Hi John, Jim and outdoor researchers,
I suspect that we have more than enough evidence already that
outdoor education 'works' - and from many research perspectives
(subjective, objective, qualitative, quantitative, empirical,
theoretical), from many different countries and of many different
kinds of outdoor education.
You raise an interesting point, John, about power and scope. Is
'scope' about 'transfer of learning'? This has been studied a lot
in related fields. For example, Broad and Newstrom's book on the
Transfer of Training lists 79 strategies, many of which are
supported by research - and many of which involve long term
follow-up strategies. Examples of long term follow-up from
outdoor education with youth at risk would be Fairbridge in the
UK and the City Bound project in Flanders, Belgium. The more
'scope' we want, the more we have to work at it. Or does anyone
know of some handy short cuts here?
What I was really interested in, when kicking off this discussion
(but take it where you want), was raising the issue of what kinds
of questions we should be asking - that would really contribute
to the 'field'. Your recently web-published research article,
John, is a good example of a different kind of question being
asked - a question that highlighted the significance of a source
of power (possibly the strongest?) in outdoor education that is
often overlooked (peer relationships). I believe that
practitioners who read your article will be able to provide
better value outdoor education experiences as a result.
Another kind of question that gets overlooked (though not always)
is the extreme diversity of responses to the same programme or
within the same group - especially where programmes give
participants scope for adventure, responsibility and creativity
(learning is a creative process). As a practitioner, running
outdoor development courses, the kinds of questions I would ask
to staff were: ''Who in your group gained most and why?'' ''Who
in your group gained least and why?'' As a staff team we would
often discuss whether a wide range of outcomes from a single
course was a sign of an excellent course (evidence of
self-development taking off?) or a sign of a poor course
(groupthink, superficial learning etc.). Where is the research
that takes us deeper into these issues than we explored as
practitioners?
I realise I am starting to answer my own question. I do not want
to imply that there is a 'best' kind of research, but it does
seem that an 80:20 rule applies. I guess that 80% of research
studies on our field ask much the same question (''does it
work?'')
and 20% head off in many other directions. All studies have a
contribution to make and may discover unturned stones, but where
is the adventurous research about outdoor education that takes
the road less travelled? Are practitioners' questions more likely
to take us there?
Jim raises interesting issues about choice. You don't need to go
far down the less travelled route of 'choice' to come up with
some even more fundamental issues for the 80% of studies that ask
''does 'it' work?'' Does what work?
Yes, John, I accept the value of outcome studies. But let's
reverse the 80:20 and take less roads more travelled.
Roger
Roger Greenaway
Reviewing Skills Training
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http://reviewing.co.uk
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