Can School Field Trips Help Close the Achievement Gap?

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study entitled "The Educational Value of Field Trips"¹ shows such "culturally enriching" activities improve students' critical thinking ability, display stronger historical empathy and develop higher tolerance, all of which are vital to success in the workplace, for life in general and for successful participation in a democratic society.

This first-ever, large-scale study of the effects of school field trips involved students who received a one-hour tour of a local art museum in which they viewed and discussed five paintings. The conversation surrounding each painting during the tour was primarily student-conducted, with the museum staff assisting the conversation and providing explanation beyond the names of the work and the artist and a brief description only when students requested it.

Roughly three weeks after the tour, surveys were administered to 10,912 students and 489 teachers at 123 different schools. The student surveys included multiple items assessing knowledge about art as well as measures of critical thinking, historical empathy, tolerance, and sustained interest in visiting art museums.

Researchers found:

• Increased Retention – "Students actually retain a great deal of factual information from their tours. Students who received a tour of the museum were able to recall details about the paintings they had seen at very high rates."
• Improved Critical Thinking Skills – "Students randomly assigned to receive a tour, later displayed demonstrably stronger ability to think critically about art than the control group."
• Higher Historical Empathy and Tolerance – "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 central purpose of teaching history, as it provides students with a clearer perspective about their own time and place. 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 tour."

"This study which measured and obtained remarkable results from a mere one hour field trip activity verifies what many of us in education have known for so many years," says Cathy Viney, Teaching Strategies Expert and Executive Director of the non profit Applied Scholastics International at www.appliedscholastics.org. "Field trips that connect students to the world beyond the four walls of their classroom; that provide real life or experiential learning opportunities, that apply a rigorous hands-on approach to learning and that examine complex, real-world issues can significantly help students develop and retain useful, working knowledge of subjects that are often taught in a vacuum of isolation and abstraction."

According to the book "Study Skills For Life" based on the research work and writings of American author and educator, L. Ron Hubbard, "If you are trying to learn a subject and you don't have the actual thing that you are studying about, it can be very difficult for you. Imagine trying to learn how to run a tractor without having a tractor." The mass of a subject is the actual thing and the lack of mass is described in this book as one of the major barriers to learning that students encounter.

Says Viney, "Field trips are one effective way to provide the real thing and the real life experience, they provide the mass that is missing in many classrooms and subjects that are being taught and they can help close an 'experience gap' that certainly is a contributing factor in creation of  the 'achievement gap.' "

A free downloadable copy of "The Barriers To Study" is available at www.appliedscholastics.org or call Toll Free: 877-75-LEARN.

About Applied Scholastics International

Since 1972, the nonprofit Applied Scholastics International has been a trusted authority on the subject of teaching strategies and proficiency based learning. The Applied Scholastics Achievement Program™ (ASAP) provides a proven system that helps teachers and schools improve the lives of ALL students of all ages including those negatively affected by learning difficulties and the social, economic and emotional issues associated with these difficulties. For more information, go to www.appliedscholastics.org.

References:

1.The Educational Value of Field Trips

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

http://educationnext.org/the-educational-value-of-field-trips/

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SOURCE Applied Scholastics International