The major focus of this study is on the outdoor education subject as a learning context in which caring and community are educational achievements. The review of the literature is necessarily selective as the scope of the research touches upon the discipline areas of community, caring, moral development and education, friendship, outdoor education, experimental education and camping. The research is based upon a two step process within which both quantitative and qualitative methods are used. The first step in the process utilises phenomenological methods. The second step in the process uses the survey method.

Syftet med den här studien är att ta reda på vilka verksamheter som ingår i utomhusundervisningen i åk 1-6 i skolorna i Pargas, vilka möjligheter och vilka hinder lärarna upplever samt hur eleverna upplever utomhusundervisningen. Undersökningen riktar sig till samtliga klasslärare i Pargas stad. Utgående från att allt fler rapporter visar på barns och ungdomars stillasittande, försämrade hälsa och stressymptom behöver vi medvetet fundera på hur vi kan förändra skolans arbetsmetoder för att befrämja välmående och hälsa. Uppsatsen strävar till att ringa in vad utomhuspedagogik innebär, att ge en liten bakgrund samt redogöra för några, främst nordiska forskares syn på utomhusundervisning. Studien innefattar en lärarenkät, några lärarintervjuer samt belyser elevernas åsikter med hjälp av en elevenkät. Eftersom kopplingen till läroplanen är viktig för att berättiga utomhusundervisning i skolan berörs också den i uppsatsen. Resultatet visar att många lärare upplever tidsbrist och stress p.g.a. utökade uppgifter i skolan, men de flesta är ändå positiva till att undervisa utomhus. De flesta elever är också positivt inställda till undervisning utomhus.

Relatively little research exists on the life significance of outdoor education (OE) programs and courses. There is increasing interest in the OE field to move beyond simply focusing on program-specific outcomes to developing more evidence-based models that analyze the influence of specific mechanisms of change. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the significant life effect of a university OE course upon participants after the course, including the effect of the course upon participants’ intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental relationships. The present investigation was a two part qualitative-quantitative study. The overarching research question was: What is the perceived life significance of a university undergraduate OE course? The current study involved in-depth interviews with a purposive intensity sample of 17 University of Ottawa alumni who had taken one of the university’s OE courses more than 20 years ago, followed by a web-based survey questionnaire completed by 46 University of Ottawa alumni and students who had taken one of the university’s OE courses between 1975 and 2009. Some of the survey participants had taken both the summer and winter OE courses offered by the University of Ottawa so there was a total of 65 separate course responses in the quantitative study. The findings from this study suggested that the OE course led to development of interpersonal skills, self-discovery, environmental impacts, leisure style change, and increased outdoor knowledge and skills amongst the participants. The idea that this outdoor knowledge and skills was transferred to others (e.g., students and children) also emerged from the data. In addition, in some instances participants expressed the idea that the OE course helped confirm or reinforce already-held beliefs about the outdoors. It is hopeful that the current findings can contribute to OE professional practice and demonstrate the need for OE in university settings.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

No description available.

The evaluation of Australian outdoor education activity has been conspicuous by its absence. While outdoor education in Australia is experiencing a dramatic growth in facilities and programs, while state departments of education are calling for 'school-based' evaluations, while accountability is becoming an increasingly likely prospect and while high-risk activities are acknowledged as common elements in outdoor education, Australian outdoor educators have yet to avail themselves of the benefits available through formal evaluation. One significant reason for this evaluation inactivity arises from the massive and often conflicting evaluation literature confronting outdoor educators. To help outdoor educators overcome both the daunting task of putting a sense of order into the myriad evaluation methodologies and the possibility of implementing an evaluation unsuited to the outdoor educator's needs, this study presents two dimensions from which the outdoor educator might usefully view evaluation methodologies. The first dimension is that of the prepositional and tacit knowledge value bases, which will help the outdoor educator to understand better not only his own aims/approaches to education, but also the type of knowledge valued as important by specific evaluation methodologies. The second dimension is that of program awareness, which will aid the outdoor educator to identify the levels of descriptiveness or depth and the type of personal involvement by the evaluator which the outdoor educator would be seeking through formal evaluation. Application of these dimensions includes a review and classification of evaluation literature within these dimensions, commencing with the 'pre-Tyler' period, thence Tyler, Glaser, Provus, Popham, Stufflebeam, Alkin, Cronbach, Scriven, Atkin, Eisner, Stenhouse, Stake, and Parlett and Hamilton. A number of outdoor education evaluations conducted predominantly overseas are then classified according to their propositional or tacit knowledge value base as a further demonstration of the applicability of the value base dimension for the outdoor educator hoping to gain useful information from evaluations conducted previously. Evaluations reflecting ambiguity in value base and outdoor education guidelines representative of the propositional and tacit knowledge value bases are also presented. Although suggesting the bi-polar nature of the value base dimension and the rather significant difference in degrees of program awareness available through formal evaluation, this study argues strongly that it is through an appreciation and understanding of alternative evaluation methodologies that outdoor educators might more capably be able to establish the nature of communication needed within a formal evaluation to best suit their needs and the needs of other audiences to whom evaluation reports will be directed.

