Children in formal education are known to struggle with being motivated to learn, making it difficult to retain the learned content. Educational approaches to enhance students’ learning experience often focus on fostering active learning, promoting exploration, experimentation, questioning, and reflection, as well as stimulating imagination and creativity during lessons. This is because such activities can reap the benefits of curiosity-driven learning, which has long been considered crucial for more enjoyable learning experiences and better memory of the learned content. Additionally, experiencing curiosity and wonder has been linked to greater academic success and personal well-being.

Learning environments enriched through nature, art and technology are uniquely positioned to facilitate curiosity and wonder with positive effects found for learning outside of the classroom and during educational trips. However, studies beyond pure theory into this effect have previously been lacking. Dr Marina Bazhydai and Dr Elena Altmann, of the Department of Psychology and the Active Learning Lab have been investigating whether going on educational trips facilitates curiosity, wonder and enjoyment of learning. For this, they completed an independent pilot study commissioned and funded by industry partner, Next Generation Travel, an organisation delivering educational travel experiences for young people. Their aim is “empowering them to achieve their learning goals, opening their minds to new possibilities, whilst building confidence and cultural capital”.

The researchers recruited 122 children in Key Stages 3 and 4 in 6 schools across the UK who signed up to go on a school trip abroad with Next Generation Travel. The goal was to better understand how taking part in educational school trips may positively benefit young people due to being more varied, wonder- and awe-inspiring, curiosity-driven, and fun.

The study showed that indeed, young people’s responses on validated psychological measures for curiosity and wonder e.g., positive responses to questions like “Everywhere I go, I am out looking for new things or experiences”; “I am likely to feel personally engaged by an experience that takes your breath away”, desire and need to learn e.g., “I like learning new things”, and awareness of knowledge gaps specific to the trip such as wanting to learn more about the topic of the trip’s focus such as history, were significantly elevated during the educational trip, compared to their daily classroom setting. Additionally, young people positively evaluated the trip in terms of organisation, pedagogy and personal outcomes. They also indicated that the trip provided them with new experiences, increased their topic understanding, fulfilled their desire for travel, leisure, friendship and entertainment, and allowed them to face challenges and be independent.

The researchers are excited about these encouraging findings in this initial study. They also note that future research including standardised data collection procedures and additional control groups is necessary to draw more robust conclusions, as well as to directly link the increase in curiosity and wonder to learning outcomes.

Dr Marina Bazhydai of the Lancaster University Psychology Department and Active Learning Lab said: “This study provides us with promising evidence for the effect of educational trips as alternative learning environments on young people’s curiosity, sense of wonder and desire to learn. While our next steps are to look directly at how these impact learning, curiosity and wonder are beneficial on their own and we encourage nurturing these in all educational settings.”.

Next Generation Travel’s Educational Development Manager, Ian Coyne, added: ‘We were really keen to develop our understanding of the impact which educational travel has on young people and, having read prior research which Dr Bazhydai and her team had published, knew they were the right people to approach. The fact the research showed that during the trip, young people are more likely to experience wonder and curiosity and feel the desire and need to learn, as compared to during their daily classroom setting, is really encouraging and will help to shape how we run and develop our tours in the future.’