DLL Seminar: Place, Pedagogy, Play and Public Health

Place, Pedagogy, Play and Public Health

Can outdoor environment improve children’s academic attainment, motivation to learn and well-being?

Dr Matluba Khan

Research Associate, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, UCL

UCL Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, Committee Room 1

Summary

There is growing research demonstrating the effects of spending time in the outdoor environment on children’s attention restoration, informal play behaviour, and physical activity. However, research exploring the potential of a designed school ground to improve children’s learning experience is scarce particularly in the context of developing countries. This presentation will discuss recent research from landscape architecture, education and public health and give an overview of recent multidisciplinary research studies Dr Matluba Khan has been engaged in as part of the UCL Institute of Health Equity and before as an academic and researcher in other institutes. The presentation will however focus on Dr Khan’s PhD study that adopted a quasi-experimental action evaluation research strategy to investigate the role of an improved school landscape and having lessons outdoors on children’s academic performance, their motivation to learn and their mental well-being. Analysis of children’s exam scores, questionnaire and focus groups held before and after the changes to the outdoor environment revealed an increase in children’s academic attainment after the intervention and use of the school ground for learning.

Dr Matluba Khan is a research associate in evaluation research and public health at the UCL research department of epidemiology and public health. Matluba is interested in exploring the connection between natural and built environment and human behaviour, particularly focusing on the impact of school ground design on pedagogy, play and well-being. Dr Khan has completed her PhD in landscape architecture from the University of Edinburgh in 2017 and before that she held a position of Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka. Dr Khan’s PhD thesis investigated the influence of a schoolyard design on children’s learning, motivation and play and included co-design and development of a schoolyard in a Government primary school in Bangladesh with children, teachers and the community. She also ran workshops with teachers and trainee teachers on the role of school building and surroundings for learning and engaged children in several events for co-creation of outdoor environments in Scotland and Bangladesh. Dr Khan is now involved in evaluation of public health interventions in 16 countries of Europe for health, environmental sustainability and health equity. She received numerous awards for her research work including ASLA Honor Award 2017, EDRA Great Places Award 2016 (in Place Design Category), ABTA doctoral researcher award, EDRA best student paper and overall best paper award (2014) and the winner in Falling Walls Lab Edinburgh 2014.