Experiential Education Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This article reports research that critically examined our teacher education outdoor education pedagogy. The purpose was to use visual ethnography to critique our teaching over twenty years of annual five-day bush-based residential camps. The bush camps were situated in an outdoor education programme contributing to a four-year undergraduate teacher education Bachelor of Physical Education in Aotearoa New Zealand. The research method involved photo-elicitation of selected photographs representing students’ experiences and our practices. We each wrote about the photographs using introspection and recall to create a layered narrative analysis reflecting on the educative focus of the images. We responded to one another’ s narratives, challenging and/or supporting the reflexivity, to interpret our joint perspectives about the learning context, pedagogic rationale and outcomes. The research highlights our teacher educator perspectives about experiential learning. Some of this learning was directly attributed to our intentional pedagogy and some to the unpredictable, incidental, situated experience made possible by engagement in the outdoor environment.

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- Teacher Education, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education, Physical Education
- by Michael A. Gass
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- Education, Experiential Education, Multivariate Analysis, Experiential Learning

Guest speaker presentation provided as part of the Ships Liaison Officer Training for the 2014 Royal Greenwich Tall Ships Festival.

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) now known as COVID-19 changed the world and the outdoor adventure and experiential education (OAEE) fields were not immune. These changes significantly impacted various OAEE programs in multiple ways and at different levels of intensity. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to ascertain the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the OAEE fields and identify how OAEE organizations have responded to those impacts. Methodology/Approach: Using a three-phase study and a multi-method approach to data collection and analyses, respondents from 115 OAEE organizations (N=115) were asked to indicate how and in what ways their organizations have been impacted by the pandemic and in what ways their organizations have responded to those challenges. Findings/Conclusions: Many organizations responded not being ready for the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Significant impacts were noted from most of the OAEE organization...

- by Erik Rabinowitz
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- Education, Experiential Education

The aim of this research is to evaluate the impact of an outdoor experiential environmental education
(OEEE) programme on the affective domain of adult participants – namely, in-service teachers from
Turkey. Data collection methods such as; psychodrama, non-participant observation, open-ended
questions and content analysis were used within a qualitative approach in a case study format. Activities in
both the indoor and outdoor experiential programmes were designed in accordance with Kolb’s theory on
experiential teaching. While the indoor activities were used for control group 1, and traditional methods
used for control group 2; the outdoor activities were used for the experimental group. At the end of the
research, the following terms emerged in participants’ expressions: ‘interest, anxiety, curiosity, motivation
and complaint’. The most outstanding expressions belonged to the experimental outdoor group.

- by Simon Priest
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- Psychology, Education, Cognitive development, Experiential Education

Rites of passage practices have caught the attention of educators seeking better methods of teaching adolescents. The fascination with the rites of passage model (ROP) is especially strong among outdoor educators. Once Van Gennep (1960) defined the rites of passage, a three-stage system of social transformation mediating role changes in a community, anthropologists were able to observe his social conception throughout all cultures. Outdoor educators have demonstrated interest in framing outdoor programs as rites of passage because of the structural similarities between outdoor programs and Van Gennep's first and second stages of a rite of passage. While the ROP model has similarities to outdoor programs, the model is generally ineffective in most contemporary contexts because of challenges associated with the third stage of the ROP model. It is important for outdoor programs to understand these challenges prior to investing effort into using ROP models to achieve expected lastin...

- by Brent Bell
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- Anthropology, Education, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education

The article examines the planning, development, and outcome of an experiential learning project that brought together undergraduate studio art students and the workers of a power plant about to shut down. As one of the instructors for the project, I reflect on how our emergent pedagogical methods interfaced or conflicted with students interests, and plant employees. Principles of phenomenological research inspired my early steps to the study. However, its operative conceptual framework follows the thoughts of socially engaged artists Suzanne Lacy (2010) and Pablo Helguera (2011), guiding an analysis of the relationships between students and workers with instructors as observer-participants. I investigate how these roles and relations developed through different modalities that ranged from familial sentiments to memorializing impulses, including the industrial conditions that inspired various sensual and aesthetic student responses. I argue that the production of artwork as autonomous objects, which constituted the self-evident outcome of this community-focused experience, contributed only a transactional

- by Rebecca Bourgault
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- Experiential Education, Community Art, Arts and the Community
- by Fred Sweitzer
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- Experiential Education, Applied Learning, Internsips
- by M. Breunig and +1
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- Education, Experiential Education

As part of the initiative to make gap years more accessible for more students, the GYA surveyed schools in 2013 to learn more about admissions policies and how those include information about taking a gap year and how to defer admissions... more

