An official publication of the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors (CEO)

Copyright © 2014 by the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors and Sagamore Publishing

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Research in

OutdoorEducation

Volume 12 • 2014

A PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICation

Research in Outdoor Education (print ISSN: 2375-5830, online ISSN: 2375-6381) is an official publication of the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors (CEO), published and printed by Sagamore Publishing LLC, 1807 N. Federal Drive, Urbana, IL, 61801. Inquiries should be emailed to Sagamore Publishing Customer Service at journals@sagamorepub.com.

For more information about CEO, please contact:Charles H. Yaple, PhD, Executive DirectorCoalition for Education in the OutdoorsDepartment of Recreation, Parks and Leisure Studies2217 Professional Studies BuildingState University of New York at CortlandCortland, NY 13045, 607-753-4968Charles.Yaple@cortland.edu

Subscription Information:

Send address correspondence concerning subscriptions and change of address to:Membership/Subscription Department, Research in Outdoor Education, Sagamore Publishing LLC, 1807 N. Federal Drive, Urbana, IL 61801. Make check or money order payable to Sagamore Publishing or order online at www.sagamorepub.com.

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EDITOR Alan Ewert

Indiana University

Assistant EditorYun Chang

Indiana University

REVIEWERS

M. Deborah Bialeschki American Camp Association

Tim O’Connell Brock University Keith C. Russell Western Washington University

Research in Outdoor EducationVolume 12 • 2014

Jim Sibthorp University of Utah Frank Vernon University of Wisconsin

Alison VoightIndiana University

The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors

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Research Committee

M. Deborah Bialeschki American Camp Association

Camille J. Bunting* Texas A&M University

Christine Cashel* Oklahoma State University

Alan Ewert Indiana University

Michael Gass University of New Hampshire

John Gookin The National Outdoor Leadership School Karla Henderson North Carolina State University

Kendra Liddicoat University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point

Coalition for Education in

the Outdoors

Leo H. McAvoy* University of Minnesota Timothy O’Connell Brock University Karen Paisley University of Utah

Keith C. Russell Western Washington University

Jayson SeamanUniversity of New Hampshire Jim Sibthorp University of Utah

Sharon Todd SUNY Cortland

Anderson B. Young SUNY Cortland

*Emeritus committee members

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Contents

Editorial Board.......................................................................................................iii

Research Committee ............................................................................................. iv

Foreword ...............................................................................................................vii

People in Nature: Relational Discourse for Outdoor Educators ................. 1 Thomas Beery

Exploring the Social Impacts of a Summer Camp for Youth with Tourette Syndrome .............................................................................................15 Michael Griswold, C. Boyd Hegarty, Chris Harrist, Nate Trauntvein, David Griswold

A Longitudinal Study of Rural Youth Involvement in Outdoor Activities Throughout Adolescence: Exploring Social Capital as a Factor in Community-Level Outcomes ...........................................................................36 Jayson Seaman, Erin Hiley Sharp, Sean McLaughlin, Corinna Tucker, Karen VanGundy, Cesar Rebellon

Group Social Climate and Individual Peer Interaction: Exploring Complex Relationships on Extended Wilderness Courses .........................58 Benjamin Mirkin

The Development and Scaling of the Teaching Outdoor Education Self-Efficacy Scale ............................................................................80 Scott Schumann, Jim Sibthorp

Energy Expenditure in the Backcountry ........................................................99 Mandy Pohja, Cara Ocobock, John Gookin

Research in Outdoor EducationVolume 12 • 2014

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Foreword

We are pleased to present this issue of the Research in Outdoor Education (ROE) journal. This marks the 12th volume of ROE and also represents an im-portant point of transition for the journal. Following this volume, ROE will be published annually instead of being a biannual publication. In addition, ROE will now be published in cooperation with Sagamore Publishing, with Dr. Tim O’Connell from Brock University serving as the new editor.

Relative to this current volume, six articles are presented for your perus-al and reflection. We start with an essay by Thomas Beery titled “People in Nature: Relational Discourse for Outdoor Educators.” We stay in the theme of discourse and involvement in nature with Michael Griswold and his col-leagues in their paper, “Exploring the Social Impacts of a Summer Camp for Youth with Tourette Syndrome.” Jayson Seaman and his fellow researchers explore the connection between rural youth and outdoor activities with their study, “A Longitudinal Study of Rural Youth Involvement in Outdoor Activities Throughout Adolescence: Exploring Social Capital as a Factor in Communi-ty-Level Outcomes.” Benjamin Mirkin examines the social climate of a group and individual peer interactions in his article, “Group Social Climate and In-dividual Peer Interaction: Exploring Complex Relationships on Extended Wil-derness Courses.” Changing tack a bit, we have an article by Scott Schumann and Jim Sibthorp on “The Development and Scaling of the Teaching Outdoor Education Self-Efficacy Scale.” This ROE volume concludes with a study by Pohja, Ocobock, and Gookin titled “Energy Expenditure in the Backcountry.”

As is usually the case, and certainly with ROE, the success of any journal is heavily contingent upon the quality of both the submissions and the reviews. Over the years, ROE has been fortunate to have a pool of dedicated and com-petent reviewers and this year is no exception. We are indebted to the follow-ing people who served as reviewers for this volume, including M. Deborah Bialeschki, (American Camp Association), Tim O’Connell, (Brock University), Keith Russell (Western Washington University), Jim Sibthorp (University of Utah), Frank Vernon (University of Wisconsin), and Alison Voight (Indiana University). Many thanks and kudos for all their efforts.

Finally, a special thanks to Yun Chang for serving as the assistant editor with this volume of ROE. She immeasurably contributed to this effort through her attention to detail, ongoing communication to the authors and reviewers, and overall insight and suggestions made during the editorial review process. Thank you, Yun!

