of the Report and Schoolhouse Tours

The 2011 opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Fine art in Northwest Arkansas created the opportunity for this study. Crystal Bridges is the showtime major art museum to exist built in the United States in the last 4 decades, with more than fifty,000 square feet of gallery space and an endowment in backlog of $800 1000000. Portions of the museum's endowment are devoted to covering all of the expenses associated with schoolhouse tours. Crystal Bridges reimburses schools for the cost of buses, provides free access and lunch, and even pays for the cost of substitute teachers to cover for teachers who back-trail students on the tour.

Because the tour is completely free to schools, and because Crystal Bridges was built in an area that never previously had an art museum, in that location was high demand for school tours. Non all school groups could be accommodated right away. Then our research squad worked with the staff at Crystal Bridges to assign spots for schoolhouse tours past lottery. During the first two semesters of the school tour program, the museum received 525 applications from schoolhouse groups representing 38,347 students in kindergarten through grade 12. We created matched pairs amid the applicant groups based on similarity in grade level and other demographic factors. An platonic and mutual matched pair would exist next grades in the aforementioned schoolhouse. Nosotros and then randomly ordered the matched pairs to determine scheduling prioritization. Within each pair, we randomly assigned which applicant would exist in the treatment group and receive a bout that semester and which would be in the control group and have its bout deferred.

We administered surveys to x,912 students and 489 teachers at 123 different schools three weeks, on average, subsequently the treatment grouping received its tour. The student surveys included multiple items assessing knowledge nearly art besides equally measures of critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and sustained interest in visiting art museums. Some groups were surveyed every bit late as 8 weeks afterward the tour, but it was not possible to collect data afterwards longer periods because each command group was guaranteed a bout during the following semester equally a reward for its cooperation. At that place is no indication that the results reported below faded for groups surveyed after longer periods.

Nosotros also assessed students' critical-thinking skills past asking them to write a short essay in response to a painting that they had not previously seen. Finally, we collected a behavioral measure of involvement in art consumption by providing all students with a coded coupon good for free family access to a special exhibit at the museum to see whether the field trip increased the likelihood of students making future visits.

All results reported below are derived from regression models that control for student class level and gender and brand comparisons within each matched pair, while taking into account the fact that students in the matched pair of applicant groups are likely to be similar in means that we are unable to observe. Standard validity tests confirmed that the survey items employed to generate the various scales used as outcomes measured the same underlying constructs.

The intervention nosotros studied is a modest ane. Students received a one-hour tour of the museum in which they typically viewed and discussed five paintings. Some students were gratis to roam the museum following their formal tour, but the unabridged feel ordinarily involved less than one-half a day. Instructional materials were sent to teachers who went on a tour, but our survey of teachers suggests that these materials received relatively little attention, on boilerplate no more than an hour of total class time. The discussion of each painting during the tour was largely student-directed, with the museum educators facilitating the discourse and providing commentary across the names of the work and the artist and a brief description just when students requested it. This format is now the norm in school tours of art museums. The aversion to having museum educators provide information about works of art is motivated in part by progressive education theories and past a confidence amidst many in museum education that students retain very little factual information from their tours.

Results

Recalling Tour Details. Our enquiry suggests that students actually retain a great deal of factual information from their tours. Students who received a tour of the museum were able to call back details almost the paintings they had seen at very high rates. For example, 88 pct of the students who saw the Eastman Johnson painting At the Camp—Spinning Yarns and Whittling knew when surveyed weeks afterward that the painting depicts abolitionists making maple syrup to undermine the carbohydrate industry, which relied on slave labor. Similarly, 82 per centum of those who saw Norman Rockwell'due south Rosie the Riveter could recall that the painting emphasizes the importance of women entering the workforce during Globe State of war Two. Among students who saw Thomas Hart Benton's Ploughing It Under, 79 percent recollected that it is a delineation of a farmer destroying his crops as function of a Low-era price back up program. And seventy percent of the students who saw Romare Bearden's Sacrifice could call up that it is part of the Harlem Renaissance fine art movement. Since there was no guarantee that these facts would be raised in student-directed discussions, and considering students had no item reason for remembering these details (there was no exam or grade associated with the tours), it is impressive that they could think historical and sociological data at such loftier rates.