- by Sara M Flowers
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- Experiential Education, Gap year, Ephebagogy
- by Karen Warren
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- Education, Experiential Education

It is difficult to provide disengaged youth, who are at risk of not fulfilling their potential, with the social support necessary to remain active contributors to society. They are more likely to fail and drop from education greatly reducing the prospect of becoming constructive, productive community members. Consequently strategies to promote engagement with learning and education need to be investigated. This study explores the impact on an individual's self-concept and social networking skills through participation in an experiential learning program at sea conducted in Australia's national sail training ship STS Young Endeavour and how this may influence student engagement with learning and education. Using qualitative interviews, engagement with learning and education of five participants from different educational backgrounds was examined pre and post voyage. The results suggest participation in the Young Endeavour program had a positive effect on development of social relationships, general self-concept, motivation to study, and sense of purpose for learning. Key contributing factors appear to be experiential learning activities specifically designed to support the development of greater self-concept and social skills such as climbing aloft, working together as a 'watch' and taking control of the vessel.

As the quote goes, it is better to build strong children than to repair broken men and women so we need to address the transitional types of skill building and preparation for the adult and working world that can happen in our... more

- by Sara M Flowers
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- Experiential Education, Gap year, Ephebagogy
- by Andrew Langille
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- Industrial And Labor Relations, Sociology of Work, Employment Law, Labour Law

“As we know, well-led groups provide many member benefits: feelings of universality, a sense of hope, altruism, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and mutual support...This text is affordable, easy to use, and very suitable for... more

- by Rich Furman
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- Sociology, Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Much of what has ever been written about attention affecting syndromes is subject of debate. Attempts at an explanation have varied within scientific disciplines from the very beginning. After almost three decades of a principally drug-driven practice of treatment, in recent years, ethical, social, pedagogical, and—obviously—medical concerns, regarding such an alignment’s adverse aspects, sharply regained in public as well as academic relevancy. In this paper, I am giving credit to the findings of Hüther et al., who, since 2009, investigated potential alternative ways of giving therapy to attention affecting syndromes by taking ADHD diagnosed children out into nature, discontinuing their medication for several months—and returned with results that were astonishing, showing that alternative ways of dealing with attention affecting syndromes generally existed. These findings altogether resonate with my own observations and long-standing experiences in working with adolescents in an experiential educational and Steiner/Waldorf pedagogical context, which I exemplify in order to endorse and make a reinforcing case for Hüther’s preliminary findings and hypothesis.

Th is article’s main theme is an analysis of accessible published degree work and contributions in education journals with a focus on what is known as “experiential education”. We
start by introducing the concept of experiential education and trying to defi ne it. We then turn to the analysis of student degree work (masters, doctoral examination work and dissertations) and look specifi cally at the methodology and particular research tools used. Together with the qualifi cation work we analyse articles published in selected Czech educational journals – Pedagogika, e-Pedagogium, Pedagogická orientace, Gymnasion – likewise with a focus on experiential pedagogy. Our aim is to analyse the methodological techniques exploited in Czech experiential education as presented in the student degree work and in the articles. Overall we analysed 1,088 student works, 107 of which met the criteria that we had
chosen and related to the fi eld of experiential pedagogy. Of these 76 were empirical in research character. Because the overwhelming majority of these works used their own questionnaires or survey questions as research tools, and also interviews and observation, this methodology has only minimal potential for future studies in the fi eld of experiential education. 7 authors used standardized tools for their research. We list these in the text. We analysed a total of 336 articles from the selected educational journals, and of these
only 6 met our chosen criteria and related to “experiential education”. None of them contained empirical research, and so there was no methodology or research instrument. Unlike
in the case of the student qualifi cation works we registered no increased interest yet in the theme in the educational journals.

- by Ivo Jirásek and +2
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- Education, Higher Education, Educational Research, Pedagogy

While existing in a patriarchal society, women are taught that they are merely their body, an object to be viewed, accepted or rejected and ultimately discarded. Research has shown a need for body image resilience curriculum and media literacy courses. However, most of the
curriculum or content being created is for college-aged women and younger and taught in a passive way. This study introduced outdoor experiential education to body image resilience curriculum by looking at the experiences of women ages 25-40 in a body image resilience
workshop. By examining these experiences, this study offers recommendations for Beauty Redefined, a Salt Lake City 501c3 who’s curriculum was used for the body image resilience workshop, and how they can have a more sustainable impact on the participants. This study
found that community and connection were an important outcome of an experiential outdoor curriculum.