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And, of course, we acknowledge the faculty and staff at New York State University at Cortland who are involved in both ROE and the Coalition for Ed-ucation in the Outdoors. Of particular note are the efforts of Andy Young and Charles Yaple, for without their efforts, ROE would probably not exist.

Alan Ewert, EditorResearch in Outdoor Education

Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 1–14

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Relational Discourse for Outdoor Educators

Thomas Beery is a postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Science in the School of Education and Environment, Man and Biosphere Health Program at Kristianstad University, Kristianstad, Sweden. Please send correspondence to thomas.beery@hkr.se

Outdoor educators are concerned about a perceived human disconnection from nature. There is awareness of a lack of human affiliation, connection, or identity with nonhuman nature and its impact on attitudes and behaviors. This essay raises the possibility that despite our concern, we may contribute to-ward this disconnection via language that supports a separation of the natural and the cultural. Our ability to separate ourselves conceptually from the rest of nature may be partially to blame for environmental degradation, therefore challenging the nature-culture dichotomy is both useful and constructive. This essay will present examples of how outdoor educators can attempt to get past this problematic dichotomy and motivate more relational discourse within the practice of outdoor education.

nature-culture, environmental connectedness, relational discourse, landscape, wilderness, Leave No Trace, biosphere reserve

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Can we rethink people into nature in such a way that we can better manage the earth? (Head, 2000, p. 3).

An important recent outdoor education text, A Pedagogy of Place (Wat-tchow & Brown, 2011), presents a vision for outdoor education that celebrates the meaning and significance of the places we live, work, study, and recreate. Wattchow and Brown’s strong call for educators to recognize the value of empa-thetic relationships with place has been an important contribution to the field of outdoor education. Their work represents a long line of scholarship that has explored the meaning and importance of place, theory, and practice, in our lives. This essay, an effort to consider more relational discourse, or language, in outdoor education, is largely motivated by Wattchow and Brown’s alternative vision of educational practice when they stated “… we want to make a case that outdoor education must adapt and evolve with the social and ecological imperatives of the times” (p. 28). In the spirit of this challenge, efforts to tran-scend dualist understanding of nature and culture are useful to push educators to consider their own use of language that may perpetuate a separation of na-ture and culture.

There is a long history of nature/culture dualism in Western thought, from Greek philosophy, to the ideas of Descartes, to more recent expressions, for example, consider the common distinction between natural sciences and social sciences used throughout educational systems. Despite widespread application, the nature/culture dualism is a separation that defies the empirical evidence of interconnectedness of earth systems, from evolutionary theory to current environmental challenges. Head (2012) articulated the central contradiction of dualist thinking by noting that despite empirical evidence that “demon-strates increasingly how inextricably humans have become embedded in earth surface and atmospheric processes, we maintain separationist ways of talking about things” (p. 65). In response to this nature/culture dualism, Head (2000, 2012) makes a strong case for the importance of a conceptualization of na-ture that integrates human with nonhuman nature. She notes that while this idea may seem highly intellectual, it has real-world consequences and results in “maps, fences, legislative and administrative instruments, gates, and bound-aries” (2012, p. 66). Further, our ability to separate ourselves conceptually from the rest of nature is implicated in environmental degradation. Consider how rapid human consumption of nonrenewable resources ignores scientific un-derstanding of systems and cycles as just one example of how such a separation may be able to manifest. Given such concerns, a better understanding of how these conceptualizations shape our educational approaches is worthy of con-sideration. This essay presents examples of this concern and implications for outdoor educators inspired by scholarship from cultural geography and appli-

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cation in protected areas management. Such examples are important to con-sider and may provide pathways toward a more relational discourse integrating nature and culture. A good place to start such reflection is within the idea of connectedness to nature, the very consideration of how people conceptualize their relationship with non-human nature.

As we pay attention, we’ll find the tracks, the script of our wild neighbors, to tell us so; we’ll begin to answer the essential question of how to live on a changing

earth, where humans and nature are tangled so messily and so wondrously. (Lyanda Lynn Haupt, 2013, n.p.)

An important current in outdoor and environmental education, environ-mental psychology, cultural geography, and popular culture is the work ex-ploring ideas of connectedness to nature. Ideas emphasizing the experience of generalized, or nonspecific nature and the possible affective and/or cognitive relationship between the individual and nature is referred to as environmental connectedness and/or connectedness to nature. This environmental connected-ness perspective encompasses a broad grouping of related ideas from how one thinks about oneself relative to nature (identity), to how one conceptualizes one’s relationship with nonhuman nature (affiliation, connection, and related-ness) (Beery & Wolf-Watz, 2014). While there are some key differences be-tween these connectedness ideas, they share a similar hypothesis, the position that spending time in nature will, given repeated experience, help an individual feel part of/connected to/affiliated with nature. Additional connectedness to nature study exploring how specific places (vs. generalized nature) may sup-port human attachment/affiliation, and/or identity is closely related (Halpen-ny, 2010; Lewicka, 2011; Stedman, 2003; Scannell & Gifford, 2010; Williams & Vaske, 2003). The strong interest in this area of study is built upon a growing concern for the perceived human disconnection from nature.

A belief in an erosion of childhood nature experience (Pyle, 1993) and a generalized perception of a societal disconnection from nature has emerged over the last few decades. The provoking work of Louv (2005), Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, raised public con-cern about this growing disconnect. Louv’s (2005) basic thesis, shared by many education and health professionals (Charles & Loge, 2012a, b), proposes that a limited access to, and experience of nature has a detrimental impact on many aspects of human development. Another measure of the broad and general-ized cultural reach of the societal importance of connectedness to nature in the United States can be noted in President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors memorandum of April 16, 2010. President Obama noted concern for reduced experience of nature and connection to cherished outdoor places. This memo

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was a good example of the widespread use of connectedness as a cultural term of reference. Preceding this recent popular culture attention on the disconnec-tion from nature phenomena, is related longstanding interest and effort with-in the fields of environmental and outdoor education. There is a substantial line of scholarship exploring disconnection that is often framed as a gap in the nature experience to attitude or behavior progression (Beery, 2013; Bragg, 1996; Chawla, 1999; Clayton, 2003; Davis, Green, & Reed, 2009; Ewert, Place, & Sibthorp, 2005; Kals, Schumacher, & Montada, 1999; Mayer & Frantz, 2004; Nisbet, Zelinski, & Murphy, 2009; Palmer, 1993; Schultz, 2001; 2002; Stedman, 2002; Sward & Marcinkowski, 2001).

