School Trips and Local Heritage as a Resource in Primary Education: Teachers’ Perceptions

Abstract

This paper presents the opinions of primary education teachers in relation to school trips (outdoor learning environment). The following questions are answered: What importance do educational trips have in the context of the curriculum? Does the teacher take advantage of the resources that the environment offers? Are the contents of the curriculum taught during field trips? Are outings planned with the aim of showing students the heritage of the surrounding area? What do students’ families think? In order to answer these questions, a structured questionnaire (CUELX-M ^©) was designed, which was then completed by 124 primary school teachers who work in the Region of Murcia (Spain). Through the analysis of the responses to this questionnaire, a detailed study of teachers’ perceptions according to age, gender and teaching experience has been carried out. The reliability of the questionnaire was subjected to expert validation by judges (content, technical and methodological aspects). The reliability of each of the dimensions was also studied, and finally, the construct validity of the scales was studied. The results of Cronbach’s alpha test (=0.867) show that the questionnaire is internally consistent. 98% of the teachers participating in the study agree that school field trips should not be merely recreational and that heritage resources located in the surroundings of schools and cities should be used. However, they also point out that parents of students are sometimes reluctant for their children to participate in such activities due to their economic cost.

1. Introduction

School field trips (in this paper, the words “excursion,” “educational trips,” “educational field trips” and “outdoor learning” are used as synonyms) are an appropriate way to make the most of the educational potential offered by the cultural and environmental heritage of the surrounding area. Such educational trips make it possible to integrate some of the main teaching strategies and practices employed by teachers of different school subjects and to showcase the heritage of the surrounding area [1,2,3]. This is particularly true in the case of Geography, as has been pointed out by Fuller (2006) [4] and Morote (2019) [5]. School field trips make it possible to bring heritage assets into the classroom and also, to make the most of the teaching resources offered by non-formal education centres (e.g., museums and interpretation centres) located in the area around a school. Outdoor learning enables students to leave the classroom and build their own learning. Furthermore, they permit students to maximise their learning through discovery and enjoyment of the natural world. Ultimately, educational trips are a means for students to carry out fieldwork and (albeit briefly) to feel like they are geographers, historians or archaeologists. In the globalised society in which we live, it has become necessary to open up educational institutions to their surrounding environment and to foster the participation of young people as citizens in sustainable development. Contact with their surroundings enables them to become involved in their protection [6]. However, it has also become important to train future primary education teachers in this regard during their university education [7].

There is an opportunity, in school educational trips, for local heritage to be appreciated, particularly in places where it is not necessary to travel far. Thus, the concept of going on school trips need not be associated with a high economic cost. The surrounding area should become an open classroom that provides students with unique life experiences. The resulting emotions allow students to become involved in their own learning. Indeed, the study of local heritage is an extremely useful way for teachers to introduce their students to research methods in such a way that they can generate and build knowledge based on their own experience. Carrying out outdoor learning in the open air is not a recreational activity disconnected from curricular contents, although it may not always coincide with the activities commonly carried out in the classroom, as stated by Vilarrasa (2003) [8] and Estepa (2011) [9]. Therefore, it is important to carry out appropriate planning before undertaking a school field trip.

Teachers of Geography and History should take full advantage of the great potential offered by local heritage as a teaching resource in order to promote the teaching of these subjects based on experience and to move away from the traditional method based on the transmission of knowledge, which is to be learned by heart. However, care must be taken to ensure that school field trips do not become the perfect excuse for recreation rather than learning [10]. Cuenca (2013) [11] argues that educational trips should be a teaching resource that enables students to recognise the present through knowledge of the past. In this way, it becomes possible to shape more critical, thoughtful and participatory citizenship. Knowledge and appreciation of heritage are a necessity and obligatory in developed societies. The concepts of natural, historical, cultural and landscape heritage refer to the notion of a legacy or a particularly valuable inheritance that must be identified, appreciated and transmitted to future generations. Thus, students must be made aware of the heritage legacy of the country or region in which they live, as only in this way will they become able to value and protect it. Schools can provide students with the knowledge and skills required to understand and engage with the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) in accordance with the 2030 Agenda [12] and to work on the concept of sustainability according to the recommendations of the General Assembly of the International Council of Museums [13]. Thus, school field trips can become an extremely useful tool for primary schoolchildren to learn about and come to appreciate the natural, cultural and historical heritage of their town, city or local area.

