Environmental education, age, race, and socioeconomic class: An exploration of differential impacts of field trips on adolescent youth in the United States

Figures & data

Table 1. Outcomes measures. N = 326 (all programs for which race data were available).

Outcome	Definition	Items	Mean (SD)
Satisfaction	Overall evaluation of the experience	How would you rate this field trip on a scale from 0 to 10? (anchors: terrible, excellent)	7.58 (1.18)
Behavioral intention	Proportion of students indicating positive behavioral intention as a result of the program	As a result of this field trip, do you intend to do anything differently in your life? If yes, what will you do?	0.48 (0.22)
EE21 ^a	Index	Mean of all subscales listed below.	5.80 (1.01)
EE21 subscales follow
Learning	Knowledge regarding the interconnectedness and interdependence between human and environmental systems.	How much did you learn about each of the following things as a result of this field trip? (anchors: nothing at all, a fair amount, a huge amount) How different parts of the environment interact with each other. How people can change the environment. How changes in the environment can impact my life. How my actions affect the environment.	7.46 (1.06)
Interest in learning	Enhanced curiosity, increased interest in learning about science, the environment.	Did this field trip make you feel any more interested in any of the following things? (anchors: not at all, more interested much more interested) Science. How to research things I am curious about. Learning about new subjects in school.	6.42 (1.45)
Meaning/ identity	A heightened sense of self-awareness, critical reflection, and purpose.	Did this field trip do any of the following things for you? (anchors: not at all, a fair amount, a huge amount) Taught me something that will be useful to me in my future. Really made me think. Made me think differently about the choices I make in my life. Made me curious about something.	6.75 (1.37)
21^st century skills	Critical thinking and problem solving; communication; and collaboration.	How much did this field trip help you improve any of these skills? (anchors: not at all, a fair amount, a huge amount) Solving problems. Using science to answer a question. Listening to other people’s points of view. Knowing how to do research.	6.32 (1.44)
Environmental stewardship	Motivations to perform stewardship-related behaviors.	Did this field trip make you any more likely to do any of the following things within the next year? (anchors: no more likely, somewhat more likely, way more likely) Help to protect the environment. Spend more time outside. Make a positive difference in my community.	7.32 (1.17)
Collaboration	Motivation to collaborate more with others.	Did this field trip make you any more likely to do any of the following things within the next year? (anchors: no more likely, somewhat more likely, way more likely) Listen more to other people’s points of view. Cooperate more with my classmates.	6.95 (1.30)
School motivations	Motivation to work harder in school.	Did this field trip make you any more likely to do any of the following things within the next year? (anchors: no more likely, somewhat more likely, way more likely) Work harder in school. Pay more attention in class.	7.21 (1.48)
Place connection	Appreciation and development of personal relationships with the physical location.	How much do you agree with the following statements? (anchors: not at all, some, totally) Knowing this place exists makes me feel good. I want to visit this place again. I care about this place.	7.66 (1.25)
Change in self-efficacy	Belief in one’s own ability to achieve one’s goals and influence their environment.	In a single post-experience survey, students were asked to indicate how much they agreed with each statement before and after the field trip. The scale is the mean difference between before and after evaluations. (anchors: not all, somewhat agree(d); strongly agree(d)) I believe in myself. I feel condiment I can achieve my goals. I can make a difference in my community.	0.95 (0.56)
Environmental attitudes	Sensitivity, concern, and positive dispositions towards the environment.	Same as above for self-efficacy: I feel it is important to take good care of the environment. Humans are a part of nature, not separate from it. I have the power to protect the environment.	1.00 (0.50)

a To account for potential unequal weighting of the items measured as change scores (which had lower means), we also calculated a standardized EE21 score using the z-scores of each subscale and re-ran all analyses. The results of all statistical tests did not change. The standardized EE21 index comprised of z-scores of the subscales was almost perfectly correlated with the original measure (r = 0.99). For simplicity’s sake, and to enhance the ease of potential replicability of the study, we used the non-transformed EE21 index in the analyses reported herein

Table 2. Grade levels and racial majorities of the participating school groups.

Race majority	Grade level					Total
	Fifth	Sixth	Seventh	Eighth	Mixed grades
White majority	60	54	12	12	13	151
Hispanic majority	41	24	26	5	7	103
Black majority	5	7	14	0	0	26
No majority	21	12	6	0	7	46
Unclear	4	1	3	0	0	8
Total	131	98	61	17	27	334

Table 3 . One-way ANOVA by grade level of visiting groups with LSD posthoc tests.

