This research examines one factor that might promote academic engagement in university students: using visual nature cues in instructional materials. Students were randomly assigned to view a calendar with either a background depicting a nature scene or an urban scene. Participants were then randomly assigned to use this calendar to either create an action plan for an upcoming assignment/exam in their class or to plan a non-academic event such as visiting friends. When using the calendar to prepare for an academic event, participants reported feeling more academically engaged in the class when exposed to the nature background than the urban background. However, two replications of the study found no such relationship between visual cues of nature and academic engagement. Both replications exposed participants to varied nature and urban scenes instead of an individual image as the calendar background, yet no relationship was found between the nature conditions and academic engagement or academic motivation. However, an association between nature connectedness and academic engagement was found, where students who reported feeling more connected to nature also reported higher academic engagement and motivation in their university classes. These findings suggest the relevance of nature in an educational context, but requires more research to determine how much nature exposure is sufficient to produce a significant effect.

Author: Christine Okigbo

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2024

• Date of Conference: 23-25 July, 2024
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2024.0033
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-65-5
• Conference Location: Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada