Effect of Outdoor Education on the Concept Attainment of Science at Elementary Level

Author(s) : Dr. Ishrat Siddiqa Lodhi, Rubiah Abid, Dr. Muhammad Shakir, Dr. Mubashar Nadeem

Abstract:

The main purpose of conducting this research study is based on the effect of outdoor education on the concept attainment at elementary level Science subject. It was hypothesized that outdoor education has significant positive effect in logical concept attainment of ‘Scientific processes’ in Science at elementary level. The objectives of the study were to explore and investigate the concept attainment of scientific processes in Science and student level of participation in an interactive social experience. The population of the study was 8th grade students of elementary level. The Educators school was conveniently selected and 60 students from 8th grade comprised the sample of study. Two groups were formed and one was designed as control group and other was experimental group. The researcher conducted pretest before teaching the selected topics. The experimental group was taught with outdoor education method and they were exposed to natural environment for having practical learning of the selected concepts and control group was taught through traditional method of teaching. After 12 days of teaching to the both groups the researcher administered post test on both the groups. The t-test was applied on the raw scores of both groups which showed that there was significant positive effect of outdoor education on student learning. It was observed by the researcher that students of the experimental group took more interest in their leaning process as compared to the control group. Keeping in view the results it can be recommended that practical activities and learning through nature can be made an integral part of teaching at elementary level so that students show more interest in learning science.