Second-year student Laura Florick has co-authored a research article for Phi Delta Kappan, the journal of PDK International, which is the nation’s premier forum for serious discussions of research, policy, and practice in K-12 education.
“The benefits of multiple arts-based field trips” showcases the research that Florick and her colleagues, directed by Dr. Jay P. Greene, have implemented over the past four years, showing how arts-based field trips can boost students’ academic performance, improve school engagement, and support social-emotional well-being.
Below is an excerpt from the article:
Over the course of three years, the researchers randomly assigned 2,100 4th and 5th graders from 15 elementary schools in the partner district to either a treatment group, which would take a field trip to each of the Woodruff Arts Center’s three Art Partners in a single school year, or to a control group, which would receive one arts-based field trip through their school’s regularly scheduled programming. That is, the study compared students who had multiple arts field trips to similar students who received only one.
The results of the research show that these types of high-quality, arts-based field trips can benefit students’ academic progress, social-emotional well-being, and school engagement, sometimes up to years after the trips.
Florick is the project manager for the University of Arkansas National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab in the Department of Education Reform. For the quantitative portion of this research, she was responsible for data collection in the schools, logistics and communication, data entry, and managed the NEA grant. She is serving as co-lead on a qualitative follow-up study that will be released later this year.
The University of Arkansas National Endowment for the Arts Research Lab focuses on the social and/or emotional-related health benefits of the arts for individuals, and how these benefits and related outcomes vary by one’s socioeconomic characteristics, demographic and behavioral patterns. It is supported in part by a grant award from the Research Labs program at the National Endowment for the Arts
Florick’s previous work experience includes time as a research assistant in the Anthropology Department at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and serving as the on-site administrator for the Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project in Tamil Nadu, India. She graduated with a degree in sociocultural anthropology with a focus on South Asia from the University of Kansas.
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