Factors that Influence Student’s Satisfaction in an Environmental Field Day Experience

Abstract

A field trip is a common strategy used by educators to bring out-of-school learning experience into schools. Many research studies suggest a field trip will not only bring an individual close to the real-world, but may also increase an individual’s environmental knowledge and responsible behaviors. Program evaluations usually focus on the predetermined outcomes, such as increasing environmental knowledge and responsible behaviors, which were decided by environmental educators and programmer planners. It is known that positive emotions help promote creativity and attention for learners. This paper suggests that increased satisfaction on student field trip experiences, leads to the achievement of programs predetermined goals and outcomes. This study focuses on investigating the factors that influence students’ satisfaction in a field day experience. In this study, we found that presenters, social content, and learning related condition are critical criteria to improve students’ satisfaction in a field day experiences.

Keywords

• Environmental education: Field trip; Out-of-School; Satisfaction; Confirmatory Factor Analysis