Heritage assets are contemporary witnesses of events of the past inherited by society and should, therefore, be preserved for future generations [14,15,16,17]. For Domínguez & López-Facal (2014) [18], heritage is a teaching resource that can be addressed and used in several different subjects in an independent and interdisciplinary way, albeit always from a holistic perspective.

Heritage is a first-order teaching resource that is present in students’ own surroundings. It is a tool that makes it possible for them to know about their past and to understand their present with the aim of becoming critical and thoughtful citizens. The starting point is the premise that knowledge is the first step towards appreciation and that it is important to build learning based on experience and on learning by discovery.

Through the teaching of heritage [19], it is possible to develop proposals that lead to the enrichment of society’s everyday knowledge, demonstrating its usefulness for interpreting the world and for taking part, both autonomously and critically, in the management of social and environmental problems (p. 247).

Heritage is a teaching resource of great value for the social sciences at all levels of education, both in the framework of formal (school) and non-formal education (museums, interpretation centres and visitors’ centres). Historical, artistic, landscape and cultural elements are all appropriate educational tools for addressing contents and transmitting procedural and behavioural dynamics [20].

The bibliography consulted shows different approaches to the issue of heritage in the field of social sciences education from the perspective of its value as a teaching resource: addressing its role in education legislation; the importance conferred upon it in textbooks; its presence in formal and non-formal education, in educational materials and in cultural policies.

School field trips in primary education help children to become aware of and to appreciate the heritage in their surrounding area. However, the results show that the majority of outdoor learning does not seek to take advantage or encourage the appreciation of the heritage of the local area. It should be the case that these places become a natural extension of the classroom due to their high level of interest and proximity and the fact that they are a prime educational resource that can foster learning by discovery among students.

The aim of this research Is to discover teachers’ opinions in relation to school field trips and whether they manage to make the most of the heritage resources offered by their surrounding area. In order to answer these questions, a structured questionnaire was designed and subsequently completed by 124 teachers who teach in primary schools in the Region of Murcia (Spain). These teachers’ perceptions regarding the issues at hand have been analysed according to their gender, age and teaching experience, whether their school employs a bilingual programme, the type of school (state-run/charter) and their geographical location. The analysis was based on the hypothesis that there are no statistical differences between the teachers’ evaluations of school educational trips according to their sociodemographic characteristics or the characteristics of their schools), This research aims to answer the following questions: What importance do educational trips have in the context of the curriculum? Does the teacher take advantage of the resources that the environment offers? Are the contents of the curriculum taught during field trips? Are outings planned with the aim of showing students the heritage of the surrounding area? What do students’ families think?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Approach and Design

The present study has adopted a quantitative non-experimental, or ex-post-facto, approach with a descriptive-comparative nature [21]. This quantitative methodological approach implies the design of a basic investigation, albeit with results that can be applied, while its conclusions will provide an overall view of the context of the Region of Murcia concerning the issue at hand. The results will make it possible to carry out a diagnosis of the reality of the study object, which, in turn, will make it possible to provide information on its strengths and weaknesses, upon which future decision-making can be based in order to improve the context of the present study [22].

In survey-based studies, not only is the frequency with which a phenomenon appears (levels of a variable) analysed, seeking to identify response patterns in a sample [23], but also the relationships which exist between the different study variables [22,24]. In this type of study, questionnaires are the most commonly used technique if the aim is to discover the perceptions and attitudes shown by the agents of social and educational processes, and, as previously mentioned, it is the technique employed in the present study [25,26,27]. The tools employed for data collection in this study have been designed ad hoc in order to provide answers to its aims and hypotheses.

Analytical studies [22], among other applications, are carried out for the “construction of tools for measurement and observation (…) and use analysis as an element of differentiation from other methods” (pp. 376–377). Among such analyses can be found correlational analytics. This type of statistical analysis, along with others of a descriptive nature, are those which have been used to guarantee the maximum possible reliability and validity of the questionnaire applied to primary school teachers.

