Does it work?

A few recent studies have assessed the social, emotional and cognitive benefits of culturally-enriching and arts-based field trips. In 2014, Greene and colleagues measured the effects of a local art museum tour on students’ critical thinking skills, historical empathy, and tolerance. Surveys were administered to over 10,000 students at 123 schools in Northwest Arkansas who had participated in a free school tour at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Students were also asked to complete a short essay about a work of art they had learned about on the tour. Students who attended the tour displayed higher level critical thinking skills, as evidenced by the observations and details included in their essays, as compared to the control group. Additionally, students who attended the tour reported higher levels of tolerance and historical empathy than those who did not attend. The increase in tolerance and historical empathy was most significant among students from rural and underprivileged areas of the state, and among students from minority populations (Greene et al., 2014).

Watson and colleagues (2019) also evaluated the impact of arts-based field trips on critical thinking, tolerance and social perspective taking, but instead included a live theater performance and symphony performance in addition to an art museum field trip. Social perspective taking was defined as the ability to understand that “people view the world in different ways” (Watson et al., 2019, p. 5.). For this study, fourth and fifth grade students in an urban area were randomly assigned to attend three arts-based field trips (art museum, live theater, symphony performance) or a control group which did not attend any of the field trips. Students’ answers to post-intervention surveys indicate some improvements in the tolerance and social perspective taking of students who attended all three field trips. In addition, the level of conscientiousness of female students was increased, as evidenced by more careful and thoughtful responses to survey questions (Watson et al., 2019). In a separate report of the same study, Erickson and colleagues (2019) assessed the impact of arts-based field trips on student engagement in school. Engagement was assessed by a reduction in behavioral infractions, and a survey, in which students reported their response to the statement “School is boring” from “disagree a lot” to “agree a lot” (Erickson et al., 2019, p. 15). It was found that students who attended the field trips reported more enjoyment of school and had fewer behavioral infractions following the field trips (Erickson et al., 2019).