1. The Effects of Multiple Art Experiences on Long term Social Emotional Outcomes of Urban Elementary School Students: Year 1 Results
Jay P. Greene, Heidi H. Erickson, Angela R. Watson, and Molly I. Beck
AEFP 43rd Annual Conference

2. Overview
Randomly assign classes of 4th and 5th graders to receive 3 culturally enriching field trips throughout the school year and measure the impact on student social-emotional and academic outcomes.
Results:
Increase desire to be cultural consumers
Increase in Math and ELA test scores
Increase survey effort
Null effect for art participation and social perspective taking

3. Motivation: Field trips are a long standing tradition for schools
Increase in schools canceling field trips (Ellerson & McCord, 2009)
Teachers report decline in arts education and field trip, particularly among disadvantaged students (Government Accountability Office, 2009)
Principal reported pressure from accountability standards and tight budgets
Cultural institutions report fewer student groups attending and that adult attendance at art institutions is also declining (Rabkin & Hedberg, 2010)

4. Previous literature
Limited rigorous research on the benefits from field trips
Observational studies
Students involvement in the arts is associated with higher academic performance (Ruppert, 2006; Jægar and Møllegarrd, 2017)
Meta-analysis on arts integration programs find 4 percentage point increase in achievement (Ludwig, Boyle, & Lindsay, 2017)
Student who attend multiple cultural institutions experienced academic benefits in the short term (Lacoe, Painter, & Williams, 2016)
Gold standard studies
Students randomly assigned to receive a field trip to an art museum experienced an increase in tolerance, critical thinking, and desire to consume art (Greene et al., 2014; Bowen, Greene, & Kisida, 2014; Kisida, Greene, & Bowen, 2014)
Student randomly assigned to attend live theater demonstrated higher levels of content knowledge, tolerance, and social perspective taking (Greene et al, forthcoming)

5. Research Question
Do students experience social emotional and academic benefits from multiple field trips to cultural institutions?
What we add to the literature
Experimental design
Multiple trips to 3 different art institutions
Large, urban school district serving primarily minority and low income students
Survey and administrative data for multiple years
Hypotheses
Expect positive gains in social emotional constructs such as social perspective taking
Expect positive gains in student desire to consume arts
Expect no significant effect in academic achievement

6. Research Design: Randomized Control Trial
4 elementary schools in large urban school district
Randomly assign 4th or 5th grade students to serve as treatment or control
School 1
4th Grade- Treatment
5th Grade- Control
School 2
School 3
4th Grade- Control
5th Grade- Treatment
School 4

7. Research Design: Randomized Control Trial
Treatment: Field trips to Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Alliance Theater, and High Museum of Art
Control: Business as usual, field trip to 1 of the 3 art partners at Woodruff Art Center
4th & 5th Grade Randomized
Baseline Survey in Fall
3 Field Trips
Follow-up Survey in Spring

8. Data
4 Elementary schools, 4th & 5th grades, in a large urban school district
~550 Students
Student Surveys
Interest in art consumption and participation
Social Perspective Taking
Effort
Non-response and careless answers
Administrative records
Demographics, end of year test scores, courses, attendance, discipline records

9. Pre-Treatment Comparisons of Treatment and Control Groups
Variables
Control (mean)
Treatment (mean)
Difference (C-T)
Observations
Demographics:
Age in years
10.91
10.88
0.03
429
Female
53.54%
57.17%
-3.63%
530
Non-white
99.37%
98.83%
0.54%
534
Students with Disabilities
17.73%
15.03%
2.70%
468
Attendance
2016
95.09%
95.48%
-0.40%
2017
95.57%
95.72%
-0.15%
532
Transferred within year
5.88%
6.85%
-0.97%
4.29%
6.57%
-2.28%
Any Disciplinary Infraction
10.56%
8.22%
2.35%
2016 Testscores, combined
-0.36
-0.29
-0.07
457
ELA
-0.40
-0.11
455
Math
-0.31
-0.21
-0.10
Science
-0.20
-0.09
Social Studies
-0.30
-0.33
454
Baseline Effort Measures
Careless Answers
0.17
0.14*
Non-response
0.24
0.13
0.11
Social Perspecitve Taking
0.00
0.14
-0.15*
529
Composite Cultural Consumption
-0.13
0.18
-0.31***
539
Composite Cultural Participation
-0.04
0.06
0.10**
Recall Previous Field Trip
68.89%
75.21%
-6.32%
526
*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

10. Research Methodology
Randomized Control Trial: Compare students who were randomly assigned to receive 3 art related field trip to control students who received one
Average Treatment Effect
𝑌 𝑖𝑠 = 𝛽 0 + 𝛽 1 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑡 𝑖𝑠 + 𝛽 2 𝐵𝑎𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛 𝑒 𝑖𝑠 + 𝑋 𝑖 𝛽 3 + 𝜃 𝑠 + 𝜀 𝑖𝑠
𝑋 𝑖 is a vector of student characteristics
Average test score, combined Z-test in prior year tested subjects
Age
Gender
Student with Disability
Attendance prior year
𝜃 𝑠 is a fixed effect for each school
Attendance= days attend/days enrolled