2.2. Context and Participants

The present study has been carried out in the Region of Murcia (Spain) with the participation of primary education teachers who teach social sciences in state-run and charter schools in the region. The sample has taken into account the five districts of the Region of Murcia, which have been defined as strata. A total of 55 schools were randomly selected from the 480 early years and primary education schools registered in the Region of Murcia. These 55 schools represent 22 local councils and all of the 5 districts.

Table 1. Distribution of the data-producing sample of parents of students in relation to inhabitants and students by district (2014–2015 academic year). Source: Authors’ own work.

Districts	Inhabitants		Pupils in 5th and 6th Years of Primary Education		Data-Producing Sample of Families
	N	%	N	%	N	%
Vega del Segura	735,621	50.13	16,807	49.71	1123	58.1
Campo Cartagena	358,485	24.23	8613	25.48	431	22.3
Altiplano	75,745	5.16	1720	5.09	99	5.1
Noroeste	84,448	5.76	1883	5.57	76	3.9
Guadalentín	212,989	14.52	4784	14.15	203	10.5

shows the data-producing sample of parents of students in the last cycle (5th and 6th years) of primary education in the Region of Murcia in relation to the inhabitants and students registered in the 2014–2015 academic year according to districts.

Teachers from these schools were invited to participate voluntarily in the study with the data-producing sample consisting of 124 teachers. The sample was selected via bi-stage sampling as it was carried out in 2 stages [28].

Stage 1. Taking into account the 5 districts of the Region of Murcia (Figure 1), which have been defined as strata, the 55 participating schools were randomly selected from among the 480 early years and primary education schools which exist in the region. These schools represented 22 local councils (44%) and all of the districts.

Stage 2. The social sciences teachers from the last cycle (5th and 6th years) of primary education of the 55 selected schools were invited to participate in the study. Their participation was voluntary, meaning that the data-producing sample finally consisted of a total of 124 teachers.

This sampling technique has been used, in this case, combining probabilistic and non-probabilistic selection strategies. A total of 46.77% of the participating teachers teach social sciences in the 5th year of primary education and 38.71% in the 6th year, while 10.48% of the participants teach the subject in both years. It should be highlighted that 51.61% of the teachers work in schools participating in the bilingual education programme, and only 1 of the teachers surveyed works in a rural community school. The average age of the participating teachers (

Table 2. Age and teaching experience of the participating teachers.

	Min	Max	AV	(SD)	Q1	Me	Q3	n
Age	24.0	64.0	44.7	(11.2)	34.2	44.0	55.8	110
Experience	1.0	42	18.8	(12.1)	8.0	15.0	30.0	107.0

) is 44.7 years (SD = 11.2), and the average number of years of teaching experience is 18.8 years (SD = 12.1). Women constituted 54.03% of the teachers surveyed.

2.3. Data Collection: Tools and Procedures

The data collection tool (

Table 3. Predictor and criterion variables in the design of survey studies (questionnaires directed at teachers and families. Source: Authors’ own work.

Questionnaire	Predictor Variables	Criterion Variables
CUELX-M	■ Gender ■ Age ■ Teaching experience ■ Level of studies ■ State/charter school ■ School participation in bilingual programmes ■ Location of school	■ Educational field trips

and

Table 4. Questions contained in the questionnaire, referring to school educational trips. Source: Authors’ own work.

Mark only One Option According to Your Opinion in Relation to the Following Statements: 1 “Completely Disagree,” 2 “Disagree,” 3 “Agree” and 4 “Completely Agree”
Social sciences classes should take advantage of the resources offered by the surrounding area. The teacher should propose educational field trips in the local area and throughout the Region of Murcia
2. School field trips should address the contents of the curriculum and not be merely recreational
3. The majority of school excursions are recreational in nature, and the contents of the curriculum are not addressed
4. Parents are reluctant to send their children on field trips due to concerns about safety
5. Parents are reluctant to send their children on field trips due to the economic cost
6. State the number of field trips you go on with your students per year
7. Social sciences teachers participate in the selection of field trips to be carried out throughout the school year
8. An attempt is made on school excursions to ensure that the students work on the contents of the curriculum
9. Activities are carried out before, during and after the field trip in connection with the contents to be taught on the excursion
10. The main objective of school excursions is for students to get to know their immediate surroundings (of their school/town)
11. If there are other objectives, please state them here:

