Understanding students’ learning experience on a cultural school trip: findings from Eastern Indonesia

Despite the current increase of studies on school trips and experiential learning, questions remain about what aspects of school trips best contribute to students and how it affects students’ learning experience. This study attempts to explore students’ learning experience participating in 1-day cultural school trips in Papua, eastern Indonesia. Conducting trips to two cultural venues (a cultural museum and cultural village) and integrating topics in secondary schools’ curriculum (Papuan local content and Papuan art and culture), we evaluated student learning experiences against Bloom et al.’s (1956) taxonomy of educational objectives. The study found several emergent categories: students’ previous experiences, emotional experiences, impressions on seeing new perspective, reidentifying cultural identity, cultural awareness, personal effect, and framing and comparing learning strategy. The results provide insight into the effectiveness of school trip in the cultural setting in less developed countries and suggest areas for further study.