Engagement and Achievement in Garden-based Science Education 1

Does Engagement in Garden-based Activities Predict

Science Learning in the Garden and

Academic Achievement in At-Risk Middle School Students?

July 18, 2011

Does Engagement in Garden-based Activities Predict

Science Learning in the Garden and Academic Achievement in At-Risk Middle School Students?

Ellen A. Skinner, Una Chi, and the Learning-Gardens Educational Assessment Group

Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Education, and Lane Middle School

Portland State University and Portland Public Schools

Author contact information:

Dr. Ellen A. Skinner

Department of Psychology

Portland State University

P.O. Box 751

Portland, OR 97207-0751

Phone: (503) 725-3966

Fax: (503) 725-3904

E-mail:

The Learning-Gardens Educational Assessment Group (or LEAG) is an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students from the Department of Psychology and the Graduate School of Education at Portland State University and the leadership of Lane Middle School of Portland Public Schools organized around a garden-based education program, the Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGLab). LEAG Faculty: Ellen Skinner, Thomas Kindermann, Dae Yeop Kim, Dilafruz Williams (co-founder of the Learning Gardens Laboratory), Pramod Parajuli (co-founder), Karl Logan (Principal, Lane Middle School), Terri Sing (Asst. Principal), Heather Burns (Coordinator of the LGLab), and Weston Miller. LEAGStudents: Lorraine Escribano, Una Chi, Jennifer Pitzer, Amy Henninger, Shawn Mehess, Justin Vollet, Price Johnson, Heather Brule, Shannon Stone, Hyuny Clark-Shim, Jennifer Wood. We gratefully appreciate and acknowledge the contributions of the Garden Educators and volunteers at the LGLab, and the students, families, and teachers at Lane, especially the science teachers who participated directly in the LGLab.

Does Engagement in Garden-based Activities Predict

Science Learning in the Garden and Academic Achievement in At-Risk Middle School Students?

Abstract

The current study relied on a motivational model derived from self-determination theory to explain how the curricular, physical, and social learning environments of garden-based educational programs contribute to at-risk students’ engagement, science learning in the garden, and academic achievement. Participants were 310 sixth and seventh grade students from primarily low SES and immigrant families. Student- and teacher- reports of student engagement in a garden-based science education program showed positive and significant concurrent correlations with science learning in the garden and core GPA (science, math, and social studies), and predicted improvements in both over the school year. Mediational analyses revealed that engagement in science class (assessed through teacher-reports) partially mediated the effects of garden engagement on GPA, but not on science learning in the garden. Taken together, findings suggest that the self-determination model holds promise for identifying some of the “active ingredients” through which garden-based programs contribute to science learning and academic achievement.

Key words: Garden-based science education, school gardens, middle school, motivation, engagement, science learning, achievement.

Does Engagement in Garden-based Activities Predict

Science Learning in the Garden and Academic Achievement in At-Risk Middle School Students?

The past 20 years have witnessed a resurgence of interest in school garden programs. Although their popularity has waxed and waned over the 200 years since the first school garden was introduced in the US by Henry Lincoln Clapp in 1811 (Subramanium, 2002), current enthusiasm reflects an appreciation of the potential of garden-based education to promote healthy eating habits and increase students’ knowledge and appreciation of the natural world. Many states, including Texas, California, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, New York, and Vermont, and their departments of education, actively promote school gardening through legislation or by providing curricula and evaluation research (Blair, 2009). Today thousands of school gardens exist in the US, with 4000 in California alone (CA Dept of Education, 2010).

As programs have burgeoned, educators increasingly recognize their potential as a vehicle for promoting school success across the curriculum, arguing that such programs can awaken students to the value of science and sustainability, and thereby enhance their motivation and achievement. The core features of garden-based education, which provide contextualized authentic, project-based, hands-on learning activities, are designed to capture students’ interest and engagement (Blumenfeld, Soloway, Marx, Krajcik, Guzdial, & Palincsar, 1991; Fusco, 2001; Krajcik, Czerniak, & Berger, 2003; Rahm, 2002; Rivet & Krajcik, 2008).