) is a structured questionnaire (CUELX-M ^©) for teachers, which consists of a series of questions on socio-economic aspects (the age and gender of teachers, teaching experience, school participation in bilingual programmes, and the localisation of the school) and eleven questions on the issue at hand (school field trips). The questionnaire was created ad hoc in order to achieve the research aims and was submitted to a validation process in order to ensure that it met the minimum guarantees of reliability and validity. The contents and technical and methodological aspects were subjected to the validation of expert judges (They are considered experts because they have more than 20 years of experience in teaching social sciences). The judges gave their evaluations using the specifically designed validation scales, to which the first version of the questionnaires was attached. After the judges had independently completed these scales, they were submitted to the authors of the study. Subsequently, the questionnaire was examined in terms of reliability (internal consistency) and construct validity of the set of scales contained in the questionnaires. The results of Kendall’s W test (W = 0.261, gl = 2, p < 0.05) revealed that there is a real agreement between the evaluations of the experts and that this is not due to chance. After taking their contributions into account, the study of each of the dimensions was addressed, and finally, the construct validity was studied, adopting a quantitative perspective [29]. The questionnaire has moderate-high internal consistency/homogeneity. Correlational analyses were also carried out with the aim of guaranteeing the maximum reliability of the questionnaire to be administered to the teachers participating in the study.

The main problem posed was to resolve the logistics as far as the distribution of the questionnaires was concerned due to the geographical dispersion of the sample. The Region of Murcia has a total surface area of 11,313 km², with some places located more than 100 km away from the city of Murcia. In the end, the headteachers of the schools were contacted, and the questionnaires were sent out on paper for completion.

Data entry was carried out via the ENCUESTAS application of the University of Murcia, and data analysis [30] was performed using the R statistical package version 3.2.2 (2015 R is a powerful language aimed at objects and the statistical analysis and representation of data. It is a free software environment and is the lingua franca of data analysis for the scientific community [31].

Having created the correlational matrices, exploratory and confirmatory analyses of the data were then carried out with the aim of answering the specific objectives of the research. The quantitative descriptive design has made it possible to determine the relationships between the different variables involved, which is a characteristic objective of this type of research [24]. As this research is survey-based, the data has been treated in an eminently descriptive-correlational-comparative way.

3. Results

The opinions of primary education teachers in relation to educational field trips are presented in accordance with the following questions: What importance is given to educational field trips in the context of the school curriculum? Does the teacher take advantage of the resources offered by the local area? Are the contents of the curriculum taught in school field trips? Are educational trips planned with the aim of students learning about their local heritage? What is the opinion of the students’ families? Are families concerned about safety issues and the economic cost of trips? An attempt has been made to examine whether there are differences in the teachers’ opinions depending on the type of school (state-run/charter), the age of the participants, their teaching experience and the location of the school.

The teachers stated that they go on an average of 3.61 field trips and a minimum of one per year.

With the aim of discovering the importance attributed to school educational trips in the context of the curriculum, the teachers were asked a series of questions such as: Is the teacher responsible for choosing the educational trips? Are the contents of the curriculum worked on in educational trips? Is work carried out before and after the outings? Is the objective to learn about the local environment and its heritage?

Table 5. Teachers’ opinions on school field trips. Source: Authors’ own work.

	Min	Max	AV	(SD)	Q1	Me	Q3
Social sciences teacher chooses educational trips	1	4	3.3	(0.80)	3	3	4
Contents worked on during educational trips	1	4	3.3	(0.68)	3	3	4
Work is carried out before and after	1	4	3.1	(0.77)	3	3	4
Objective of educational trips: learning about the local environment	1	4	3.2	(0.72)	3	3	4
Objective of educational trips: learning about heritage	1	4	3.2	(0.77)	3	3	4

shows that the teachers stated that it is the “social sciences teacher who chooses the educational trips” ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 3.3; SD = 0.80), that “curricular contents are worked on in field trips” ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 3.3; SD = 0.68) and that “learning about the surrounding area is among the objectives of the educational trips” ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 3.2; SD = 0.72), as is “learning about heritage” ($\overline{\mathrm{x}}$ = 3.2; SD = 0.77).