These results suggest that fine art could be an important tool for effectively conveying traditional academic content, but this analysis cannot prove it. The control-group performance was inappreciably amend than gamble in identifying factual information almost these paintings, simply they never had the opportunity to learn the material. The high charge per unit of recall of factual information past students who toured the museum demonstrates that the tours made an impression. The students could recall important details about what they saw and discussed.

Critical Thinking. Beyond recalling the details of their tour, did a visit to an art museum have a significant result on students? Our report demonstrates that it did. For example, students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of Crystal Bridges subsequently displayed demonstrably stronger ability to recollect critically about art than the control group.

During the kickoff semester of the study, we showed all tertiary- through 12th-class students a painting they had non previously seen, Bo Bartlett's The Box. We then asked students to write short essays in response to ii questions: What do y'all think is going on in this painting? And, what do you encounter that makes you think that? These are standard prompts used by museum educators to spark discussion during school tours.

We stripped the essays of all identifying data and had two coders rate the compositions using a seven-item rubric for measuring critical thinking that was developed by researchers at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The measure is based on the number of instances that students engaged in the following in their essays: observing, interpreting, evaluating, associating, problem finding, comparing, and flexible thinking. Our measure of critical thinking is the sum of the counts of these seven items. In total, our research squad blindly scored 3,811 essays. For 750 of those essays, two researchers scored them independently. The scores they assigned to the aforementioned essay were very similar, demonstrating that we were able to measure out critical thinking about fine art with a loftier caste of inter-coder reliability.

We express the bear upon of a school bout of Crystal Bridges on critical-thinking skills in terms of standard-deviation issue sizes. Overall, we notice that students assigned by lottery to a tour of the museum improve their ability to recollect critically about art by nine percent of a standard deviation relative to the command grouping. The do good for disadvantaged groups is considerably larger (see Figure ane). Rural students, who alive in towns with fewer than 10,000 people, experience an increase in critical-thinking skills of nearly one-third of a standard deviation. Students from high-poverty schools (those where more than than 50 percent of students receive free or reduced-price lunches) feel an eighteen percent effect-size improvement in disquisitional thinking about art, as do minority students.

A large amount of the proceeds in critical-thinking skills stems from an increment in the number of observations that students fabricated in their essays. Students who went on a tour became more observant, noticing and describing more details in an image. Being observant and paying attention to detail is an important and highly useful skill that students learn when they report and talk over works of art. Boosted research is required to decide if the gains in critical thinking when analyzing a work of art would transfer into improved critical thinking about other, non-art-related subjects.

Historical Empathy. Tours of fine art museums too affect students' values. Visiting an art museum exposes students to a diversity of ideas, peoples, places, and time periods. That broadening experience imparts greater appreciation and understanding. We see the effects in significantly higher historical empathy and tolerance measures among students randomly assigned to a school tour of Crystal Bridges.

Historical empathy is the ability to understand and appreciate what life was like for people who lived in a different time and place. This is a primal purpose of instruction history, every bit information technology provides students with a clearer perspective about their own time and place. To mensurate historical empathy, we included iii statements on the survey with which students could express their level of agreement or disagreement: one) I have a skilful understanding of how early on Americans thought and felt; ii) I tin can imagine what life was like for people 100 years agone; and 3) When looking at a painting that shows people, I try to imagine what those people are thinking. We combined these items into a scale measuring historical empathy.