Such learning opportunities are increasingly important as students progress to middle school, because they may help to reduce or even reverse the declines in motivation, especially for science and math (e.g., Hedelin & Sjoberg, 1989), found across this school transition (e.g., Eccles et al., 1993; Gottfried, Fleming & Gottfried, 2001; Harter, 1981; Wigfield, Eccles, MacIver, Reuman & Midgley, 1991; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, & Davis-Kean, 2006), declines that are especially steep for students from low socioeconomic (SES), ethnic minority, and immigrant families (Graham & Hudley, 2005; Meece & Kurtz-Costes, 2001).

Critics, however, question the value of garden-based education, especially for students at risk for underachievement and drop-out, arguing that the time students spend in gardens would be better spent in classrooms focusing on the acquisition of basic literacy and math skills (Flanagan, 2010). However, a small body of qualitative and quantitative evaluation studies rebuts these critiques, showing a connection between garden-based education and academic achievement (Blair, 2009; Ozer, 2007). Quantitative work on garden-based education builds on the landmark study of the environment as an integrating context (EIC) conducted by Lieberman and Hoody (1998). This project, involving 14 schools, 250 teachers, and 400 students, conducted comparisons between students who were randomly assigned to participate in EIC programs versus those students who were not (either within the same school at one time or pre- and post-implementation of the program). Findings suggested that students in IEC programs not only showed higher achievement (as measured by standardized test scores and GPAs), but also evinced higher levels of interest, enthusiasm, and engagement in learning activities.

Four additional quantitative studies also revealed modest effects of garden-based programs on science learning and achievement, assessed by directly observing science process skills (e.g., ability to observe, relate, order, compare, infer; Mabie & Baker, 1996), or by administering tests of science knowledge (Klemmer, Waliczek, & Zajicek, 2005b; Smith & Mostenbocker, 2005) or knowledge and attitudes toward science and school (Dirks & Orvis, 2005). Although this research hints at the promise of garden-based science education,l none of these studies attempted to actually identify the “active ingredients” of effective programs or to examine the processes that mediate their effects on achievement.

Purpose of the Study

The current study focuses on student engagement as a core motivational process through which the learning environment created by garden-based education contributes to science learning and academic achievement (Skinner, Chi, & the LEAG, in press). The goal of this study was to capture the quality of at-risk middle school students’ participation in garden-based activities, using student- and teacher-reports, and to examine whether they predict improvements in students’ science learning and achievement over a school year. In addition, we wondered whether engagement in the gardens shaped science learning and achievement by sparking students’ engagement in science class, and so we examined science engagement as a potential mediator.

A focus on student motivation and engagement complements recently developed models of garden-based education that identify the attributes of high quality programs (Ozer, 2007; Ratcliffe, Goldberg, Rogers, & Merrigan, 2010). The most comprehensive of these models organizes findings from education, health and nutrition, environmental education, and horticultural therapy to focus on three important learning environments that can be shaped by school gardens: (1) the curricular learning environment; (2) the physical learning environment; and (3) the social learning environment (Ratcliffe et al., 2010).

Garden-based education affects the curricular learning environment by increasing opportunities for hands-on, experiential, place-based, and project-based learning activities. The progressive activities of designing, planting, tending, harvesting, and consuming produce engage youth in ongoing authentic real-world learning activities, distinguishable from typical hands-on activities in the classroom, which tend to be simulations of real-world experiences. Although most garden programs focus on science, gardens also allow for integrating learning experiences across subject areas.

School garden programs also affect the physical learning environment by improving local material conditions, especially in urban environments, making schools more welcoming. Physical attributes of gardens naturally encourage multi-sensory learning by providing an array of sights, textures, aromas, and tastes, and also reinforce such learning. Gardens can provide refuge and feelings of safety where students can connect with nature and nurture living things.School gardens may also have an impact on the social learning environment by shaping the way that students interact with teachers and cooperate with each other, thus altering school culture and identity, instilling pride and a sense of ownership, purpose, and community.