The teachers were also asked about their opinions on whether field trips should be merely recreational, if families had concerns about their children going on educational trips for reasons of safety and whether the economic cost could be a problem. Almost all of the teachers (98%) agreed that the resources of the local area should be used, 93% stated that outdoor learning should not be merely recreational, 74% disagreed with the idea that educational trips should only be to have fun, 82% of those surveyed did not believe that parents are concerned about educational trips for reasons of safety, and only 47% considered that the cost of educational trips may be a limiting factor for parents (Figure 2).

Figure 3 shows other aspects evaluated by the teachers depending on whether their school employs bilingual education or not. The results show that 98% of the teachers are in agreement with the idea that the resources of the local area should be used and that outdoor learning should not be merely recreational (93%). However, the same degree of agreement is not found as far as the cost of educational trips being a problem for families is concerned, and they show their agreement relating to families being concerned with the dangers that may arise in school educational trips. No significant differences were found in the rest of the variables contemplated.

No differences were found between the teachers’ perceptions of the variables proposed according to gender. The greatest difference in opinion can be observed in relation to the variable “parents may be reluctant due to the economic cost,” as 52% of the male teachers were in agreement with this statement, compared to 40% of the female teachers.

As far as age and teaching experience of those surveyed are concerned, differences were only found in the variable “educational trips should not be merely recreational,” with which 100% of teachers aged 44 and over were in agreement, compared to 87% of those below 44 and 98% of the most experienced teachers (15 years or more), compared to 86% of those with less teaching experience (less than 15 years).

On the other hand, differences can be observed in the teachers’ opinions on several of the items proposed depending on the type of school. Thus, 82% of the teachers from state schools were in disagreement with the statement “educational trips should be merely recreational,” compared with 57% of teachers in charter schools. Furthermore, there was also a discrepancy as far as the variable “parents are reluctant due to the economic cost” is concerned, as 63% of the teachers in charter schools disagreed, compared with 49% of teachers in state schools.

The location of the school leads, once again, to differences in the teachers’ opinions on many of the variables contemplated. All of the teachers (100%) in the district of Noroeste de Mula disagreed with the variable “contents of the curriculum are worked on during educational trips,” compared with 71% of the teachers from the Altiplano district. On the other hand, 100% of the teachers from Valle del Guadalentín were in agreement with the statement “class work is carried out both before and after excursions,” compared with 57% of the teachers from Altiplano.

After analysing the descriptive data, the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test was performed with the aim of contrasting the proposed hypothesis. For this purpose, the aggregate variable “educational field trips” was created, which saves the mean score of the responses to each of the questions of the section of the questionnaire entitled “educational field trips.”

Thus, the Mann–Whitney U test was applied, assuming the null hypothesis that both populations are equal, i.e., that the mean of the aggregate variables is the same regardless of the gender of those surveyed. Bilateral contrasts were carried out for the variables gender, age, teaching experience, type of school, bilingual education and district.

The test proved statistically significant for the variables “age” (U = 1826; p = 0.00) and “teaching experience” (U = 1680; p = 0.01) but was not statistically significant for “gender” (U = 1220; p = 0.29), “bilingual education” (U = 1504; p = 0.33) or “district.”

In the case of the variable “age,” the Mann–Whitney U test was repeated with a unilateral alternative that the agreement of the first population (<44 years) is lower than that of the second (≥44 years). As the p-value is less than 0.05, this alternative hypothesis is accepted; namely, there is evidence that the surveyed teachers younger than 44 years of age show less agreement in the variable “educational trips” than those aged 44 years or older.

The test was also statistically significant for the variable “teaching experience.” Thus, it can be stated that teachers with more than 15 years of experience show more agreement with this variable.

As for the variable “district,” a total of five districts were analysed. Therefore, there are more than two independent groups, and the Kruskal–Wallis H test was applied. For this test, the null hypothesis has been assumed that the data come from the same distribution, i.e., there are no differences between the different groups. For this variable, the Kruskal–Wallis H test did not prove to be significant (K = 2.73; p = 0.60).

Thus, it can be stated that there are no statistically significant differences between the evaluation made by teachers of educational educational trips according to their gender, whether the school is bilingual and its geographical location, although there are significant differences according to the age of the teacher and his/her teaching experience.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

Some authors have demonstrated that outdoor learning based on nature provides great physical, cognitive, emotional and social benefits to schoolchildren and can also foster environmentally-friendly behaviour. However, the preparation of all aspects of outings [32] is extremely important for them to be truly productive. The results of an experience in the local environment with children from the 5th year of primary education in Turkey [33] show that they were able to think critically and experience the place physically, emotionally, socially and individually by questioning and observing the local environment. Another study carried out with students in Jordan [34] highlights the importance of school field trips in the creation of an interactive atmosphere among students and the attitudes of school administrations towards the organisation of such educational trips.

Dewitt & Storksdieck (2008) [35] carried out a bibliographic review of the vast number of publications regarding field trips and pointed out that cognitive and affective learning takes place in outdoor learning, although factors such as the student’s prior knowledge and the structure of the field trip have great importance. However, these authors concluded that educational trips are not a better context for learning than classrooms, although they do, without a doubt, open up many opportunities for students to explore and discover things. They also highlighted the importance of the local environment, confirming Falk’s conclusions [36]. Falk states that environments which are unknown to students are more motivating and, therefore, students’ interest and learning are increased when they go on field trips. Teachers should pay careful attention when choosing where to visit for the teaching and learning process to be more successful. The same point of view is shared by Fernández-Portela [37], who also claims that educational excursions enable students to interact directly with the environment and facilitate the learning of conceptual contents. Thus, the inclusion of several educational trips should be common practice throughout the school year.

Another study carried out in Spain focused on the repercussions that the 2008 economic crisis had on families and schools and how the crisis has led to a reduction in field trips in recent times [38]. The perceptions of education agents in relation to museum visits for the teaching of history have also been studied [39], presenting museums as an enlightening resource for the teaching and learning process of history, which can be used not only via formal education but also via school educational trips.

The present study started with the hypothesis that there are no differences between teachers’ evaluations of educational field trips according to their sociodemographic characteristics or the characteristics of the school. However, it can be concluded that, in relation to this study, statistically significant differences can be observed in the opinions of the teachers surveyed depending on the location of their schools (the district in which they are located). On the other hand, no significant differences were recorded for the rest of the variables considered (sociodemographic data, type of school and bilingual education programme). Detailed research should be carried out in the future among schools in the districts that present the greatest differences in order to discover the causes of these results.

In conclusion, it can be stated that practically all of the teachers surveyed are in agreement with the following points:

• The teacher is responsible for choosing which educational trips will be carried out;
• Curricular contents are always worked on during educational trips;
• Educational trips are prepared beforehand, and classwork is done after the field trip;
• The objectives include going out to discover the local area and its heritage;
• Field trips should not be merely recreational.
• The heritage resources of the area around the schools and towns/cities should be used.

Almost half of the teachers surveyed did not believe parents are reluctant to let their children go on educational trips due to fears about their safety, and only 47% considered that the cost of educational trips could be a limiting factor for families.

School field trips are one of the most recommended tools for contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations 2030 Agenda, and it is a way to educate responsible and critical citizens who learn to care for and appreciate the natural environment and the heritage of their surrounding area. What is not known cannot be appreciated. Therefore, contact with the local area and knowledge of local heritage will lead to its protection [40]. Educational trips and fieldwork should be encouraged in order to educate citizens who, via their actions, can contribute towards achieving a more sustainable world.

The present study has contributed to offering an overall perspective of the educational context in the Region of Murcia (Spain). Specifically, it has made it possible to discover primary teachers’ opinions on the importance of field trips as a tool for fostering knowledge of the environment among students and contributing towards the achievement of the SDGs within primary schools. Future research should make an in-depth examination of the opinions of students’ families (mothers and fathers) about educational trips. Furthermore, it would be of great interest to know the opinions of the students themselves.