Survey on the Effectiveness of the Outdoor Education on Grammar School Students

6 Abstract Long-term outdoor education and programs can have positive impact on students' knowledge as well as their attitude and also behavior. On the other hand the effect of short-term programs is questionable. However, these programs are the most important in practice. There are only few studies dealing with the effectiveness of short-term programs on both short-term as well as long-term outcomes of students. Moreover, most of these studies were applied for primary school students. The aim of this thesis was to compare the short-term and the long-term effectiveness of outdoor education (field trip) with traditional education at the school. The comparison was made on the topic of ecosystems. I particularly wanted to examine the differences between (1) the results of experimental and control group in individual tests, (2) results of all students in subsequent tests as well as (3) in relation to other parameters of students. There were 102 students from three grammar schools participating on the experiment. On each school there always was one experimental class which was taught in the field, and one control class which was taught by the traditional way at the school. In the outdoor education, students solved specific practical tasks and problems according to worksheets and they were working in groups. As a..