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Abstract

Field trips can be defined as a type of experiential learning that gets students out of the traditional classroom setting into a new mode of learning. It is advocated that field trips are one of the most important things educators can provide for their students as they not only expand students' learning and experiences, but also increase students' knowledge and understanding of the world in which they live. Despite ample evidence shown through research on the effectiveness of field trips which emphasizes on hands-on, real life, and practical applications of learning, the dilemma that is faced by educators lies in providing proof of student learning for the current trend in education tends to emphasize mainly on assessments. Therefore, the objectives of this study are, firstly, to evaluate the effectiveness of field trips as an educational tool to enhance student's understanding of the subject taught and, secondly, to show whether report writing can be used as an assessment tool to evaluate the learning that takes place via field trips. Students pursuing an undergraduate degree program in biomedical science were used as the sample where they have participated in field trips which were then assessed via report writing. The results were analyzed using SPSS and the outcome indicated that there is an increased understanding of the subject among the students. The high percentage of scores in the report-writing task confirmed this finding. This was supported by a survey administered to the same sample which showed that students have a positive perception on the impact of the field trips on their understanding of the subject. The paper ends with recommendation for the incorporation of field trips in the curriculum to stimulate better understanding and increase motivation towards the learning of science. It is further advocated that report writing can be used as an effective assessment tool to evaluate this increased understanding.