Swings and roundabouts? Pupils’ experiences of social and academic well-being in education outside the classroom

ABSTRACT

We investigated how pupils experience education outside the classroom (EOtC) as it relates to their social and academic well-being. A Danish 6th grade class were taught twice a week for nine months using EOtC. We sampled five academically low- and five high-achieving pupils from the class and conducted qualitative observations and interviews with those pupils. We found that EOtC can positively influence pupils’ social well-being regardless of academic level; however, the learning environment and required autonomy in EOtC may distract low-achieving pupils, particularly boys. Pupils’ academic level in the classroom was related to their academic well-being in EOtC and EOtC might strengthen academic exclusion. Therefore, we conclude that EOtC may not have an unambiguously positive influence on pupils’ social and academic well-being.

KEYWORDS:

• Mental health
• qualitative case study
• academic motivation
• school-based outdoor learning
• Udeskole

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our greatest gratitude to the children and their teachers involved in this study for their cooperation, which made the study possible. We are also grateful for the valuable feedback from our research fellows in the TEACHOUT research project and in the CHESS research unit. We acknowledge PhD fellow Lærke Mygind, Deakin University and the University of Copenhagen, for her contribution through comments and inputs to the final manuscript.

AHJ, MB, GN, MPS, and PB designed the study. AHJ collected and analysed the interview and observation data. AHJ, MB, GN, MPS, and PB interpreted the findings. AHJ and MB drafted the first version of the paper. All authors commented on and edited the draft version of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

Approval for the TEACHOUT study was granted by The Danish Data Protection Agency (ref. number 2014-54-0638). By law, the study was not considered biomedical research by the Regional Committee on Health Research Ethics in the Capital Region of Denmark (Protocol no.: H-4-2014-FSP), and thus no ethical approval was possible or needed.

ORCID

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

Glen Nielsen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2854-7182

Peter Bentsen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2179-6779

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the Danish foundation TrygFonden [grant number ID #102171].