Instrumentation

Since Outward Bound was founded in 1941, outdoor and adventure facilitators have been telling the world that outdoor education has many benefits and can be instrumental in helping personal growth amongst participants.  The product of experiential education through outdoor adventure programs can be found in three forms.  It can be cognitive, which is simply the learning of facts.  It can also be physical where the participants are acquiring new hard skills and it has the potential to be affective which incorporates emotional and social development (Priest & Gass, 2005). 

I strongly believe in outdoor education and its ability to help participants with personal growth, both interpersonally and intrapersonally, otherwise I would not be doing the job I am doing.  However, I also believe that one of the main issues in outdoor education today is the lack of reliability and validity in those studies which suggest all of these positive outcomes.  Are they truly objective and are the researchers measuring what they are intending to without bias or desire for positive findings.  A few examples would be as follows… Vogl and Vogl (1974), Iida (1975), Shore (1977) and Ewert (1983) looked at the potential effects of outdoor education.  It was thought that there were many problems with these studies, particularly involving the methodology. Some of the highlighted issues were small samples, few comparative methods, little statistical analysis and other unsophisticated research designs (Ewart, 1983).

Finally, another major issue which I believe exists is that of transfer – let’s say that as more studies are carried out on outdoor education in the future and positive findings are produced, what is to say that the participants can take what they have learned and bring it with them into real life situations.  Is any personal growth which is measured only valid at that given time or does it have long term effects.  How do we measure that?

In my job, the young people who go through our system remain on the program for as long as they need/want to (up to the age of 25) so we have the luxury of time.  It is difficult to know how much impact a week, or even a one day outdoor program, will have on a participant, especially in the long term.  Many outdoor providers already do gather information on their programs using feedback forms or satisfaction surveys etc; however it seems to me that this is somewhat informal and most likely unreliable.

I believe that outdoor education has a very positive effect on personal growth, in particular with young people, as I have seen transformations with my own eyes – sometimes in a very short space of time.  All we need is a valid, reliable, objective method which accurately measures the programs’ effects on the soft skills of participants – easier said than done?!

Ewert, A. (1983). Outdoor adventure and self-concept: A research analysis University of Oregon

Iida, M (1975) Adventure Oriented Programs: A review of research National Research Workshop: Pennsylvania State University

Priest, S & Gass, M (2005) California School of Professional Psychology: Handbook of Juvenile Forensic Psychology John Wiley & Sons

Shore, A (1977) Outward Bound: A reference volume New York: Topp Litho

Vogl, R & Vogl, S (1974) Outdoor education and its contributors to environmental quality: A research analysis National Educational Laboratory Publishers, Inc

Theories & Concepts

Having read various articles on the subject, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that adventure education can hold many benefits for participants and it would seem that those who partake in outdoor programs can instigate a cycle of personal growth, one outcome being increased self-esteem (Neill & Richards, 1998).

In simple terms, self-esteem has been described as having confidence in considering and dealing with the challenges that life can bring.  However, definitions have also gone deeper and described it as being a person’s confidence in their right to be content, having a feeling of worthiness with respect to self and society, being entitled to reach their goals in terms of needs and desires and also to be allowed to enjoy the benefits of their success and hard work (Branden, 1991).

Beard & Wilson (2006) stated that social interactions of a person were vital in the development of thought, ability to learn and the concept of self.  One way in which these social interactions could be improved is via the medium of experiential learning in adventure education.

The idea that adventure education and the concept of self-esteem are related has been studied for many years.  Kolb (1988) stated that an adventure based program can help to increase overall self-esteem, a person’s perception of his/herself and their popularity.   Also, a study by Wick et al (1997) showed that self-esteem was increased after participants were involved in a six week adventure program.  Wick et al (1997) showed that as a result of this adventure program classroom behaviour improved and the participants felt as though they had more friends.  Carson et al (1993) studied the effects of an experience in outdoor education on the self-esteem of teenagers and concluded that it did in fact increase after the program.

Despite experiential learning within outdoor education being used all over the world to help people improve their interpersonal and intrapersonal skills (including self esteem), very little is known about why these programs are effective and indeed even if they are effective (Neill & Richards, 1997).

