Academics’ perspective on out-of-school learning environments

Abstract

This study aims to ascertain academicians' opinions about out-of-school learning, awareness of it, and competency to plan learning activities in such situations for the purpose of teaching in out-of-school learning environments (OSLEs). The research group of this study, which was conducted as a case study, consists of 56 academics in the physics, chemistry, biology, and science education programs of education faculties in Türkiye. The Out-of-School Learning Environments Regulation Scale and a form containing four questions were used to data collection. The results from the scale, the average score was calculated as 4.41 for academics with experience in teaching OSLEs and 3.82 for academics without such experience. The qualitative results indicate that academics mostly prefer to focus on environmental education, astronomy, living things and life, and recycling issues through out-of-school learning activities and use different types of OSLEs such as science center, recycling facility and observatory. To conclude, despite the academics' high level of competency in performing out-of-school learning activities, it is evident that they underutilize these activities in their teaching.