Award Date

May 2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching and Learning

First Committee Member

Peter Wiens

Second Committee Member

Christine Clark

Third Committee Member

Norma Marrun

Fourth Committee Member

Lisa Bendixen

Number of Pages

236

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate preservice teachers’ (PSTs) attitudes and beliefs towards their PK-12 field trip (FT) experiences as students, their memories, influences in their lives, impact on their educational approaches and career choices, as well as how, as future teachers, they would implement FTs to their future students to provide feedback on FTs’ training for preparation programs. Rationale: Anderson et al. (2010) criticized teacher preparation programs’ lack of teacher training to implement educational FTs and contended that instructors’ FTs experiences as students may have influenced the way they plan and carry out educational FTs. John Dewey’s Theory of Art as experience (1934/1959), and Experience and education (1938/2015) supported the theoretical framework for this study. In Chapter Two, the literature reviewed Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) Ecological Model among others and looked at the gap in the literature on three domains: (1) educational FTs, (2) teachers’ attitudes and beliefs, and (3) the multicultural platform and found very difficult to find research addressing multicultural field trips, inclusion, social justice, and diversity just to mention some, as well as in all these three domains. In Chapter Three, the survey methods approach in this study design allowed data gathering from those who share teacher program similarities (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2015). It included twelve (12) Likert scale questions and four (4) open-ended questions. For this study, the fossae were on PSTs and the five (5) research questions on their experience with educational FTs as students, their beliefs and attitudes, their concerns about planning FTs for their future students, the impact FTs had in their lives, studies, philosophy, and careers. After the research proposal was approved, IRB approval was also granted as an exempt study for all participants who were over eighteen (18) and took the survey online following all required protocols. Data gathering started in January 2023 and ended in December 2023. Chapter Four is dedicated to the results of this cross-sectional quantitative survey approach drawing data from 130 PSTs from the Teaching and Learning (T&L) Subject Pool in a large urban research university in the U.S. Southwest. PSTs enrolled in research courses qualified for one (1) research credit in exchange for completing a Qualtrics survey accessed directly from the subject pool. After data was gathered and cleaned, I used JASP descriptive statistics, correlations, and an ANOVA to provide the results. Inductive coding (Thomas, 2006) thematically categorized the four (4) open-ended questions, looking also at chunks of information, allowing for word frequency mapping, and sentiment results related to the RQs. The findings were analyzed in Chapter Five. Among the findings, this study revealed PST's demand to plan and implement FTs for their future students but most of them, don’t are prepared and want to have training to plan, manage, and organize effectively in their future classes. Findings (RQ 1) indicated teachers experience long-term impact from FTs, evidence of gender-specific awareness, and influence on their educational philosophy. FTs’ influence on career decision-making. For RQ 2 (benefits), results point to four specific areas concerning FTs. First, the positive impact on coursework concepts. Second, FTs provide valuable learning space for social communication. Third, FTs provide a valuable learning space for real-world connections. Lastly, FTs provided a valuable learning space for discussions and debates.

Keywords

educational field trips; experiential learning; field trip training; John Dewey; planning field trips; teacher preparation programs

Disciplines

Curriculum and Instruction | Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Educational Methods | Instructional Media Design | Teacher Education and Professional Development

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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