- by Jim Sibthorp
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- Education, Experiential Education, Case Study, Student Learning

"This study describes the development of a grounded theory of applied critical thinking in leadership studies and examines how student-centered experiential learning in leadership education bridged critical thinking with action. Over three semester undergraduate students in an upper level leadership studies course at a large four-year public institution in the southeastern United States completed a written assignment in which they were asked to define the concept of “leading critically.” A grounded theory of critical leadership – utilizing critical thinking
skills to make decisions about leadership actions in different situations – emerged after completing a qualitative document analysis of these papers and incorporating the researchers’ existing knowledge of leadership and student development
theory. The hope is that this research will create dialogue concerning new approaches to leadership education and encourage practices that apply critical thinking skills to leadership."

- by Daniel Jenkins
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- Critical Theory, Adult Education, Leadership, Critical Thinking

Kurt Hahn (1886-1974) gehörte als einer der Pioniere der Reformpädagogik und vielseitig begabter Politiker zu den schillernden Persönlichkeiten seiner Zeit. Politischer Berater General Ludendorffs, enger Vertrauter von Reichskanzler Prinz Max von Baden und Außenminister Brockdorff-Rantzau gründete er in den zwanziger Jahren die Internatsschule Salem. Von dort aus entstand eine internationale Erziehungsrepublik, die wohl kaum ihresgleichen hat - mit weltweit bekannten Internaten, mit dem International Award for Young People, den Outward Bound Schools und den United Word Colleges.

- by Michael Knoll
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- Experiential Education, Progressive Education, Kurt Hahn, Reformpädagogik

Kurt Hahn, der 1886 geborene und 1974 verstorbene Reformpädagoge und Gründer der Landerziehungsheime Salem und Gordonstoun, ist nicht der " Urvater " der Erlebnispädagogik, als der er manchmal erscheint. Aber er ist sicherlich ihr... more

- by Michael Knoll
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- Experiential Education, Kurt Hahn, Outward Bound Education, Erlebnispädagogik

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a set of ethical standards for international volunteer tourism. The standards are focused on promoting fair trade learning principles in the management and operation of volunteer programmes. Because of the unique social mission, research, and evaluation capacities of higher education, we propose first applying these principles specifically to international volunteer programmes operating at the university-community nexus. These standards have emerged through a collaborative, in-person and online process during the last two years with input by numerous concerned global citizens, international education practitioners and researchers, nongovernmental organization representatives, and community members. The document shared below represents current ‘best practice’ for maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative impacts of volunteer tourism programmes for both host communities and volunteers.

- by Cody Paris and +2
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- Tourism Studies, Tourism Marketing, Tourism Management, Tourist Behavior

It can be suggested that the Sail Training experience is the flagship model for Marine Experiential Education; particularly in relation to Youth Development. For some time it has been suggested by many Sail Training operators that “Sail Training is a life changing experience” [1 - 8]. However; other providers suggest that the experience can change attitudes and provide essential life skills which enable a young person to change their own life [9 - 11]. It cannot be denied that Sail Training as an experiential education tool has the potential to have a profound effect on a young person, particularly those who originate from a disadvantaged background. However, does the experience in itself change a young person’s life or could it be part of a much larger systematic change; which can in turn alter a young person’s lifestyle and/or direction in life. In essence – is it more accurate to ask: Can a marine experiential education experience change a young person’s behaviour?

- by Laura E Lyth
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- Experiential Education, Sail Training
- by Pete Allison
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- Experiential Education, Outdoor Education
- by Pete Allison
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- Experiential Education, Outdoor Education

Outdoor education uses the ‘outdoor’ space in various ways. This chapter
explores some aspects of the outdoors as a fantasy space. I will compare this
way of using spaces with concepts of play and storytelling and suggest that,
whilst drawing on these traditions, what has developed has unique elements
that suit it to the modern western world. I will describe the way in which the
meta-narratives of the hero’s journey are used to create a structure in which
people can explore their autonomy, power and creativity that is their agency.
In particular I will discuss how the hero’s journey offers a rite of passage
from youth to adult at a time when this transition has become increasingly
problematic. As outdoor education has provided this opportunity largely
unintentionally and unsystematically, this interpretation will help identify
some weaknesses in normative provision. I will conclude by identifying ways
in which the hero meta-narrative might improve practice.

