Syntes: Otte, Bølling, Elsborg, Nielsen & Bentsen (2019) — a year of outdoor maths teaching neither helped nor harmed maths scores

Källa: Otte, C. R., Bølling, M., Elsborg, P., Nielsen, G. & Bentsen, P. (2019). Teaching maths outside the classroom: does it make a difference?. Educational Research 61(1), 38–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2019.1567270

Verified content

• [abstract] Explorative quasi-experiment in 15 Danish public schools over the 2014–2015 school year; pupils aged 9–13.
• [abstract] 23 education-outside-the-classroom maths intervention classes (n = 421) compared with 12 education-outside-the-classroom classes that did not do maths outdoors (n = 198).
• [abstract] Both groups improved in maths; no significant difference between groups. The authors conclude that moving maths teaching outside the classroom "neither harmed nor improved pupils’ mathematical skills."

Limits

• [assessment] Abstract only; no effect size or confidence interval is given. Comparison classes also took part in education outside the classroom, just not in maths. Not randomised. This is the study named in open question 23.

Why it is in the library

C28 says curriculum-linked learning outside the classroom raises achievement by about half a standard deviation. This one-year Danish comparison of regular outdoor maths teaching found no significant maths difference — the lead already sitting in open question 23.

Added 2026-11-08 by the project (weekly source sweep, kind: old; read: abstract). [abstract] = from the published abstract; [full text] = read in the full text; [assessment] = the project's own assessment.