Students who went on a tour of Crystal Bridges experience a 6 percent of a standard deviation increase in historical empathy. Among rural students, the benefit is much larger, a xv percentage of a standard deviation gain. We can illustrate this benefit by focusing on 1 of the items in the historical empathy scale. When asked to concur or disagree with the argument, "I accept a good agreement of how early on Americans thought and felt," 70 per centum of the treatment-group students limited agreement compared to 66 percent of the control group. Among rural participants, 69 percentage of the treatment-group students agree with this statement compared to 62 percent of the control group. The fact that Crystal Bridges features art from dissimilar periods in American history may take helped produce these gains in historical empathy.

Tolerance. To measure out tolerance nosotros included iv statements on the survey to which students could express their level of agreement or disagreement: ane) People who disagree with my point of view bother me; ii) Artists whose work is critical of America should non be immune to have their work shown in fine art museums; iii) I appreciate hearing views different from my ain; and 4) I think people tin can accept different opinions about the same thing. We combined these items into a scale measuring the general event of the tour on tolerance.

Overall, receiving a school tour of an art museum increases student tolerance past vii percent of a standard difference. As with critical thinking, the benefits are much larger for students in disadvantaged groups. Rural students who visited Crystal Bridges experience a xiii percent of a standard departure improvement in tolerance. For students at high-poverty schools, the benefit is nine pct of a standard deviation.

The comeback in tolerance for students who went on a tour of Crystal Bridges tin can exist illustrated by the responses to i of the items inside the tolerance calibration. When asked about the statement, "Artists whose work is critical of America should not be allowed to have their work shown in fine art museums," 35 percent of the command-group students express agreement. But for students randomly assigned to receive a school tour of the art museum, only 32 percent agree with censoring art critical of America. Among rural students, 34 percent of the control group would conscience fine art compared to xxx percentage for the handling group. In high-poverty schools, 37 per centum of the control-group students would censor compared to 32 percent of the treatment-grouping students. These differences are not huge, but neither is the intervention. These changes represent the realistic improvement in tolerance that results from a half-day feel at an art museum.

Involvement in Art Museums. Perhaps the near important effect of a school tour is whether it cultivates an interest among students in returning to cultural institutions in the future. If visiting a museum helps improve disquisitional thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and other outcomes not measured in this study, then those benefits would compound for students if they were more probable to frequent like cultural institutions throughout their life. The direct effects of a single visit are necessarily modest and may not persist, merely if school tours help students get regular museum visitors, they may enjoy a lifetime of enhanced critical thinking, tolerance, and historical empathy.

We measured how school tours of Crystal Bridges develop in students an involvement in visiting art museums in 2 ways: with survey items and a behavioral measure. We included a series of items in the survey designed to gauge pupil interest:

• I plan to visit fine art museums when I am an adult.

• I would tell my friends they should visit an art museum.

• Trips to art museums are interesting.

• Trips to fine art museums are fun.

• Would your friend like to go to an fine art museum on a field trip?

• Would you like more than museums in your community?

• How interested are you in visiting art museums?

• If your friends or family wanted to get to an art museum, how interested would you be in going?

Involvement in visiting art museums amidst students who toured the museum is viii percent of a standard departure higher than that in the randomized control group. Among rural students, the increase is much larger: 22 percent of a standard deviation. Students at high-poverty schools score 11 percent of a standard difference higher on the cultural consumer calibration if they were randomly assigned to tour the museum. And minority students proceeds 10 per centum of a standard deviation in their want to be art consumers.

One of the eight items in the art consumer scale asked students to express the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement, "I would tell my friends they should visit an art museum." For all students who received a tour, 70 per centum agree with this statement, compared to 66 per centum in the control group. Among rural participants, 73 per centum of the handling-group students agree versus 63 percent of the control group. In high-poverty schools, 74 percent would recommend fine art museums to their friends compared to 68 percent of the command group. And amidst minority students, 72 pct of those who received a tour would tell their friends to visit an art museum, relative to 67 pct of the control group. Students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, are more likely to have positive feelings about visiting museums if they receive a school tour.

