from Roger Greenaway...
I recommended John Quay's article about outdoor education and
caring http://www.cdesign.com.au/acea2000/pages/con16.htm
to Bettina (off list) and then learned that Bettina's thesis
involves validating the tool that John developed. Bettina is
searching for a second tool to compare to John's. I am sure this
combination of qualitative and quantitative research on the
subject is of wider interest - and I am not very confident about
the advice I gave to Bettina. So I have brought this discussion
back on list and hope that others can help out / contribute /
disagree ...
[Bettina's original request is at the end of this message.]
Hi Bettina,
I forget the details of John's research now, but in general I
think you can turn most qualitative statements into qualitative
measures, just by asking ''how much?''.
Some areas are too sensitive or transient to pin down in this
way, so an alternative to generating a scale might be to choose
other events where you have felt a similar/greater/lesser sense
of caring.
Although the results might be harder to feed into numeric
computer programmes, such an approach can end up with more
meaningful results - because it helps learners and researchers to
create a map of their lives showing where the caring outdoor
experience fits in.
The only actual example I can think of that comes close is
Repertory Grids (based on Kelly's Personal Construct
Counselling). As with all/most research tools, if used before,
after and long after, you could use repertory grids (or similar)
to show how (and how much) people's caring attitudes have
changed.
I have only a basic understanding of Repertory Grid Analysis
(having used it once and taught it once) but this could be the
kind of instrument you are looking for. There is a useful UK book
by Bannister and Fransella about this, but the book is quite old
now and I hope a few other researchers have taken these ideas
further.
good luck,
Roger
> Hi Guys,
>
> My name is Bettina Moonen,I am currently a Human
> Movement/Outdoor Ed student at the Ausralian Catholic
> University in Melbourne Australia.I am currently
> undertaking an Honours Thesis titled "Awakening to
> Caring in the Outdoors". In this research I am
> examining the effects of a Outdoor Education Program
> upon the participants sense of caring and community. I
> am searching for a quantitative questionnaire that may
> measure these outcomes with either a "Yes-No"
> response,Likeart Scale, Ratio scale or any other
> quantitative scale. I would appreciate hearing from
> anyone with information in this area.
>
> Thanks
> Bettina.
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