Publication date
Author
Children’s attention and self-regulated behaviour indoors and outside
According to Attention Restoration Theory, being outside in nature provides a sort of wakeful rest for the brain. Natural environments are easier for us to process than busy urban ones or indoor classrooms, and there is less demand on our attentional capacity. This apparently gives our attention time to rest and replenish so we have greater capacity for attention and focus afterwards. Many studies have shown that after walking or sitting outdoors in nature, people perform better in attention tests (Faber Taylor & Kuo, 2009; Lee et al, 2014)
Research also suggests that access to outdoor spaces can improve self-regulation and behaviour (Sakhvidi et al, 2022)
So why do we tend to keep children indoors for most of the time in schools and early years settings? Over 80% of teachers think their school doesn’t make enough use of outdoor spaces (Kings College London, 2010). Part of the reason could be that some teachers feel children are more likely to misbehave outside (Van Dijkk-Wesselius et al, 2020).
In my study I wanted to explore whether children’s attention and behaviour was different between an indoor and an outdoor classroom, even if everything else was kept as consistent as possible (the teacher, the activities and the amount of space they had).
Whereas most previous studies have looked at effects on attention and behaviour after people have been outdoors, I wanted to find out whether the outdoor environment can have an impact during outdoor exposure.
In particular, I wanted to find out:
1.) Do children pay better attention in one environment than another?
2.) Are they more likely to be prosocial in one environment compared to another?
3.) Is this the same for all children or does it differ according to the individual?
4.) Can outdoor environments support attention and behaviour even if those environments are urban and have limited nature?
Measuring attention and behaviour
How do you measure how well children are paying attention?
I didn’t want to use a formal attention test as it doesn’t really represent the sort of activities children do in real life. I wanted to use measures that teachers would care about and which were naturalistic. As no single measure can be perfectly accurate, I decided to measure attention in several different ways, both indoors and outside
1.) Looking time: During story time, I used head mounted cameras to calculate the amount of time the children spent looking at the teacher and/or the story
2.) Comprehension and recall: After the story, children completed a comprehension and recall task which involved sequencing pictures from the story, retelling it in their own words, and answering questions about the story.
3.) Redirects: During carpet time*, when the teacher was either reading a story or doing a maths lesson, I counted the number of times the teacher had to redirect children’s focus and attention e.g. by clapping her hands to regain attention, by telling children to look at her etc
4.) % time on task: During Choosing time* I used the head mounted camera footage to track which activities the children chose to engage with and how long they stayed at each activity. The amount of time they spent on task vs off task e.g. sitting doing nothing or wandering without engaging in anything was calculated
5.) Peak Focus – I also calculated the longest amount of time children spent at a single activity before moving on, as a measure of engagement/deep focus.
To measure self regulated behaviour, I coded the camera footage to record every prosocial and antisocial interaction each child had with their peers. I totalled these to compare behaviour indoors and outside
*See previous articles in the series for more information about carpet time, choosing time and how the study was designed and conducted.
Results
For each child, their data from 8 indoor and 8 outdoor sessions was averaged. When all of the data was combined for 76 children, there were no significant differences between attention indoors and outside, and behaviour indoors and outside.
Although this showed children’s attention and behaviour doesn’t seem to be any worse outdoors, it didn’t show the positive impact of outdoor time as I had expected.
However, although any large research studies tend to be based on averages, this does disguise important details at an individual level. In reality what the data showed was that some children paid much better attention or showed more self-regulated behaviour outdoors, but others showed this indoors. When the data was averaged, these effects seemed to almost ‘cancel each other out’ making it look like the environment was having no effect. Looking at children’s individual data showed that this wasn’t the case.
One particular child’s looking time data showed they looked at the teacher/book 2400% more during outdoor story times compared to indoor ones. Another child scored 140% higher in their comprehension and recall tasks outside compared to indoors.
In terms of attention and focus during choosing time, one child was able to stay at a single task for 141% longer outdoors compared to inside. Another was on task for under 30% of the time indoors but 75% when they were outside. For some children, being outdoors was clearly transformational.
Similarly, the overall data showed that anti-social events were equally likely to occur outside as indoors, although children were slightly more prosocial outdoors, this did not reach statistical significance. However, there were some children who were only ever anti social when they were inside. They didn’t engage in any antisocial events at all across the 8 outdoor sessions.
However, there was also the other side of the coin – some children paid better attention and were more prosocial in their indoor classroom.
These vast individual differences demonstrated that children respond to the environment differently, what is optimal for one child is not optimal for another. This is likely to be due to a range of reasons including personal preferences, baseline levels of arousal and different learning needs.
Key takeaways
- Overall, children’s attention and behaviour were no worse outdoors than they were inside
- For some children, their attention and focus were much better outside, but other children performed better indoors
- The same was true for self-regulated behaviour, some children were more prosocial in the outdoor environment but others were more antisocial
- Choice and autonomy about whether to be indoors or outside is important as no single environment is optimal for all children.
Critical considerations
- Have you tried a range of activities outdoors – do some children focus better outside?
- If you have children who struggle with self-regulation and pro-social behaviour – does this differ depending on the environment they are in?
Explainer
Significantly – If a research result is significant, this means that statistical analyses predict that the chance of the results occurring due to chance are equal to, or less than 0.05 (5%).
References
Faber Taylor, A., & Kuo, F. E., 2009. Children with attention deficits concentrate better after walk in the park. Journal of attention disorders, 12(5), 402-409.
Lee, K. E., Williams, K. J., Sargent, L. D., Williams, N. S., & Johnson, K. A., 2015. 40-second green roof views sustain attention: The role of micro-breaks in attention restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 42, 182-189.
Sakhvidi, M.J.Z., Knobel, P., Bauwelinck, M., de Keijzer, C., Boll, L.M., Spano, G., Ubalde-Lopez, M., Sanesi, G., Mehrparvar, A.H., Jacquemin, B. and Dadvand, P., 2022. Greenspace exposure and children behavior: A systematic review. Science of the Total Environment, 824, p.153608.
About the author
Watch the full podcast episode
You might also be interested in...
