From Science Venues to All-Category Settings:  Building a “Learning by Doing” Practice System for Study Travel in Shaanxi

In July 2026, the General Office of the Ministry of Education issued the Guide for the “Learning by Doing” Pilot Action in Science Education at the Compulsory Education Stage. The document requires all localities to make good use of in-school and out-of-school resources, to implement “learning by doing” in science courses, and to extend it gradually to other subjects. Study tours are the main form of out-of-school practice-based education. For a long time, most study tour products have followed the practice of “one-way lecturing and sightseeing with photo-taking”, which can no longer meet the new policy requirements and the needs of the industry. This study selected Shaanxi Province, which has a relatively comprehensive range of study tour resource types, as the research setting. Using stratified multi-stage random sampling, we selected 152 study tour bases and venues across the province, covering six major categories of scenarios: historical culture, red heritage, natural ecology, labor practice, science and engineering, and distinctive industries. We collected 193 valid teacher questionnaires, completed 76 in-depth interviews with practitioners, and conducted full-cycle tracking of 1,260 pilot students. The questionnaire showed good reliability and validity (Cronbach’s α = 0.82, KMO = 0.79, Bartlett’s p < 0.001). A six-month multi-scenario controlled pilot was carried out in different regions of Shaanxi—Guanzhong, northern Shaanxi, and southern Shaanxi. We constructed a layered “learning by doing” practice system covering the six major categories of scenarios, proposed categorized low-cost renovation pathways with total investment per single scenario not exceeding 5,000 yuan, and developed three general tools: an all-subject curriculum standard mapping table, tiered mentor training protocols, and an educational effect evaluation tool. Heterogeneity analysis found that the system had the most pronounced effect on upper primary grades (grades 4–6), with students’ active participation increasing by 81% on average and the 3-month retention rate of knowledge points increasing by 75%. A robustness test that replaced the core explained variable also supported this conclusion. This study shows that “learning by doing” can be applied not only to science and technology scenarios, but also to out-of-school scenarios in the humanities and social sciences, providing a replicable “Shaanxi solution” for the national study tour industry to break away from “tourism-oriented” competition and return to practice-based education.