In contrast, some say that inappropriate matching of the level of physical or psychological risk and the level of the participant’s ability may actually produce negative outcomes with regards to self-esteem and other personal development (Kemp, 1997)

The charity that I work for has used outdoor activities to facilitate personal growth (including self-esteem) for over 20 years so I tell myself that it must work.  My colleagues, some of whom have worked there for many years, tell me it works, but it always comes back to the same question… How can we measure it?

Beard, C & Wilson, J (2006) Experiential Learning: a best practice handbook for educators and trainers Kogan Page Publishers

Branden, N (1991) The power of self-esteem HCI Publications

Carson et al (1993) Raising self-esteem and preventing drug abuse among sixth graders: Effects of an Adventure Experience ERS Spectrum 11 (2) 38

Kemp, T (1997) Panacea or Poison? Building self-esteem through adventure experiences Presented at International Adventure Therapy Conference, Australia

Kolb, D (1988) Self-esteem change and mandatory experiential education Journal of experiential education 11 (3) 31-37

Neill, J & Richards, G (1997) Adventure Education and Outward Bound: Out-of-class experiences that make a lasting difference Review of Educational Research 67 (1) 43-87

Neill, J & Richards, G (1998) Does outdoor education really work? A summary of recent meta-analyses Australian Journal of Outdoor Education 3 (1) 3-9

Wick D, Wick J & Peterson N (1997) Improving Self-Esteem with Alderian Adventure Therapy Professional School of Counselling 1 (1) 53-56

Experiential Learning

Learning from experience is available to everyone: regardless of age, gender, social class, intelligence and many other personal attributes.  All that needs to happen in order for experiential learning to take place is a time to reflect, whether that be as an individual or as part of a group, facilitated by a leader or driven by the individual.  Although it is a natural, accessible means of learning this does not mean that it is always effective or consistent (Beard & Wilson, 2006) – for example a lack of time, awareness and facilitators.  However, it is suggested that the main strength of experiential learning is that it provides an underlying philosophy which takes individual learning, education, training and development theories and creates a powerful tool.

I am a firm believer that in order for experiential learning to be effective (indeed, take place at all) reflection is absolutely vital.  I believe that opportunities for reflection can help learners to study and form their beliefs, opinions, values, judgements and practices related to a given experience.  Moon (1999) suggests that reflection helps the learner to gain a deeper understanding and use it to shape their future actions.  This ties in well with Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle.

In my role as a development tutor for ‘at risk’ young people I constantly refer to this PLAN>DO>REVIEW>APPLY cycle with my clients, especially following team building activities.  It works very well with all activities and a lot of the time it is very evident that the young people understand the processes involved and the reasons behind the theory.  They often get very involved in discussions in the review at the end and it makes it possible for us, as facilitators, to relate what they have achieved during the activity to soft skills which they have used such as communication, leadership and teamwork.

I am constantly trying to think of new and interesting ways to facilitate reviews at the end of sessions in order to get the best possible outcomes.  However, I also often find myself asking the question “Should I be facilitating this review or should I be letting the young people self-review in more informal way without facilitation?”.  It all relates back to James’ (1980) article “Can the mountains speak for themselves?”.  This study looks at the differences between facilitated and non-facilitated reviewing but I personally find it very difficult to come to a conclusion.

Beard, C & Wilson, J (2006) Experiential Learning: a best practice handbook for educators and trainers Kogan Page Ltd

James, T (1980) Can the mountains speak for themselves? Scisco Conscientia, 3

Kolb, D (1984) Experiential Learning Experience as a Source of Learning and Development Prentice Hall

Moon, J (1999) Reflection in Learning and Professional Development Kogan Page Ltd

Comfort Zones

The comfort zone model is based on the belief that when a person is put into a situation which is challenging or stressful they will respond in a positive way on an intrapersonal level i.e. they will grow as individuals.  Brown (2008) takes this theory and asks the question: should the model be approached from a metaphorical angle, for discussion after an activity, rather than being used as a model to underpin outdoor/adventure programming.

