The effect of outdoor lessons in natural sciences on students’ knowledge, through tablets and experiential learning

Abstract

© 2020, Scientia Socialis Ltd. All rights reserved. Experiential learning was intro-duced to support a child’s concept development towards evolution scientific literacy. This study examined the effect of an experiential learning model (The Mobile Natural Science Learning-MNSL) on the knowledge of 4th grade primary school students in Slovenia, during natural science school lessons at the seashore through the use of tab-lets. Mobile technology provides authentic learning, assisting outdoor lessons provid-ing material and environmental context in learning, which support the experience of a learner. In the experimental group (N = 95), outdoor learning in the seashore included Kolb’s experiential learning cycle with the integration of tablets. In the control group (N=97), the teachers used concrete experience for exploring the seashore, excluding the Kolb’s cycle. The data were collected by using two science knowledge pre and post – tests. The test items were classified into three TIMSS’ cognitive domains: 1) factual knowledge, 2) conceptual understanding, and 3) reasoning and analysis. Differences between groups were analysed through Mann-Whitney U-test and showed that the experimental group had better learning outcomes than the control group. Findings indicate that the MNSL-model had a positive effect on students’ achievement in science, more precisely in knowledge on marine organisms and life at the seashore.