The works of Aldo Leopold provide a philosophical foundation for this noted progression of nature experience to action (Goralnik & Nelson, 2011) and while Leopold didn’t use the term nature when he wrote of connectedness, he framed his ideas using the term land. Leopold stressed moving away from a commodity metaphor for land and emphasized the concept of community in his hope for a more relational perspective, he noted, “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see it as a community to which we belong, we may use it with love and respect” (1949, p. xviii). Leop-old’s ideas have encouraged many outdoor educators to re-conceive the human relationship with nonhuman nature emphasizing an essential connectedness. This idea of an essential connectedness from Leopold’s message is captured by Freyfogle (2003) noting that people do not form a distinct entity from the rest of nature and are embedded in nature as much as any living thing. Leopold’s deliberate emphasis on belonging and community are reminders of the impor-tance of relational language, and yet non-relational discourse persists and may interfere with our efforts as outdoor educators.

Something...must be wrong somewhere, if the only way to understand creative involvement in the world is by taking ourselves out of it (Ingold, 2000, p. 58).

Despite current popular culture and scholarly interest in the human rela-tionship with the nonhuman nature, the discourse of outdoor education often relies upon a language of separation, what Head and Regnéll (2012) refer to as a “separationist paradigm” (p. 222). Educators concerned about environmental understanding, attitudes, and behavior may be blocked, in part, by discourse and practice that prevents an integrated understanding of nature and culture. Head (2012) notes that many of our dominant metaphors contain inherent dichotomies of nature and culture. One of these problematic ideas used exten-sively in outdoor education is wilderness. Exploring this idea provides an ex-ample of the potential for language to separate people from nonhuman nature.

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Is it time for new definitions of nature that allow people their history? (Fairhead & Leach, 1996, in Jeanrenaud, 2002, p. 17)

The term wilderness is used and interpreted in many different ways, from generalized wild land to specific legal description of protected areas in places like the United States (Dudley, 2011) (it is significant to note that 2014 marks 50 years of legal wilderness land designation in the United States). Within a North American historical and philosophical tradition, various wilderness in-terpretations or themes can be found, themes ranging from the idea of wil-derness as evil and a focus of human conquest, to the notion of wilderness as providing human liberation and transformation (Nash, 1967; Roberts, 2012). It is clear that human interpretation of the wilderness idea using themes from economics, religion, and philosophy have shaped widely contrasting views throughout Western history (Callicott & Nelson, 1998; Nelson & Callicott, 2008; Oelschlaeger, 1991). Given this breadth of interpretation, there is poten-tial for misuse of the term, and given that wilderness is an idea that is widely used in outdoor education, this should be a concern for outdoor educators. Misuse or misunderstanding of the wilderness idea may be contributing to an inability for some people to conceptualize an integrated understanding of cul-ture as a part of nature. For example, one of the most visible uses of the term, that of empty and/or pristine land, creates artificial boundaries between people and the world in which they live. Head and Regnéll (2012), outline how the 19th century romantic ideal of wilderness as timeless, unchanging, and remote, has shaped land management policy in the United States and Australia despite the contention that modern ideas of wilderness as empty or untouched land-scapes have little historic precedence (Dudley, 2011). The empty wilderness idea is associated with outmoded equilibrium ecology and ignores the ecologi-cal interaction of at least 11,000 years of human habitation of the Americas and Australia (Callicott, 2000). This conception of wilderness contributes to static and time-arbitrary notions. For example, the arrival of Europeans as the begin-ning of the end of the expansive wilderness of North America, South Ameri-ca, and Australia creates an arbitrary baseline. By the time of contact between Europe and the Americas, much of the Americas had been modified: species hunted to extinction, forests managed for resource extraction, fire used to favor certain habitat types/species, etc. (Denevan, 1992). General characterization of wilderness as empty or untouched in a historic context risks overlooking im-portant and long term human historical interaction with places.

Cronon (1995) makes a detailed argument that this social construction of wilderness (the wilderness idea as product of social forces) is based upon an inappropriate characterization of pristine places. Cronon articulates a well founded concern with the romantic use of the term wilderness as a stand in for

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virgin or pristine as profoundly problematic for the indigenous peoples pushed from those very lands they once called home. The issue of dispossessed people is central to understanding the problematic practice of dehumanizing nature; for example, there is a long chapter of American land history that involves the dispossessment of indigenous peoples from public lands. Spence (1999) pres-ents an alternative history for many of the signature national parks of the Unit-ed States and contrasts the patriotic ideal of national park wilderness to the reality of episodes of genocide and forced migration of indigenous peoples. Beyond the abuses suffered, Head (2012) argues that the historic failure to ac-knowledge an indigenous presence allowed an inaccurate concept of natural landscape to emerge in places like Australia and North America.

The negation of indigenous cultural heritage is just one example of the problematic use of the idea of wilderness. Another related and potentially problematic application of the wilderness idea can be found in a critical con-sideration of the perception of nature in everyday experience. Marris (2011) warns that a generalized focus upon pristine wilderness may contribute to the idea of nature as “out there” somewhere. We come to romanticize the remote and perceived pristine, while often disregarding the wild nature in our daily experience of the world. Marris warns that urban, rural, and suburban citizens “can lose the ability to have spiritual and aesthetic experiences in more humble natural settings” (p. 150). One specific example of wilderness-related discourse used in the practice of outdoor education that may be contributing to this idea of nature as separate, pristine, and “out there” is the metaphor of Leave No Trace.

