Ellinger Jan, Mess Filip, Bachner Joachim, von Au Jakob, Mall Christoph
Associate Professorship of Didactics in Sport and Health, TUM Department of Sport and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.
Institute of Natural Sciences, Geography and Technobiology, Heidelberg University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2023 Feb 2;14:1031693. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1031693. eCollection 2023.
Social interaction is associated with many effects on the psychological level of children such as mental health, self-esteem, and executive functions. Education Outside the Classroom (EOtC) describes regular curricular classes/lessons outside the school building, often in natural green and blue environments. Applied as a long-term school concept, EOtC has the potential to enable and promote social interaction. However, empirical studies on this topic have been somewhat scant.
One class in EOtC ( = 24) and one comparison class ( = 26) were examined in this study to explore those effects. and were used to investigate whether there are differences between EOtC and comparison class regarding changes over time in social interaction parameters; whether a co-evolution between social interaction during lessons and breaks and attendant social relatedness and friendships exists; whether students of the same gender or place of residence interact particularly often (homophily).
Besides inconsistent changes in social interaction parameters, no co-evolutional associations between social interaction and social relatedness and friendships could be determined, but grouping was evident in EOtC. Both classes showed pronounced gender homophily, which in the case of EOtC class contributes to a fragmentation of the network over time.
The observed effects in EOtC could be due to previously observed tendencies of social exclusion as a result of a high degree of freedom of choices. It therefore seems essential that in future studies not only the quality of the study design and instruments should be included in the interpretation - rather, the underlying methodological-didactic concept should also be evaluated in detail. At least in Germany, it seems that there is still potential for developing holistic concepts with regards to EOtC in order to maximize the return on the primarily organizational investment of implementing EOtC in natural environments.
社交互动对儿童的心理层面有诸多影响，如心理健康、自尊和执行功能等。课外教育（EOtC）指在校外进行的常规课程学习，通常是在自然的绿色和蓝色环境中。作为一种长期的学校理念，课外教育有潜力促成并促进社交互动。然而，关于这一主题的实证研究相对较少。
本研究考察了一个课外教育班级（n = 24）和一个对照班级（n = 26），以探究这些影响。使用[具体统计方法未给出]来调查课外教育班级和对照班级在社交互动参数随时间变化方面是否存在差异；课间和休息期间的社交互动与随之而来的社会关联和友谊之间是否存在共同演变；同性或同居住地的学生是否互动更为频繁（同质性）。
除了社交互动参数的变化不一致外，社交互动与社会关联和友谊之间未发现共同演变的关联，但在课外教育班级中存在分组现象。两个班级都表现出明显的性别同质性，这在课外教育班级中导致随着时间推移网络碎片化。
在课外教育中观察到的这些影响可能是由于之前观察到的因高度自由选择而导致的社会排斥倾向。因此，在未来的研究中，似乎不仅要在解释中纳入研究设计和工具的质量——更确切地说，还应详细评估潜在的方法 - 教学概念。至少在德国，似乎仍有潜力开发关于课外教育的整体概念，以便在自然环境中实施课外教育这一主要组织性投资能实现最大回报。
