Primary teachers’ experiences with weekly education outside the classroom during a year

ABSTRACT

The aim of the present study was through semi-structured interviews to explore udeskole teacher’s perceptions of motivational factors and challenges while teaching regularly outside the classroom on a weekly basis during a year. Six females and two male udeskole teachers participated and answered an interview guide containing five themes about their motivations, student relations, teaching experiences, challenges and recognition. Udeskole was perceived to have substantial potentials to improve both academic learning and life skills and ‘the common third’, i.e. teacher–pupil relations, was mentioned as a value added to the indoor teaching. Health and safety issues were not perceived as barriers.

KEYWORDS:

• Outdoor learning
• qualitative case study
• local school grounds
• teaching outside the classroom
• udeskole
• motivation
• barriers

Acknowledgement

We would like to address our greatest thankfulness to the teachers involved in this study, Camilla Munch Nielsen for her contribution to the interview process and Lærke Mygind Grønfeldt for constructive and critical remarks to the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Erik Mygind http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6361-3897

Mads Bølling http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9295-8678

Karen Seierøe Barfod http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0380-3541

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Danish ‘TrygFonden’ foundation (ID #102171). The foundation has been uninvolved in the design, analyses, interpretation, and writing of the study or the decision to submit this research article.