Another question which arises is whether or not increased learning and personal growth does actually occur in these situations. There are obstacles to this learning process including poor communication.  If someone is outside of their comfort zone a common symptom is negative self-talk (Thomas, 2008).  Imagine a participant in a canoe on a on a small placid loch - they may perceive that that the water is too rough, thereby they are too concerned by the environmental conditions in order to understand the metaphor and learn from the experience.

A key thing for me, as a facilitator is to recognise that all participants are individual and that differentiation is key if I am to succeed in the industry.  As mentioned in my personal philosophy I work closely with "at risk" youths in an adventure setting.  I do have the comfort zone model in mind at all times when working but I do often think to myself: What if I get this wrong? What if I push an individual too far into the panic zone?  I run the risk of psychologically damaging them in the long term. 

As a team at work, we facilitate discussions around comfort zones prior to a high impact activity, such as a gorge walk or an abseil and then revisit the discussion in the review at the end.  Having completed the readings for this blog, I think it would be interesting to try running the session without frontloading and then use the comfort zones model in the review as a means of reflection for the young people.  Perhaps we should be letting this personal growth occur more naturally – maybe the outcomes will have more intensity through reflection.

Brown, M (2008) ‘Comfort Zone: Model or Metaphor?’ Australian Journal of Outdoor Education 12 (1) 3-12

Thomas, G (2008) Facilitate first thyself: the person-centred dimension of facilitator education The Journal of Experiential Education 31 (2) 168-188

Personal Philosophy

I came into the outdoor/adventure industry relatively late in my life.  As a bar manager for ten years, with virtually no experience of outdoor, adventurous activities and no NGBs I packed up my life and moved from Scotland to the south coast of England to take on a foundation degree in outdoor education.  The thought of a career in an outdoor setting, combining it with my passion for working with people, was enough for me to make the move – and boy do I feel like I made the right choice!

Being completely honest, the thought of soft skills facilitation in outdoor education was something I had given very little thought to prior to the course. My only personal experience of outdoor education was on a school trip residential when I was 10 years old and I certainly don’t remember any front loading or reviewing of activities – perhaps this was because it was 20 years ago, or perhaps these were happening at the time without me realising…  The last couple of years have really opened my eyes to what the outdoors can offer people on a personal development level – this has happened via academic research, lectures, practical experience, work placements and meeting others who have worked in the industry for many years.

It has become clear to me, that in order for me to be successful in my chosen career, as well as having the correct NGBs and hard/technical skills, I will also have to have the necessary leadership skills, indeed I will have to have strong soft skills myself in order to be able to facilitate them to others.  It was once considered that if someone had high technical competence and broad knowledge of the area in which they “led” then this made them a suitable candidate to manage groups in the outdoors.  However, although these hard skills are seen as the basic attributes of a leader in the outdoors, the idea that good leadership should incorporate strong soft skills such as communication and also meta-skills including good judgement of a given situation (Winsner, 2004).

I recently started a new job as a development tutor for a charity – we work with young people from inner-city Glasgow who others (schools/parents/guardians) have found difficult to engage.  Our soul aim is to help these young people to realise their potential and help them move onto positive outcomes (education/training/development) by facilitating their personal development.  We use many outdoor activities and work in line with Kolb’s (1984) learning cycle: PLAN >DO>REVIEW>APPLY.  I have personally seen these activities “work” from a personal development point of view, in particular in the short term and relative to that given activity.  My only issue is with the transfer of these soft skills into “real life” situations.  There have been many young people through our system, who are evidence of this transfer taking place, but how much of this positive change is down directly to the outdoors – and how can we measure it?

I personally believe that outdoor, adventurous activities can have a huge impact on personal development but I think its effectiveness comes down to not just the facilitator, but the participant also.  I believe that I am in a fortunate position, in that the young people I am working with can be on our program for as long as they need to be, giving me the luxury of time to help them with their personal development.  I do often wonder how effective a shorter outdoor program (a week, a day, an afternoon??) can be……

Kolb D.A. (1984) Experiential Learning Experience as a Source of Learning and Development New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Winsner, S (2004) The Royal Geographical Society Expedition Handbook Profile Books