Relatively little research exists on the life significance of outdoor education (OE) programs and courses. There is increasing interest in the OE field to move beyond simply focusing on program-specific outcomes to developing more evidence-based models that analyze the influence of specific mechanisms of change. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the significant life effect of a university OE course upon participants after the course, including the effect of the course upon participants’ intrapersonal, interpersonal and environmental relationships. The present investigation was a two part qualitative-quantitative study. The overarching research question was: What is the perceived life significance of a university undergraduate OE course? The current study involved in-depth interviews with a purposive intensity sample of 17 University of Ottawa alumni who had taken one of the university’s OE courses more than 20 years ago, followed by a web-based survey questionnaire completed by 46 University of Ottawa alumni and students who had taken one of the university’s OE courses between 1975 and 2009. Some of the survey participants had taken both the summer and winter OE courses offered by the University of Ottawa so there was a total of 65 separate course responses in the quantitative study. The findings from this study suggested that the OE course led to development of interpersonal skills, self-discovery, environmental impacts, leisure style change, and increased outdoor knowledge and skills amongst the participants. The idea that this outdoor knowledge and skills was transferred to others (e.g., students and children) also emerged from the data. In addition, in some instances participants expressed the idea that the OE course helped confirm or reinforce already-held beliefs about the outdoors. It is hopeful that the current findings can contribute to OE professional practice and demonstrate the need for OE in university settings.

This thesis reports on a study designed to investigate the nature of environmental education (EE) at one well-established school board operated outdoor education centre called Faraway Dale located in Ontario, Canada. The specific research questions that guided the study were: (a) What are the structures that characterize environmental education for educators at the outdoor education centre? (b) What are the main understandings of environment and education that guide outdoor educators work with environmental education? (c) What are the tensions and contradictions of providing environmental education through an outdoor centre? The primary data sources for this study were the nine outdoor educators who work at the facility. A variety of data collecting strategies were used, over a period of five months, to re-present their experiences of providing EE. Analysis of the data revealed that the nature of EE at the outdoor centre is significantly different from what occurs in mainstream, indoor settings. The overall goal for environmental education at the outdoor centre is to foster a culture that leads to healthy people and healthy environments by encouraging a more equitable interplay among people and nature. This overall goal can be divided into three structures that characterize EE at the centre. These are: connecting people to the environment, encouraging a care-based relational orientation towards the environment, and building agency for living low consumption low impact lifestyles. The findings also confirm that the nature of EE which educators espouse and practice is directly linked to their understandings of the terms ‘environment’ and ‘education’. The major tensions and contradictions of providing EE in an outdoor context are also illuminated. The discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for theory, practice and research in EE and the work of outdoor educators in the field.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how job-related experiences of outdoor education leaders influenced personal health and wellness within and outside the workplace. Guided by an adapted Social Ecological Model (McLeroy, Bibeau, Steckler, & Glance, 1988) and the Six Dimensions of Wellness (Hettler, 1976), five participants who had experience as outdoor education leaders were interviewed. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed. Five theme clusters emerged from the data: life cycle, relationships, transition, leadership, and health and wellness. This study was an important contribution to the overall outdoor education literature as it provided an opportunity to add the voices of outdoor education leaders to the quantitative literature currently available. / Graduate / 0515 / sfield@uvic.ca