Carly LeggSt. Mary’s College of Maryland

MAT 2013

Exploring the Outdoors: Using Outdoors Education to Increase

Relevance, Interest, and Academic Achievement in Elementary School

Mathematics.

How can we make this standardized material relevant to our students’ lives in a way that is manageable for the teacher?

Additionally, how can we use available resources to improve our students’ academic performance?

The Central Questions

Why should we use outdoors instruction?

Why Math?

Research Questions

Attention 

Perceived Relevance 

ContentKnowledge 

ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLORATION

• Hollywood Elementary Schoolo About 500 students

• Predominantly Whiteo 82% White

• Diverse Socio Economicallyo About 26% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch

• Fourth Gradeo 27 studentso 24 out of 27 students identify as whiteo 13 girls and 14 boys o 3 students in my class who carry Language Arts (IEPs)o 1 student who has an IEP consult, o 3 students with 504 plans.

Sample and School Site

Ten Lesson UnitOutdoor ExcursionsThree Instruments:

Methods

Behavioral Checklist

Affective Scale

Content Exam

• Significant decrease in instances of observed inattentive behavior (p < .001)

• There was an increase in how likely students ranked that they were to use math outside of school that approached significance (p = .062)

• Increase in content exam scores (p < .001)

PreIntervention

Average

Post Interventio

nAverage

p value

Attention 3 .19p

< .001

Relevance 3.46 3.74p

= .062

Academic Achievement

56.19% 79.85%p

< .001

Findings Overview

• There was not a significant increase in attentive behaviorso Inter-rater reliabilityo Problems with the instrument

Attentive Behaviors

Mat

t A.

Jaliy

ah B

.

Kayla

C.

Jenn

a G.

Noah

H.

Josh

L.

Rowan

M.

Abby M

.

Carlie

M.

Tyler N

.

Savan

nah

S.

Cole

T.

Destin

y R.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Pre-Intervenion Inattentive Be-haviors

Post-Intervention Inattentive Be-haviors

Inattentive Behaviors

Attention

• There was not a significant increase in students’ overall perception of how relevant math was to their lives (p=0.322).o Problems with the instrument

Students’ Overall Perception of the Relevance of Math in their

lives

Pre-In

terv

entio

n Adm

inistra

tion

Post-I

nter

vent

ion

Admin

istra

tion

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

Stu

dents

' O

vera

ll P

erc

ieved L

ik-

lihood T

hat

They W

ill

Use

Math

O

uts

ide o

f School

Students’ perception that they will use math outside of school

Relevance

Pre-test Post-Test0

102030405060708090

Perc

en

tag

e C

orr

ect

There was a significant increase in students’ content exam scores.

• What does this mean?

Academic Achievement

• My findings supported the body of research on the matter• Outdoors instruction is a viable way to teach mathematics• Outdoors instruction made math more enjoyable to teach• Students were eager to complete the assignments associated with

the excursions

What does it all mean?

• How does outdoors instruction affect teachers’ perception of their teaching effectiveness?

• How does outdoors instruction affect teachers’ enjoyment of the subjects they are teaching?

Future Research

Questions?