Making the Most of Out-of–School Visits: How Does the Teacher Prepare? Part II: Implementation & Evaluation of the Learner Integrated Field Trip Inventory (LIFTI)

Abstract

In previous work (Coll et al., 2018), we described the development of the Learner Integrated Field Trip Inventory (LIFTI). Here, in Part II we describe the implementation and evaluation of the LIFTI during two out-of-school visits to Informal Science Institutes (ISIs). The study involved 10 secondary school teachers, and 100 students (15 year old) from one secondary school. The LIFTI focused on three major components of out-of-school visits: cognitive, procedural, and social, and was used by teachers for planning pre-visit, during-visit, and post-visit activities. After the classroom instruction and out-of-school visits, a written end of topic assessment was administered to evaluate students’ learning achievement. Data comprised of students end of topic test which showed a statistically significant difference between students who had exposure to using LIFTI and those who did not. The findings suggest that pre- and post-visit planning by teachers using LIFTI is more likely to engage learners in collaborative learning. Although the results are limited to this cohort, they provide evidence of improvement in methodological knowledge of teachers regarding out-of-school visits.