- by Chris Loynes
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- Youth Studies, Youth Work, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education

The notion of wild pedagogies entreats teachers to act – to wild pedagogies – by acknowledging that more than a singular will characterizes pedagogical situations. Wilding pedagogies requires going beyond ideas of teacher-centred and student-centred pedagogies to encompass nature-centred pedagogies: recognizing the self-will of wider nature. In attempting this wilding, we suggest teachers can learn from the previous movement from teacher-centred pedagogy to what Larry Cuban describes as teacher-centred progressivism; a hybrid pedagogy that emerged as a result of compromises between teacher-centred and student-centred pedagogies. Attempting to incorporate nature-centred pedagogies presents difficulties and opportunities for educational responses and we highlight a way forward that might be achievable via Dewey’s notion of education through occupations.Occupations are important to Dewey’s theory of experience, drawing together purpose and meaning into occupational wholes. This, we argue, presents challenges for teaching.

- by John Quay
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- Environmental Education, Teacher Education, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education

Bereavement is theorised in many ways that have cultural as well as theoretical differences (Kuebler-Ross, 2014; Neimeyer, 2012; Smeding, 2010; Wolfelt, 2012). As there have been radical socio-cultural changes from five generations ago to today the trend to privatization, individualization and hospitalization of dying, death and grief have forged ahead immensely. For this reason, the demand for grief counselling is increasing (Lammer, 2014). Nevertheless, children and adolescents are the so-called ‘forgotten mourners’ in North American and European societies and need special attention for this reason. The hypothesis that the outdoors can have healing effects for grieving children and adolescents will be tested and the encountered findings will be presented. This theoretical and qualitative research will shine a light on the similarities and differences between North American and European healing concepts for the bereaved in the context of outdoor activities. The socio-cultural ‘Theory of Change’ method will be used which takes a look at the topic from three different perspectives. Thus, their connections will be challenged from a grief and mourning perspective, from a human-nature relationship perspective and an outdoor educational perspective. From this theoretical background, a concept for an outdoor adventure experience for grieving children and adolescents in a transcultural context developed in cooperation with OUTWARD BOUND Germany will be introduced. Here the core values stand for the right to have fun, the awareness of fellow sufferers and the presentation of the outdoors as a healing space. The development of this program is a thought piece at this time and aims to enrich the literature on the healing effects of the outdoors for grieving children and adolescents. In practice, it will be realized for the first time in the summer of 2017 with OUTWARD BOUND Germany.

Ancestral knowledges are systems of knowledge based on the epistemologies (ways of knowing), and written, oral, and spiritual traditions of Indigenous peoples. Because of colonialism, slavery, genocide and other systems of oppression, Ancestral knowledge of some Indigenous peoples has been threatened and even erased. Ancestral knowledge has also been preserved and passed on. For example, as many Indigenous nations in the U.S. were forced into other areas of the U.S., and as Africans were enslaved in the U.S. and Latin America, they maintained varying levels of their Ancestral knowledge. Researchers suggest that it is crucial for these knowledges to be identified, maintained, and centered in schooling and other educational activities for Indigenous and Minoritized youth. Ancestral knowledges should not be viewed as a side, marginal, or elective class. Nor should they be viewed as static, finalized bodies of knowledge. Rather, they should be the centerpiece of a dynamic knowledge (and curriculum) for all students, including non-Indigenous students from dominant cultural groups. The purpose of this research brief is to highlight some of the research related to the importance of Ancestral knowledge in all schools, and particularly those that serve Indigenous and other Minoritized youth. We wish to highlight the importance of wholly accepting Indigenous youth as Ancestral (inheriting, adapting/adding to, and conveying knowledge) as well as intergenerational (gaining insight from elders, and thus assuming place in a line of knowledge transmission between generations).

For many years now, those of us engaged with outdoor education curriculum work in Australia have been debating questions
which orbit around the issue of defining outdoor education. We claim to be doing so in order to clarify what we are pursuing
educationally, our purpose, not only for ourselves but for others, so that we can legitimately stake out our position, our own
little piece of educational turf, amongst the other subjects in the school curriculum. However, this debate has never been
easy and any attempts to bring it to a resolution inevitably, it seems, settle some issues while heightening tensions in other
areas. In this paper I explore two of the more recent approaches to the question of outdoor education’s positioning in the
school curriculum: the question of distinctiveness and the question of indispensability. Then, through an historical excursion
involving Australian and US curriculum history, I highlight some of the difficulties created by shifts in language use. Finally
I argue, using definitions of outdoor education that emerged in the United States in the 1950s, that the distinctiveness of
outdoor education lies in neither a body of knowledge (content) nor skills and practices (process) but in a deeper level of
educational understanding which emphasizes ways of being.

