Field trips for sustainable transport education

Abstract

Purpose Field trips can change students’ attitudes and improve their learning performance, but they have rarely been investigated in logistics education research. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings from field trips that were designed to increase students’ knowledge of sustainable transport as well as to change their attitudes and behavioral intentions. Design/methodology/approach A total of 104 logistics students participated in this longitudinal panel study. Non-parametric statistical tests were used to test for significant effects. Findings Field trips build students’ knowledge, improve their attitudes and increase their behavioral intentions to use sustainable transport modes in the short and in the long term. Gains in knowledge exceed the results expected from traditional learning theories. Gender and school type are important moderating variables. Gender did not play an important role for knowledge gains, but for attitude and behavioral intentions. Research limitations/implications More research is needed to generalize the findings to other populations and longitudinal panel studies are necessary to investigate a long-term effect of field trips. Practical implications Field trips are an effective means for successful knowledge transfer and are suitable to trigger attitudinal and behavioral changes. The involvement of practitioners and the hands-on experience ensure that students combine theoretical with practical knowledge. Originality/value This is the first longitudinal panel study that investigates the effects of logistics field trips, which were developed collaboratively by industry, educational and research institutions.