If we allow ourselves to believe that nature, to be true, must also be wild, then our very presence in nature represents its fall (Cronon, 1995, p. 80).

Leave No Trace (LNT) provides a detailed structure for talking about hu-man responsibility and respectful behavior in regard to public wild lands. The LNT intent to challenge and guide behavior is useful and important on a very practical level, and yet, if we think critically about this phrase, Leave No Trace! What is really being said? The metaphor emphasizes a separation of people and nature and as noted by Cachelin, Rose, Dustin, and Shooter (2011), there is great potential for unintended consequences that “may exacerbate a feeling of separateness from nature” (p. 12). Cachelin et al. (2011) provide a comprehen-sive review of why we need to question the language of LNT in order to better reach intended broad outdoor education outcomes of environmental aware-ness, appreciation, understanding, and behavior. In addition to questioning, Cachelin et al. (2011) provide constructive ideas for addressing the critique.

Examining the idea of wilderness and questioning the language of LNT is used to consider how we best support respect for nonhuman nature while en-

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couraging an integrated understanding of nature and culture. If we continually remove the human element from our representations of wild nature, or imply nonbelonging, we may run the risk of strengthening the perception that people are not a part of nature. Just how such a message impacts an individual’s affec-tive and cognitive understanding is worthy of consideration and brings this concern into the realm of outdoor education once again. Cronon (1995) writes:

The place where we are is the place where nature is not. If this is so—if by definition wilderness leaves no place for human beings, save per-haps as comptemplative sojourners enjoying their leisurely reverie in God’s natural cathedral—then by definition it can offer no solution to the environmental and other problems that confront us. To the extent that we celebrate wilderness as the measure with which we judge civ-ilization, we reproduce the dualism that sets humanity and nature at opposite poles. We thereby leave ourselves little hope of discovering what an ethical, sustainable, honorable human place in nature might actually look like.” (p. 80)

New language is needed to counteract discourse that (intentionally or uninten-tionally) supports a message of separation between nature and culture. It may be that lessons from cultural geography and inspiration from protected areas management can provide examples of practical application of more relational language.

Nature plus culture equals landscape in this account. What we witness when we examine landscape is a process of continual interaction in which nature and

culture both shape and are shaped by each other (Wylie, 2007, p. 9).

To simply make a claim for the social construction of wilderness (i.e., the wilderness idea as a product of social forces) as a concern does not provide practical support for moving forward in our educational endeavors. The reduc-tionist idea that everything is socially constructed does as much disservice as ignoring social construction as a factor altogether (Cresswell, 2004). Further, it can be argued that a critique of discourse simply represents an exercise in semantics, however the power of language makes this a real concern. Critique, however, must come with constructive suggestions for how more relational messages can be used in outdoor education, hence the turn to cultural geog-raphy. The cultural geographical idea of landscape may be be able to serve as a tool to guide us toward a more relational discourse and potentially, a more integrated understanding of people as part of a dynamic biophysical world.

The common or everyday vernacular use of the term landscape conjures up the idea of scenery, or visual backdrop. From historical consideration of

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use of the term, however, landscape emerges as a much more complex idea, an idea that may provide support to a more relational understanding of nature and culture. Adevi (2012) notes that the landscape concept has been associated with relationships between natural and cultural processes since the 16th cen-tury. Tengberg et al. (2012) note that the older Nordic concept of Landskap has a complex meaning, “including many different kinds of interactions between people and place” (p. 16). More recently, the European Landscape Convention (Council of Europe, 2000) defines landscape as “an area, as perceived by peo-ple, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (p. 9). Closely related, the World Heritage Committee of the United Nations (2012) defines cultural landscape as “cultural properties [that] represent the combined works of nature and of man” (p. 14). This history and these definitions move us toward a more relational perspective, namely an inte-grated understanding of human and nonhuman forces in the ongoing creation of the world.

Recent scholarly work in cultural geography emphasizing the use of the landscape concept may be able to further guide us toward a more relation-al discourse. For example, Setten, Stenseke, and Moen (2012) argue that the landscape concept “...keeps people in: because landscape is both symbolic and material, the human is folded into the concept itself...a direct response to the problems that arise when culture and nature are separated” (p. 6). Head (2012) argues that the idea of cultural landscape is useful for putting people back into the biophysical big picture and supports dialogue about responsibility for en-vironmental damage and restoration. Dudley (2011) notes that cultural land-scapes provide a mechanism for considering the role of humans as part of nat-ural systems. Wylie (2007), states:

…once we stop thinking of landscape as a part of a separate, God-given nature, or as simply a neutral backdrop or setting for human activity, and begin instead to examine the ways in which landscapes are impli-cated within and reflective of social, political and economic circum-stances, then we also begin to move from a naive and simplistic under-standing of landscape towards one which is more subtle, engaged and above all critical. (p. 103).

It is such a critical understanding that may be able to help us acknowledge landscape as a dynamic process in which culture cannot be separated from nature. Another source of inspiration for relational discourse can be found in the practical application of the landscape concept into protected areas man-agement.

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...cultural landscapes are at the interface between nature and culture, tangible and intangible heritage, biological and cultural diversity

(Tengberg et al., 2012, p. 15).

