Impacts of Outdoor Environmental Education on Teacher Reports of Attention, Behavior, and Learning Outcomes for Students With Emotional, Cognitive, and Behavioral Disabilities

Abstract

There are over 4 million students with reported emotional, cognitive, and behavioral disabilities (ECBD) in the United States. Teachers most frequently situate instruction inside, however, outdoor environmental education (EE) can improve academic and affective outcomes for many students, including students with ECBD. In North Carolina, U.S.A., an EE program utilizes outdoor science instruction for fifth-grade students. The program takes place over four to 10 full-school days across the year, and instruction occurs in both schoolyards and natural areas. The program aligns outdoor EE with state and national science education standards. Using a quasi-experimental design, the present study examined the impacts of the program on indicators of ECBD (e.g., student behavior, attention span), science efficacy, nature of science, and academic achievement for students with ECBD. We measured these factors using online surveys from both students identified with ECBD and their classroom teachers, as well as students with ECBD from matched control schools and their respective teachers. Students in both treatment (n = 99) and control (n = 62) classrooms took the survey two times over the school year. Quantitative data revealed teachers perceived students had significantly improved attention spans and decreased disruptive behaviors when learning outdoors. Students in the treatment group maintained measures of nature of science, science efficacy and science grades, keeping in line with their peers in the control group. We supplemented survey data with teacher interview data about their impressions of the outdoor program and the experiences of their students identified with ECBD. Teacher interview responses supported quantitative findings. These findings indicate that outdoor EE has the potential to be at least as effective a method for science instruction as classroom teaching, and in the case of addressing indicators of ECBD, outdoor EE may be a successful strategy for student learning.

Design of a Pedagogical Model of Education for Environmental Citizenship in Primary Education

“…On the other hand, outdoor learning promotes understanding, and the acquisition of knowledge by the student himself, motivated by his natural curiosity [16,[82][83][84][85], promoting his involvement and behavior change related to nature and the environment [16,36,85,86]. For Kuo [87], experiences in nature help students acquire the skills needed by a citizen of the 21st century and that are necessary to make decisions when they actively participate in society.…”

“…When it comes to Education for Environmental Citizenship, the first methodology that occurs is undoubtedly nature-based learning or outdoor learning. Through naturebased learning, the development of student's motivation is promoted through feelings of connection to nature in combination with the acquisition of environmental concepts, which effectively produces an involvement and change in authentic ecological behavior [16,36,85,86,135]. Contact and experience in and with nature improve student's attention, lower stress levels, and promote self-discipline, interest, and pleasure in learning, while providing a calm, quiet, and safer context for learning.…”

Making the Case for a Null Effects Framework in Environmental Education and K-12 Academic Outcomes: When “Just as Good” Is a Great Thing

“…For instance, EE has been linked to improved cognitive skills (Stevenson et al, 2013), motivation (Legault and Pelletier, 2000), self-efficacy (Barnett et al, 2006), and social-emotional learning (Carter, 2016), all of which have been highlighted as priority areas in national education legislation and standards in the United States and internationally (Breiting and Wickenberg, 2010;NRC, 2012;NGSS Lead States., 2013). Further, when EE incorporates outdoor instruction, students may realize benefits such as improved attention in and out of the classroom (Kuo et al, 2018;Szczytko et al, 2018), lower stress levels (Wells and Evans, 2003), and improved cognitive and social function (Chawla, 2015). Teachers engaging in EE may find new avenues for connecting with their students (Carrier, 2009b;Ernst, 2009), helping curb teacher attrition plaguing many schools.…”

“…While students participating in the program improved science grades over a control group, overall treatment effects were small with respect to academic outcomes. However, academic gains were higher among students with cognitive, emotional, or behavioral disabilities (Szczytko et al, 2018). Similarly, a pilot evaluation project of Oregon's outdoor schools documented gains in self-assessed measures of academic achievement, but those gains were not as high as gains in non-academic areas (e.g., social-emotional learning, environmental learning) (Braun, 2019).…”

Sınıf Dışı Coğrafya Öğretimi ve Müze Eğitimi Derslerini alan Sosyal Bilgiler Öğretmen Adaylarının Psikososyal Kazanımlarının İncelenmesi

“…classroom to real-life situations, outdoor education has gained much popularity and has been adopted by a variety of disciplines from health to engineering. Examples include combating obesity, participation of people with disabilities in education (Szczytko, Carrier & Stevenson, 2018), supporting the leadership skills of university students (Hamid & Mohamed, 2014, p. 525), the development of emotional skills (Padilla-Melendez, Fernandez-Gamez, & Molina-Gomez, 2014), the development of environmentally-friendly behavior, and support for the transfer of interpersonal and other skills to working life (Andre, Williams, Schwartz & Bullard, 2018).…”