A Comparative Study of Student's Engagement with their School Grounds Through a Lexicon of Emotions

This paper reports a lexicon of emotional associations made by 10-11 year old students with their school grounds. Colour and symbol associations were used as a stimulus for getting students to engage with their school grounds, describe their feelings about them, and produce a lexicon of emotional word's. The method was developed with students in Finland and then repeated with similar aged students at a school in the UK. The lexicon associated with the school grounds in both schools was overwhelmingly positive. The detail of the most frequently used emotional words is reported and similarities and differences between the associations in the two different cultural settings are discussed. The educational implications of supporting students in engaging with learning environments are briefly discussed.