Phillips (2003) describes new paradigms for protected areas management that recognize the complexity of places and may be able to broaden our vision of culture as a part of nature. For example, UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere program (MAB) provides an illustration of this integrating idea in action. From the MAB website: “As places that seek to reconcile conservation of bi-ological and cultural diversity and economic and social development through partnerships between people and nature, they are ideal to test and demonstrate innovative approaches to sustainable development from local to international scales” (2013, n.p.). The MAB program provides the concept of landscape as a functional definition showcasing the integration of people and nonhuman nature. Hambrey, Evans, Price, and Moxey (2008) note the following vision statement from the Madrid Action Plan: “The World Network of Biosphere Reserves of the Man and the Biosphere Programme consists of sites of excel-lence to foster harmonious integration of people and nature for sustainable de-velopment through participation, knowledge, well-being, cultural values, and society’s ability to cope with change...” (p. 6). Important in this example is the reality that most of the world’s biodiversity is in areas used by people (Berkes & Davidson-Hunt, 2010). MAB sites therefore play a crucial role in the idea that in order to conserve biodiversity we need to understand the human role in these rich systems.

A specific and prime example within the MAB program is the Kristianstad Vattenrike in Southern Sweden. This MAB site has deliberately set boundaries for the core biosphere area not only inclusive of the ecologically significant wet-lands of the region, but also immediately adjacent to the small city of Kristain-stad. The Kristianstad Vattenrike attempts to communicate that the protective efforts are inclusive of the people living within the designation. The UN uses the the term “biosphere reserve” to identify sites in the MAB program, howev-er, when translated into Swedish, the Kristianstad Vattenrike site uses the term “area” in place of “reserve” in a deliberate effort to avoid any notion of set aside. This seemingly small action is another example of deliberate use of language to emphasize an understanding of integration of nature and culture. It is im-portant to note that outdoor education plays a significant role in the efforts of the Kristianstad Vattenrike Biosphere Area, through the combined efforts of school-based educational outreach, public interpretive programming, and an infrastructure supporting research, recreation, and education. This brief exam-ple of the Biosphere Area approach from the Kristianstad Vattenrike is just one of the many significant changes in global conservation discourse and practice

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within the last 20 years that have implications for the promotion of relational discourse.

Words and metaphor matter, and outdoor educators will do well to embrace ecologically accurate language that moves us toward greater social justice and

sustainability (Cachelin et al., 2011, n.p.).

As educators who care deeply about the human relationship with wild places, nonhuman nature, and the health and integrity of earth’s biosphere, we need to be deliberate about a discourse that supports the potential for a shared identity to guide action on behalf of a dynamic world. An integrated idea of nature and culture may be a useful step toward nurturing environmental ac-tion and responsible human engagement. Changing our discourse does not guarantee a change in perception, but as stressed in this essay, there is power in language. If our ability to separate ourselves conceptually from the rest of nature may be partially to blame for environmental degradation, then we have a responsibility to address this problematic discourse. It was noted earlier that Aldo Leopold used the term community to emphasize an integrated relation-ship between people and nonhuman nature, similarly, the integrated idea of landscape as a more relational framing of nature and culture may serve this function as well. Head (2012), however, would advise us to keep searching for the right terms to support more relational discourse. And as we search, we need to remember that we must go beyond simply changing language without examining underlying structures or relationships; finding foundational ways to reconsider outdoor education that integrates nature and culture is needed.

Regardless of the exact terms and practices we choose to use, outdoor ed-ucators must be deliberate in their efforts to characterize an essential human relationship with nonhuman nature. Wattchow and Brown (2011) argue that a place-responsive outdoor education cannot be effectively implemented if the active doing overlooks the “nuanced, highly contextualised and interconnected webs of people, places, and contested meanings of experience” (p. 195). De-liberate efforts toward a more relational discourse might be able to illuminate these interconnected webs to guide educational efforts and in so doing support Wattchow and Brown’s call for an alternative vision of outdoor education.

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Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 15–35

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Michael Griswold is director of Camp KV, of the Kennebec Valley YMCA in Augusta, Maine. C. Boyd Hegarty is an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation Management and Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Chris Harrist is an assistant professor and extension specialist in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M Universi-ty. Nate Trauntvein is an assistant professor in the Department of Recreation Management and Policy at the University of New Hampshire. David Griswold is an outdoor educator and author in California’s Bay Area. Please send correspondence to Mike Griswold, mbgriz@gmail.com.

Although a wealth of research exists documenting the positive social outcomes promoted by summer camps, research specifically examining youths with To-urette Syndrome (TS) within the camp context is lacking. This study utilized a phenomenological approach to explore the social impacts of a weeklong camp specifically for youths with TS, involving focus groups with 18 campers aged 10–16, interviews with 10 staff members, and participant observations com-piled by the researcher. Multiple themes and sub-themes concerning the so-cial impacts of the camp experience were identified, including (a) relatedness (not alone and self-assurance); (b) social development (friendships, optimism, educational experience, and bullying); (c) programmatic outcomes (unique program opportunities and cabin bonding); and (d) various implications for professional practice and future research are discussed.

Tourette Syndrome, summer camp, youths, tics, phenomenological

16 •

Youths with Tourette Syndrome (TS) experience a number of unique so-cial challenges, including isolation, discrimination, and bullying, all of which have interrelated and residual impacts on the quality of life for these youths. Of equal imminence and importance as the United States ramps up its effort to combat bullying in schools, is the need to better understand the unique prob-lems faced by specific segments of the youth population, such as individuals with TS, in addition to developing solutions for their well-being and safety. Although there is no one answer for addressing these issues, a combination of approaches, including the identification and development of support commu-nities for youths with TS, can provide at least a partial step forward.

TS is a genetically inherited neurological disorder whose most notable symptoms are involuntary verbal and motor tics. The severity of these tics varies from person to person, resulting in a complex diagnostic process. Ver-bal tics are often seen as involuntary sounds, such as sniffing, throat clearing, squeaks, and grunts, while motor tics commonly involve physical movements, such as rapid eye blinking, twitches of the mouth, shrugs, and the repetitive twitching of muscles and limbs (Lambert, 1998; Poutney, 2009). According to Dedmon (1990), in order for TS to be officially diagnosed, “multiple motor tics and one or more vocalizations occur every day or intermittently for more than one year” (p. 1).