Theoretical Framework

To conceptualize the motivational effects of garden-based learning environments, we relied on the construct of engagement. For educators, one core definition of academicengagement refers to students’ active enthusiastic sustained cognitively-focused participation in challenging academic activities (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Pierson & Connell, 1992; Ryan, 2000; Skinner et al., 1998, 2009a, 2009b; Wentzel, 1993). Research has demonstrated that, in the short-term, students’ engagement predicts their learning, grades, and patterns of attendance; over the long-term, engagement predicts students’ achievement test scores, retention, and graduation rates (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Parks, 2004; Furlong & Christenson, 2008; Jimerson, Campos, & Grief, 2003; NRC, 2004). These connections have been found in heterogeneous samples including Black, White, Latino, and Asian-American students from various SES levels (e.g., Connell et al., 1994, 1995; Finn & Rock, 1997; Johnson et al., 2001; Smerdon, 1999; Voekl, 1997).

Self-determination theory.Educators appreciate the construct of engagement because (compared to status indicators like student SES or race) engagement represents a malleable motivational state that is potentially open to influence from outside factors, such as interpersonal relationships, classroom climate, and educational tasks. The challenge for schools is to provide a social and academic context in which engagement flourishes (NRC, 2004).

Many important facilitators of engagement have been integrated into a model of positive motivational development based on self-determination theory (SDT; Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2000; Skinner et al., 2009b). As depicted in Figure 1, the model holds that the social contexts of school can either support or undermine children's basic needs, which include experiencing themselves as competent to succeed, related (belonging) in school, and as autonomous or self-determined learners. Self-systems, in turn, support students' engagement with learning activities and their resilience in the face of challenges and setbacks, which shapes their learning and achievement.

Engagement in the garden. Garden-based educational programs have the potential to meet the needs of at-risk youth. The need for relatedness can be met by working together with friends, classmates, teachers, master gardeners, and sometimes parents, on a project that is highly valued by the entire “village.” The inclusion of cultural traditions makes diverse students feel welcome. Competence needs can be met by the experience that problem-solving, effort, and persistence pay off in tangible outcomes that matter (and taste good). For students who struggle academically, the realization that gardening is part of Science can awaken a sense of efficacy in areas from which they have traditionally been excluded. Most importantly, gardening introduces activities that are meaningful and inherently interesting; this supports autonomy, a need that is increasingly important and increasingly undermined by schooling as students approach adolescence. The “hands-on” and “heads-on” learning activities taking place in school gardens are of the kind hypothesized and found to support high quality engagement in learning activities during middle school and especially in science and math (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2008; Fusco, 2001; Krajcik et al., 2003; MacIver, Young, & Washburn, 2002; Rahm, 2002; Rivet & Krajcik, 2008). Based on a model derived from self-determination theory, the current study focused on student engagement as a core motivational process in garden-based activities, and examined whether it predicted changes in students’ science learning in the garden and academic achievement across the school year. In addition, we examined engagement in science class as a possible mediator of the effects of participation in the gardens, reasoning that because the garden program is connected to science class, students’ garden engagement might bolster their engagement in science as well, thereby contributing to science learning and achievement.

Methods

Setting. This study builds on an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration organized around the Learning Gardens Laboratory, a garden-based education program carried out in cooperation with a middle school serving mostly low-income, minority, and immigrant youth. The garden program operates on 4 acres using 2 greenhouses and is coordinated by university faculty, staffed by graduate students, and supported by horticultural experts from the university extension service and volunteers. Science teachers brought their classes to the gardens every week, and science content was integrated into garden activities. An overview of program elements is presented in Figure 2.