Outcome measure	Grade (N)				Test statistic	p
	5^th (131)	6^th (98)	7^th (61)	8^th (17)
EE21^L	6.18^a	5.68^b	5.64^b	4.80^c	F: 14.2	< 0.001
Satisfaction^L	7.92^a	7.50^b	7.30^b	7.02^b	F: 6.2	< 0.001
Behavioral intention^L	0.53^a	0.45^b	0.48^a,b	0.32^c	F: 6.1	< 0.001

^a,b,cDifferent superscripts indicate statistically significant mean differences (p < 0.05).

Table 4. One-way ANOVA by majority race of visiting groups with Dunnett’s C posthoc tests for EE21 and Satisfaction outcomes and LSD posthoc tests for Behavioral intention.

Outcome measure	Majority race (N)				Test statistic	p
	White (151)	Hispanic (103)	Black (26)	None (46)
EE21	5.38^a	6.41^b	5.95^c	5.74^a,c	Welch: 32.8	< 0.001
Satisfaction	7.23^a	8.17^b	7.36^a	7.55^a	Welch: 17.8	< 0.001
Behavioral intention	0.44^a	0.56^b	0.48^a,b	0.44^a	F: 7.45	< 0.001

^a,b,cDifferent superscripts indicate statistically significant mean differences (p < 0.05).

Table 5. Pearson correlations between program outcomes and the proportion of students eligible for free and reduced price lunches.

Outcome	Pearson r correlation with % FRPL	p
EE21	0.552	< 0.001
Satisfaction	0.371	< 0.001
Behavioral intention	0.254	< 0.001

Table 6. One-way ANOVA (with Dunnett’s C posthoc tests for unequal variances) comparing the proportion of free and reduced price lunch eligibility (% FRPL) between schools of groups with different racial majorities.

Socioeconomic indicator	Majority race (N)				Test statistic	p
	White (151)	Hispanic (103)	Black (26)	None (46)
% FRPL	0.42^a	0.76^b	0.65^b,c	0.57^c	Welch: 68.9	< 0.001

Table 7. Linear regressions predicting student outcomes.

	EE21 R^2= 0.442		Satisfaction R^2= 0.225		Behavioral intention R^2= 0.137
Variables	Standardized β	p	Standardized β	p	Standardized β	p
% FRPL	0.425**	< 0.001	0.239**	0.001	0.157*	0.034
6^th grade	−0.150**	0.004	−0.104	0.091	−0.135*	0.038
7^th grade	−0.254**	< 0.001	−0.233**	< 0.001	−0.128	0.058
8^th grade	−0.305**	< 0.001	−0.163**	0.005	−0.219**	< 0.001
Majority Hispanic	0.217**	0.001	0.243**	0.001	0.158*	0.048
Majority Black	0.087	0.105	0.023	0.716	0.026	0.702
Majority none	0.006	0.914	0.34	0.570	−0.045	0.486
F-statistic	28.90	< 0.001	10.59	< 0.001	5.77	< 0.001

Table 8. Racial breakdown of instructors and student groups.

Instructors	% of programs	Student groups	% of programs
At least one White instructor	91%	White majority	47%
Only White instructors	78%	Hispanic/Latinx majority	33%
At least on Hispanic/Latinx instructor	12%	Black majority	6%
At least one Black instructor	5%	No majority	14%
At least one mixed race instructor	12%

Table 9. Means comparisons (independent samples t-tests) for outcomes of field trips with non-White majority students, controlling for grade level. Dependent variables have been group-mean-centered (around zero) to control for grade level.

Group characteristics	EE21			Satisfaction			Behavioral intention
	Mean (sd)	t	p	Mean (sd)	t	p	Mean (sd)	t	p
Only White instructors (n = 97)	0.31 (0.79)	1.30	0.19	0.18 (1.06)	2.32*	0.022	0.35 (0.22)	0.42	0.68
At least one non-White instructor ( n = 51)	0.48 (0.70)			0.59 (0.93)			0.05 (0.23)
At least one White instructor (n = 119)	0.35 (0.79)	0.68	0.50	0.18 (1.06)	4.46**	< 0.001	0.03 (0.23)	1.44	0.15
No White instructors (n = 29)	0.46 (0.66)			0.88 (0.66)			0.09 (0.19)