Adding to the challenge of having TS is the scarcity of others with whom a diagnosed child might have consistent social contact. According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009), three out of every 1,000 children age six through 17 are diagnosed with TS in the United States. Thus, it is not uncommon that a youth with TS is the only person with the disorder in their school, making it potentially difficult for these children to engage with others affected by the disorder.

Despite the acknowledgment of this social isolation and its incumbent dif-ficulties, there is currently a dearth of recommendations for how these condi-tions can be adequately addressed. A study by Kenney, Kuo, and Jimenez-Sha-hed (2008) indicated that “Education of family, teachers, classmates, and other school personnel helps create an accepting environment for a child with To-urette syndrome who may otherwise be teased, ridiculed, disciplined, or simply told to ‘stop it’” (p. 655), but educational programs specifically about TS remain few and far between. Christner and Dieker (2008) suggest that open commu-nication can lead to improved quality of life for youths with TS in schools, but formal support for initiating greater dialogue and communication around TS is currently lacking on a wide scale.

Further, there are limited resources telling youths with TS where they can go for help and how they can personally work through their social challenges. The Tourette Syndrome Association, a national nonprofit with more than 30

• 17

support chapters across America, has been providing community program-matic efforts since 1972. However, as the primary organization providing ad-vocacy in the face of a growing TS population, the creation of additional social groups are needed.

This study was born out of the desire to learn whether communities composed of, and created specifically for youths with TS, particularly sum-mer camps, might hold at least part of the answer to filling these gaps and addressing the social challenges youths with TS face. For over 160 years, sum-mer camps have carried the reputation of positively shaping and developing the lives of youths coming from a range of backgrounds, and recent research has confirmed these assertions (e.g., Dworken, 2001; Henderson, Whitaker, Bialeschki, Scanlin, & Thurber, 2007). Recent studies report that summer camp programs produced a number of positive social outcomes for youths through intentional recreation and social based activities, including the development of friendships (Dworken, 2001), improved positive identity (Henderson et al., 2007) increased self-esteem (American Camp Association, 2005), and more effective communication skills (Garst & Bruce, 2003). In evaluating the impact and value of camp relationships, summer camp presents a unique opportunity for youths to interact with older camp leaders and role models in a manner that contrasts with authority figures, like teachers at school. Affirming the benefits of these relationships with camp staff, researchers Spencer, Jordan, and Saza-ma (2005) utilized tenets of the Relational Culture Theory (RCT) to assess the “well-established link between strong relationships with adults and better psy-chological health in young people” (p. 355). They found that youths most of-ten connected to adult leaders who exhibited “authentic engagement” (p. 358), seen as intentional listening skills and behaviors that represented similarities to the youths’ personalities (Spencer et al., 2005).

Additional research focused on segregated camp environments (those that offer programs exclusively for particular populations, such as people with dis-abilities and/or chronic illnesses) has yielded outcomes similar to those mea-sured at camps for more general segments of the population, including: in-creases in sociability (Gillard & Watts, 2013), social acceptance (Goodwin & Staples, 2005), and perceived self-competence (Meltzer & Rourke, 2005). No-tably, participants in Goodwin and Staples’ 2005 exploratory study highlighted the lack of activities and support groups in their local communities specifically for people with disabilities. This finding parallels the challenge youths with TS face in identifying support groups and social outlets accessible in their area.

Taken in aggregate, these and other similar studies suggest that youths with TS may benefit from experiences in a segregated summer camp setting. Unlike most social settings within which these youths are accustomed, sum-mer camp has the potential to provide a safe and fun social experience that aids

18 •

in the development of greater feelings of relatedness and social competence. Since youths with TS are faced with limited opportunities to meet and connect with others affected by the same disorder, a summer camp program catering specifically to youths with TS would present numerous opportunities to inten-tionally evoke positive social outcomes and changes. Currently, however, there are very few identifiable TS camp programs in the United States, meaning there is the lack of access for youths with TS to a tailored summer camp experience. Further, no known documented research exists assessing the social impacts of camp for youths with TS.

This study explores and describes the social experience for youths partic-ipating as campers in a one-week residential camping program designed ex-clusively for boys and girls aged 8 to 16 sharing a diagnosis of TS. The specific aim of this study was to answer the following two questions: (a) “What are the social outcomes for youths with TS at camp?” and (b) “What are the social factors at camp that influenced these social outcomes?” These questions are intended to describe youths’ social experiences at camp, and may provide im-portant implications concerning how their social development is affected by their camp experience. The findings in this study have the potential to fill an important gap in research addressing camp programs designed specifically for the TS population, and holds the potential for promoting new forms of support and social outlets for youths with TS as part of the larger effort to improve their quality of life.

For this study, a phenomenological research design was used to describe the social impacts on youths with TS participating in a weeklong residential summer camp program. Phenomenological research is a qualitative process in which a researcher seeks to fully understand and describe the lived experiences by a group of people pertaining to a particular phenomenon (Creswell, 2009). In order to obtain these understandings and provide substantial descriptions, the researcher develops questions that answer what happened within a partic-ular lived experience and how. As part of this process, the researcher purposely brackets any past experiences or biases that they may share in order to fully understand the meanings of the phenomenon (Creswell, 2009).

A purposive sampling method was employed in pinpointing the partici-pants for this study (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2003). The populations studied were youths diagnosed with TS and adult camp staff members working at a TS camp.

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A total of 18 campers assented to the study comprising of both new and return-ing campers aged 10–16. The data provided by these campers were gathered primarily through a series of semi-structured, focus group interviews.

Additional data were gathered through 10 one-on-one interviews with adult staff members of the camp. A total of seven out of the 10 participating staff members in this study had TS, and these staff members comprised of some of the camp’s administrators, senior cabin counselors, and members of the medical staff.