This paper recommends a reconceptualisation of “experience learning”. It is premised on a belief that the simplistic learning cycle is problematic and moreover is an oversimplified interpretation of Kolb’s original model of experiential learning. We
argue that to understand experiential learning fully a return to the original theoretical conceptualisation by John Dewey is
necessary. Importantly Dewey conceives of an experience, and therefore the learning that results from it, as a transaction between the individual and their environment and is therefore a consequence of their ‘trying’ and ‘undergoing’ within that experience. Dewey also emphasises the importance of ‘meaning’ within experiential learning, something not fully accounted for within the simplified model. We argue that with an appreciation of Dewey the full potential of learning by, and through, the experience of outdoor education can be maximised and the full meaning of that experience explored.

- by Jon Ord and +1
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- Experiential Learning (Active Learning), Experiential Education, Experiential Learning

Many aspects of experiential education (EE) are well researched but there is scant research looking into the relationship between EE and learning engagement. This research is a case study of a wide ranging EE program for year nine students and the correlation found from self-reported data through participation in the program and learning engagement.
The theoretical interpretive framework (TIF) used in this study was derived from recent learning engagement literature and features three dimensions and eight axes allowing for the interpretation of primary and secondary sources of collected data. This study lies within the interpretive paradigm with data collected through a number of methods from six different sources, to allow for the con rmation of the study ndings. Secondary data sources of existing school records including absentee data, interviews with year nine students of previous years and written work students had submitted describing their recollections of the EE program experiences. Primary data were gathered through questionnaires for students who had participated in the EE program, teachers who had worked with, or were working with, students who had participated in the program, and a focus group of current year nine students.
Some signifcant ndings include ve broad themes relating to personal development, transfer of learning, relationships, metacognition and experiential learning, with many respondents reporting positive improvement in each of these areas. Besides these, learning engagement in the affective, behavioural and cognitive dimensions is reported on with the TIF a useful instrument to organise and report the study ndings.

- by Tony Robinson
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- Experiential Education, Outdoor Education, Motivation (Education)

Scholars in outdoor studies have long engaged with the notion of experience in education. This effort is necessitated by its status as a ‘field based’ endeavour, one that often attempts to challenge educational orthodoxy. The construct of experience offers a possible way through the thicket of educational questions entailed within any programme of reform, but its interpretation remains an unresolved issue.
Any focus on experience draws education together with philosophy, as the two are intimately entwined. John Dewey – widely regarded as the chief architect of experience in
education – argued, ‘if we are willing to conceive education as the process of forming fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellow-men [sic.], philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of education’ (1916, p. 383). In this chapter we build on Dewey’s pragmatism to outline an account of experience for outdoor studies, crafted also from Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology.

- by John Quay
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- Philosophy of Education, Martin Heidegger, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education

The demand for group work in social work practice has steadily increased while the group work education
provided in social work programs has exponentially declined. Social work education and social work practice
are intimately linked – one cannot be examined without considering the other. The historical, theoretical, and
clinical intersections of social work with groups and the triadic system of J.L. Moreno (sociometry,
psychodrama, and group psychotherapy) will be explored. Moreno’s work will be framed through a social
work lens with primary concepts defined. Two trauma-specific psychodrama models (Therapeutic Spiral
Model and Relational Trauma Repair Model) will be outlined with their emphasis on strengths, containment,
and safety. The clinical research and integrated neurobiology research will be presented as a growing evidence
base for psychodrama and experiential trauma therapy. Next, an overview of the state of sociometry,
psychodrama, and experiential group psychotherapy education will be outlined to provide a global and
historical contextualization with an emphasis on experiential education and its complimentary nature with
social work education. Finally, an MSW course curriculum will be provided to mediate the existing hole in
social work education resulting from the decline of group psychotherapy training.

- by Scott Giacomucci
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- Group Therapy, Psychodrama, Social Work, Trauma Studies
- by Kate Cassidy
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- Education, Experiential Education, Adventure Education, Group development

Allison, P. & Seaman, J. (2017). Experiential Education. In A. Reid & M. McKenzie (Eds. Of Environmental Education section) Encyclopaedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory (pp. 1-6). Singapore: Springer.... more

- by Tony Saddington
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- Experiential Education, Experiential Learning

Scale of Cooperation is a model and a concept for understanding how
groups of people work together. While originally from the Netherlands,
it is becoming increasingly popular in Europe. The concept has been
developed for many years and it is still growing.
The source of the model was an experiential education practice from
YMCA Netherlands. It is based on a few well-known theories like Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs or Hero’s Journey and years of trainers’ practice and
observations. Pieter Schoe and Floor Vullings, the authors of the model, are
working with it day by day with youth, public administration and business
groups

- by Agnieszka Leśny and +1
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- Training and Development, Experiential Education, Outdoor Education, Experiential Learning