Building a Community of Learning through Early Residential Fieldwork

Walsh, Cathy and Larsen, Carl and Parry, Damian (2014) Building a Community of Learning through Early Residential Fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 38. pp. 373-382. ISSN 1466-1845

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Abstract

The positioning of residential fieldwork early in students' higher education is an established way of attempting to build and engage them in a community of learning. In the study reported here, the benefits of such early residential fieldwork were investigated using Krausse and Coates's seven scales of engagement. These scales consider a number of key indicators – specifically transition, academic, beyond-class, peer, staff–student, online and intellectual engagement. Data on these scales were collected via questionnaires completed by groups of students who did and did not attend such a residential fieldwork event, both before and after the event. A Wilcoxon test of these data showed significant increases in peer and student–staff engagement in the post-fieldwork group only. A Kruskal–Wallis analysis provides evidence that students who had been on residential fieldwork became more involved in a community of learning with both their peers and virtual communities than those who had not. These results support the hypothesis that early residential fieldwork is an effective way of engaging students new to higher education in a community of learning.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information and Comments:	This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Walsh, C., Larsen, C. & Parry, D. (2014) Building a community of learning through early residential fieldwork. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 38(3), pp.373-382 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/03098265.2014.933402
Keywords:	first year, residential field work, student engagement, community of learning
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Human and Digital Sciences > School of Health and Sport Sciences
Depositing User:	Karen Foxton
Date Deposited:	21 Mar 2016 09:21
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2020 10:27
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/947

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