Integrating Field-Trip Activities With Other Activities in the Preschool Curriculum: Its Effects on the Preschoolers' Social-Emotional Skills

Abstract

This study used a static-group pretest-posttest design to investigate how the social-emotional skill development of 36 Turkish children aged 48-66 months was affected by the integration of field-trip activities with other activities in their preschool curriculum. It was carried out in two preschool institutions in Agri Provincial Directorate for National Education over 12 weeks during the 2015-2016 school year. The experimental group (n = 18) was taken on field trips tailored to activities in the existing preschool curriculum, while for the control group (n = 18), no such interventions were made. The Preschool Social Skill Evaluation Scale-Teacher Form and the Emotional Skill Evaluation Test were used to gather data, and one-way analysis of covariance and paired-samples t-tests was used for data analysis. The pretest scores of the experimental and control groups were not significantly different, whereas their posttest scores indicated a significant positive effect of field-trip activities on the social-emotional skills of children in the experimental group. A follow-up test administered 12 weeks after the posttest found that these positive effects persisted.