11. Treatment Effect on Student End of Year Standardized Exams
(1)
(2)
(3)
Composite Test Score
ELA
Math
Treatment
0.124***
0.123**
0.107*
(0.046)
(0.053)
(0.060)
Composite Test Scores 2016
0.841***
0.770***
0.787***
(0.023)
(0.028)
(0.033)
Female
0.022
0.111**
-0.070
(0.047)
(0.052)
SWD 2016
-0.163*
-0.236**
-0.066
(0.093)
(0.100)
(0.108)
Attendance 2016
0.985*
0.509
1.315*
(0.550)
(0.598)
(0.675)
Constant
-1.017**
-0.692
-1.191*
(0.511)
(0.555)
(0.634)
Observations
441
R-squared
0.769
0.693
0.630
Fixed effects for the four participating schools are included in each model. Age is not included in these models because age could not be calculated from administrative records. Standard errors clustered at teacher level in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

12. Treatment Effect on Student Effort, Cultural Consumption and Participation, and Social Perspective Taking
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Careless Answers
Non-Response
Consumption
Participation
SPT
Treatment
-0.231***
-0.156*
0.340***
0.084
0.113
(0.084)
(0.077)
(0.105)
(0.119)
(0.131)
Careless Answers 2016
0.399***
(0.054)
Non-response 2016
0.025
(0.056)
Cultrual Consumption 2016
0.487***
(0.042)
Cultural Participation 2016
0.551***
(0.046)
SPT 2016
0.330***
Composite Test Scores 2016
-0.120***
-0.191***
-0.035
0.028
(0.037)
(0.050)
(0.058)
Observations
379
374
R-squared
0.225
0.082
0.316
0.384
0.131
Fixed effects for the four participating schools, student age, gender, SWD status, and prior year attendance are included in each model. Standard errors clustered at teacher level in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

13. Summary
Large, statistically significant, positive effect on tests scores, student effort, and art consumption
Positive but statistically insignificant effect on Social Perspective Taking and art participation
Year 2
Added school engagement questions to survey
Larger sample
6 new elementary schools
New cohort at original 4 schools
Treatment in 4th grade in yr. 1 will get 3 more fieldtrips for total of 6

14. Thank You
Questions or Comments
Heidi H. Erickson

15. Supplementary
Information

16. Sample Items: Art Consumption
If your friends or family wanted to go to an art museum, how interested would you be in going?
How interested are you in visiting an art museum?
Visiting art museums is fun.
I plan to visit art museums when I am an adult.
Art is interesting to me.
I feel like I don’t belong when I’m at an art museum.
I feel comfortable talking about art.
I would tell my friends that they should visit an art museum.
Would you like more art museums in your town?
Do you think your friend would enjoy a field trip to an art museum (such as the High Museum of Art)?

17. Sample Items: Social Perspective Taking
How often do you attempt to understand your friends better by trying to figure out what they are thinking?
How often do you try to think of more than one explanation for why someone else acted as they did?
Overall, how often do you try to understand the point of view of other people?
How often do you try to figure out what emotions people are feeling when you meet them for the first time?
In general, how often do you try to understand how other people view the situation?

18. Descriptive Statistics for Constructing Outcomes Scales
# of Items
Cronbach's Alpha
Social Perspective Taking
Fall 7
0.76
Spring
0.77
Cultural Consumption
Cultural Consumption Composite 29
0.91
Cultural Consumption Art 10
0.86
Cultural Consumption Theater
0.81
Cultural Consumption Symphony 9
0.89
0.93
0.90
Cultural Participation
Cultural Participation, Composite 12
0.82
Cultural Participation, Art 4
0.84
Cultural Participation, Theater
Cultural Participation, Symphony
0.75
0.83
0.85
Notes: The scales are constructed by averaging each item in the scale. Each item in the scales was standardized before averaging all items in the scale. The entire scale was then standardized again.

19. Consent Forms Received
Study consent rates by treatment and control
Consent Forms Received
Enrollment
Overall Consent Rates
Treatment
307
352
87.22%
Control
252
340
74.12%
Overall Consent
559
692
80.78%
Enrollment represents students were who eligible to participate in the study. The treatment and control group both consist of two groups of fourth graders and two groups of fifth graders.

20. Treatment Effect on Cultural Consumption
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
Composite
Symphony
Theater
Art
Treatment
0.340***
0.217**
0.535***
0.116
(0.105)
(0.095)
(0.101)
(0.092)
Cultrual Consumption 2016
0.487***
(0.042)
Symphony Consumption 2016
0.547***
(0.039)
Theater Consumption 2016
0.304***
(0.055)
Art Consumption 2016
0.478***
(0.037)
Composite Test Scores 2016
-0.035
-0.072
-0.058
0.044
(0.050)
(0.046)
(0.053)
(0.057)
Observations
379
R-squared
0.316
0.343
0.225
0.322
Fixed effects for the four participating schools are included in each model.
Robust standard errors in parentheses *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

21. Benefits from Field Trips
Based off past literature
Cultural consumption and participation (Greene et al, 2014; Greene et al, forthcoming)
Social Perspective Taking (Gehlbach et al., 2008; Greene et al., forthcoming)
New to our project
Administrative Records
Test scores, attendance, course selection, grades, discipline records
Survey effort as a proxy for student engagement
Careless answers and item non-response (Zamarro et al., 2016; Hitt, Trivitt, Cheng, 2016)
Hypotheses
Expect positive gains in social emotional constructs such as social perspective taking
Expect positive gains in student desire to consume arts
Expect no significant effect in academic achievement