This research study took place at a one-week residential camp in the Mid-west United States, serving approximately 40 boys and girls with TS, ranging in age from 8 to 16. According to the camp’s mission statement, “The goal of the camp is to allow children with TS an opportunity to meet other children, share similar experiences and coping mechanisms in a safe and positive envi-ronment.” The camp is one of few across the United States that offer a weeklong overnight program specifically for youths with TS. Another unique feature of the camp is that their staff consists primarily of volunteers over two-thirds of whom have TS.

The daily activities of the camp include swimming, boating, horseback rid-ing, and a ropes course with a zip line. Additional structured activities include skill periods, cabin time activities, meals, and twilight activities. Within struc-tured activities, campers have the freedom to choose their own skill periods and cabin activities each day.

Data for this study was collected using five focus group interviews with campers, 10 individual interviews with adult staff members, and participant observations. Prior to the beginning of the data collection period, permission for this research was received by the University of New Hampshire’s Institu-tional Review Board.

Interview guides and questions for both focus groups and individual inter-views were adopted and modified from Gillard and Watt’s (2013) study exam-ining developmental experiences at a camp for youths with cancer. These ques-tions were designed to address the campers’ and staff members’ perceptions as part of their social experience at camp. All interviews were semi-structured where each camper and staff member was asked the same listing of questions with the intention of the researcher probing and asking follow-up questions to clarify details and meanings from specific responses. Examples of focus group questions that were asked included “Complete this sentence: Camp is a place I…What do you mean by that?”; “Has camp changed the way in which you feel about socially interacting with others? How so or why not?”; “Has camp changed the way you feel about having Tourette’s? How so or why not?” Each

20 •

camper that participated in these focus groups was also asked to complete a short demographic survey that allowed the researcher to organize them into age-specific groups. All focus groups took place outside of the camp’s infirmary during free-time activities and cabin rest hours throughout the week. These time frames were chosen with the purpose of not taking away campers from the organized programs that were part of the camp’s curriculum. Each focus group took approximately 35 minutes to complete and was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim to ensure accuracy in reporting all responses.

Similarly to the camper focus groups, each individual staff interview took place during free-time activities, cabin rest hours (when it did not conflict with focus groups), and during assigned time off for specific staff members. The researcher used a similar interview guide that was consistent with the ques-tions asked in the focus groups. Examples of individual interview questions that were asked included “Complete this sentence: Camp is a place where campers…What do you mean by that?”; “Does camp change the way campers feel about socially interacting with others? How so or why not?”; “Does camp change the way campers feel about having Tourette’s? How so or why not?” As with the focus groups, each individual interview took approximately 30 min-utes to complete and was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim to ensure accuracy in reporting all responses.

As part of a third method of data collection, the lead researcher recorded 10 observations in a reflexive journal. These observations focused on compo-nents of the lived camp experience, including reflections on informal conver-sations with campers and staff members, as well as general observations during both structured and unstructured activities throughout the week. These activ-ities included cabin conversations and relationships (which arose out of the cabin that the researcher resided in), skill periods, camp-wide activities such as themed activities and dances, and common area experiences such as meals. Since the researcher was an active participant in the camp, the researcher did not fully record experiences as they happened, but rather, compiled field notes by carrying his journal to all camp related activities, later expounding on these observations during assigned time off and at night after all campers went to bed.

The primary goals for conducting participant observations was to docu-ment and transcribe meaningful socializations, any apparent changes in the moods of campers, and program experiences that contributed to the social ex-perience of camp. This required factual and accurate documentation reflecting on the context such as the setting, activity, and social interactions that took place (Henderson, 2006). Additionally, the observations allowed the researcher to compare and identify social themes in conjunction with the notes and audio recordings from all focus groups and individual interviews.

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As a means for collecting data during the camp program, the researcher served as a senior cabin counselor for boy campers aged 12–14. The researcher and lead author, who is an experienced camp professional, served in this coun-selor role as a person living with TS. Through the coordination and participa-tion as a senior cabin counselor, the researcher was able to develop connections and rapport with the campers. The building of rapport was seen to establish greater levels of comfort and trust in sharing with the researcher during focus groups.

The strategy for analyzing the data involved Creswell’s (2007) version of phenomenological methods. According to Creswell’s method, which was ad-opted and modified from Moustakas’ (1994) phenomenological description, an exhaustive review of all transcripts from the focus groups, individual inter-views, and participant observations were performed. As outlined by Creswell, this extensive review process involves five primary steps of analysis. These five steps involved (a) transcribing all focus group and individual interview audio recordings as well all field notes and reflexive journal entries; (b) compiling data and listing all significant statements from each focus group, individual interview, and series of observations that described the campers’ lived social experience at camp; (c) open coding: taking the list of significant statements and categorizing them into specific themes; (d) analysis where written descrip-tions were made describing what and how these particular experiences took place; and (e) analysis involving a series of final descriptions that synthesized the experience(s).

The researcher utilized two primary methods to ensure the study’s trust-worthiness. The first process involved the triangulation of data through (a) fo-cus groups with campers, (b) individual interviews with adult staff members, and (c) participant observations. Secondly, a member checking process was performed at the end of each focus group and individual interview where key comments and accounts were reiterated back to the respondents to clarify the accuracy of the researcher’s understandings. Additional notes and observations were recorded to describe the participants’ clarifying responses.

There were threats to this study that should be acknowledged. One po-tential threat is that the researcher served as a counselor as part of the camp program. Because of this, it is possible that the researcher shared influence on the camp experience for both campers and staff members. Therefore, this could have affected the participants’ responses within focus groups and individual interviews.