Sample. Participants included 310 middle school students ages 11 to 13 in grades six and seven and their 6 Science teachers from a middle school in the Pacific Northwest. The school was culturally and linguistically diverse: 54.6% of its students were minorities (8.4% African American, 24.1% Latina/o, 15.3% Asian, 3.3% Native American; 3.5% multiple ethnicities); 41% spoke English as a second language; 19 languages were spoken by students. Students came from predominantly poor families: 75% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch.

Design and Measures

Data from students, their Science teachers, and school records were collected in fall (October) and spring (May) of one school year; additional measures were collected in spring only. On survey measures, teachers and students responded using a 5-point rating scale from not at all true (1) to very true (5). Scores were calculated by reverse coding negative items and averaging them with positive items to create scores ranging from 1 to 5, with 5 indicating higher levels of the respective construct. The Appendix contains complete item sets for each measure.

Teacher-report of student engagement in the garden. Teacher and student reports ofengagement and disaffection in the garden (Skinner et al., in press) were adapted from a measure of students’ participation in academic activities in the classroom (Skinner et al., 2009a). Teachers responded to the stem “In the Learning Gardens, this student…” and rated 6 items tapping behavioral engagement (e.g., “gets very involved”), emotional engagement (e.g., “is enthusiastic”), behavioral disaffection (e.g., “is not really into it”), and emotional disaffection (e.g., “does not really like it”). Internal consistency reliabilities, calculated using Cronbach’s alpha were satisfactory ( = .93 and .95 in fall and spring, respectively).

Student-report of engagement in the garden. For student-reports of their own engagement and disaffection in the garden, students responded to the stem “When I’m in the garden…” and rated 10 items tapping behavioral engagement (e.g., “I listen carefully to our garden teacher”), emotional engagement (e.g., “Gardening is interesting”), behavioral disaffection (e.g., “I can’t wait for it to be over”), and emotional disaffection (e.g., “Gardening is boring”). Internal consistency reliabilities were satisfactory ( = .89 and .90, in fall and spring, respectively). Moreover, teacher- and student- reports of engagement were positively and significantly correlated with each other at both time points (r = .31 and .37, p < .001, in fall and spring, respectively).

Science learning in the garden. Six items tapped students’ perceptions of how much they had learned in the garden about science (e.g., “I learned how to do science-- experimenting, measuring, observing, finding out new facts”), plants (e.g., “I learned how plants grow”), the environment (e.g., “I learned how I can treat the environment better”), and food (“I learned about things I like to eat that I did not like before”). Internal consistency reliabilities were satisfactory ( = .82 and .88, in fall and spring, respectively). Moreover, student ratings of their science learning in the garden were correlated positively and significantly with their overall GPA, r = .26, p < .001.

Student achievement. From students’ records, information was extracted about graded performance in core subjects (math, science, and social studies) each quarter. Letter grades were converted to a standard 4 point GPA scale, with “A” as 4. Aggregate indicators of GPA were calculated by averaging grades in core subjects each quarter.

Teacher-report of student science engagement. In spring only, each student’s engagement in science class was captured using science teachers’ responses to the stem “In science, this student…” with six items tapping behavioral engagement (e.g., “works hard”), emotional engagement (e.g., “seems interested”), behavioral disaffection (e.g., “refuses to do anything”), and emotional disaffection (e.g., “does not really care”) (Skinner et al., 2009a). Internal consistency reliability for the scale calculated using Cronbach’s alpha was satisfactory

( = .96).

Results

Table 1 contains the means and standard deviations for student- and teacher-reports of student engagement and learning in fall and spring, as well as the cross-time stabilities between the two measurement points. As can be seen, both teachers and students reported relatively high levels of student engagement in the garden (average = 3.80), all means were above the mid-point of the scale (3.0). Students also reported that they learned quite a bit in the garden (average = 3.34). Table 1 also presents the means and standard deviations for student GPA at the three grading periods as well as the correlations between periods. The average GPA across the year was 2.74 (a “C+”). As expected, cross-time stabilities were high (average r = .70), which made predicting changes in GPA more difficult.