We as well measured whether students are more than likely to visit Crystal Bridges in the future if they received a school tour. All students who participated in the study during the offset semester, including those who did non receive a tour, were provided with a coupon that gave them and their families free entry to a special showroom at Crystal Bridges. The coupons were coded so that we could determine the applicant group to which students belonged. Students had as long every bit half-dozen months after receipt of the coupon to use it.

We collected all redeemed coupons and were able to summate how many adults and youths were admitted. Though students in the handling grouping received 49 percent of all coupons that were distributed, 58 percent of the people admitted to the special showroom with those coupons came from the handling group. In other words, the families of students who received a tour were 18 percentage more likely to return to the museum than we would expect if their rate of coupon use was the aforementioned as their share of distributed coupons.

This is particularly impressive given that the treatment-group students had recently visited the museum. Their desire to visit a museum might accept been satiated, while the control group might have been curious to visit Crystal Bridges for the beginning time. Despite having recently been to the museum, students who received a school tour came back at college rates. Receiving a school tour cultivates a taste for visiting fine art museums, and peradventure for sharing the experience with others.

Disadvantaged Students

Ane consistent blueprint in our results is that the benefits of a school tour are more often than not much larger for students from less-advantaged backgrounds. Students from rural areas and loftier-poverty schools, also every bit minority students, typically prove gains that are ii to three times larger than those of the full sample. Disadvantaged students assigned by lottery to receive a schoolhouse tour of an art museum make exceptionally large gains in critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and becoming art consumers.

Information technology appears that the less prior exposure to culturally enriching experiences students accept, the larger the do good of receiving a school tour of a museum. Nosotros have some direct measures to support this explanation. To isolate the consequence of the start time visiting the museum, we truncated our sample to include simply control-group students who had never visited Crystal Bridges and treatment-group students who had visited for the get-go time during their tour. The effect for this first visit is roughly twice every bit large as that for the overall sample, just as it is for disadvantaged students.

In addition, nosotros administered a unlike version of our survey to students in kindergarten through 2d form. Very young students are less likely to have had previous exposure to culturally enriching experiences. Very young students make exceptionally large improvements in the observed outcomes, just like disadvantaged students and first-fourth dimension visitors.

When we examine effects for subgroups of advantaged students, nosotros typically observe much smaller or zero furnishings. Students from large towns and low-poverty schools feel few meaning gains from their school bout of an art museum. If schools do not provide culturally enriching experiences for these students, their families are likely to have the inclination and power to provide those experiences on their own. Merely the families of disadvantaged students are less likely to substitute their ain efforts when schools do non offering culturally enriching experiences. Disadvantaged students need their schools to take them on enriching field trips if they are probable to have these experiences at all.

Policy Implications

Schoolhouse field trips to cultural institutions have notable benefits. Students randomly assigned to receive a school bout of an art museum experience improvements in their knowledge of and ability to think critically about art, display stronger historical empathy, develop college tolerance, and are more than likely to visit such cultural institutions as art museums in the future. If schools cut field trips or switch to "reward" trips that visit less-enriching destinations, then these of import educational opportunities are lost. Information technology is particularly important that schools serving disadvantaged students provide culturally enriching field trip experiences.

This first-ever, big-calibration, random-assignment experiment of the furnishings of school tours of an art museum should help inform the thinking of school administrators, educators, policymakers, and philanthropists. Policymakers should consider these results when deciding whether schools accept sufficient resources and appropriate policy guidance to take their students on tours of cultural institutions. Schoolhouse administrators should give thought to these results when deciding whether to utilise their resources and fourth dimension for these tours. And philanthropists should weigh these results when deciding whether to build and maintain these cultural institutions with quality educational programs. We don't just desire our children to acquire work skills from their pedagogy; we also desire them to develop into civilized people who appreciate the breadth of human accomplishments. The schoolhouse field trip is an important tool for meeting this goal.

Jay P. Greene is professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas, where Brian Kisida is a senior research associate and Daniel H. Bowen is a doctoral student.

Additional materials, including a supplemental written report and a methodological appendix, are available.

Last updated September xvi, 2013

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Source: https://www.educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips/

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