22 •

A second threat to this study was that participation inevitably took away valuable time for participants to experience certain elements of the camp, spe-cifically, the cabin rest hours and free-time cabin periods which took place con-currently with the study’s group interview times. Although these cabin periods are important to the social experience at camp, the researcher chose these time frames so as to not interfere with structured camp programs. Also, due to the voluntary nature of the campers participating in this study, the campers main-tained the choice to participate in focus groups in place of these cabin periods.

A number of significant themes and sub-themes were identified based on the data gathered from focus groups with campers, individual interviews with adult staff members, and participant observations. These were Relatedness, So-cial Development, and Programmatic Outcomes. Subthemes are indicated under each theme heading. The various quotations from the participants presented here are meant to provide a greater context for understanding these social im-pacts and their causes.

The first overarching theme that arose during analysis of the study data was an emergent sense of relatedness reported by campers. A number of pos-itive experiences connected to feelings of relatedness were reported, and it was found that these experiences could be further broken down into two sub-themes of (a) not feeling alone, and (b) an increased feeling of self-assurance.

Theme 1a: Not alone I thought I was isolated to only having Tourette’s so I always use to think ‘Oh my goodness, I’m the only one…What am I going to do? No one will accept me.’ And then I came here [camp] …its really nice to know that I’m not alone. —16-year-old camperOne of the themes that emerged most frequently in conversations with

campers was their realization that they were not alone in having TS. Many campers commented that camp was the first place they had ever met someone else with the disorder, and that meeting others with TS in a camp setting helped to lessen feelings of isolation. More specifically, campers frequently maintained the attitude and perception within their responses that they were the only one in their school and hometown having TS. Therefore, the opportunity of meet-ing and developing relationships with other campers at camp helped them to establish a stronger sense of relatedness and social connection upon returning back home. In addition to this, other campers described that meeting new peo-ple with TS helped them to feel better about themselves. Along with this, it was a common experience that the camp provided youths with TS the opportunity

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to learn and share about their own experiences living with the disorder. As one 16-year-old camper commented,

My opinion is there is no better way to feel better about yourself than to talk to kids who have the same problems than you and it makes you feel again like you’re not alone…I feel like anybody can benefit from that kind of thing no matter what.

Staff members shared similar sentiments. After being asked if camp changes how campers feel about having Tourette’s, one staff member stated, “Oh defi-nitely… a lot of kids come to camp thinking that they’re the only ones. And then they come here and realize that they’re not. It’s a huge life changing expe-rience in my opinion.”

Additional observational data gathered by the researcher were consistent with these responses. It was evident that meeting other kids with similar symp-toms and tics evoked feelings of comfort among campers. One 14-year-old camper commented in an informal conversation, “I’ve never met someone who has the same tic as me… It’s awesome being able to ask how they deal with it and what other tics they have.” These social exchanges, which commonly took place during cabin periods, revealed themselves as important factors in the so-cial experience of campers. It was also seen to positively affect the development of relationships between campers and counselors.

As an extension to this theme, feelings of empathy were prevalent in camp-ers’ accounts of their experiences at camp. Campers frequently commented on the positive impact of being around others who knew exactly what they were going through. In contrast, campers also indicated that, though family mem-bers and peers back home were accepting of their Tourette’s, they didn’t truly understand what it was like living with the disorder: “It’s different here [camp] because there’s like, I know my parents and my sister try hard to understand what I’m going through, but they don’t have it so they don’t exactly under-stand it. Here there’s lots of kids here that understand exactly what you’re going through.”

Such responses indicated that a primary difference between their normal social contexts and the camp environment was simply the lack of people with TS outside of camp. The ability to meet others with TS presented campers with the unique opportunity to share an experience with people similar to them, leading to increased feelings of social inclusiveness and support. This was in contrast to described feelings of isolation in other social environments, such as school and back at home. Through researcher observations, it was seen that these feelings of inclusiveness and support often arose in connection with the recreational nature of the camp environment. More specifically, it was seen that the opportunity to share a mutually exclusive space and take part in fun recre-ational activities together contributed to the campers’ level of social connectiv-ity and feelings of belonging.

24 •

Another aspect of the social experience at camp that appeared to have a positive social impact on campers was the level of engagement amongst the camp’s staff. Through various observations, it was evident that staff members were very intentional about engaging in conversations with campers about their home lives and how their parents and friends responded to their disorder. This informal engagement, which commonly took place during cabin-related activities, appeared to build rapport and help campers to openly discuss their TS. In speaking with staff members about these conversations, they indicated that many campers do not have the opportunity to talk about their Tourette’s back at home, and that being around others with TS positively impacted their ability to talk more openly and grow more comfortable with their disorder.

Theme 1b: Self-Assurance “I can be myself here.” —16-year-old camperA second prominent theme emerging from the data was the campers’

shared feelings of self-assurance at camp. The camp’s staff put a great deal of emphasis on explaining to the campers that camp was a place that they could tic openly and freely without judgment. Although this was seen to be an im-portant element of the social fabric at camp, it also came as a culture shock for many campers, who indicated that they commonly felt the need to hide and suppress their tics back at home. A number of campers expressed that the social environment of camp helped them to grow more comfortable with, and less self-conscious of, their tics. As one 14-year-old camper commented toward the end of the week:

Camp has changed the way I feel about having Tourette’s because it makes me feel better about myself just knowing that people actually care that I have it and people won’t bully me… makes me feel good that I can just let it everything [tics] loose and without having to worry about “Oh why’d you do that?”; “What’s that?”, like “When did you start doing that?”… just all this stuff. Staff members added to this perception by describing the camp environ-

ment as a “safe haven” that helped kids with TS to feel “normal.” Further, staff members expressed ownership over the fact that a large part of their responsi-bility at camp was to ensure that campers felt they could tic openly and feel free from judgment. This responsibility was due to the perception that the majority of individuals with TS, especially youths, do not feel comfortable ticcing in front of others within their regular social environments. Observational data obtained as a fellow senior cabin counselor were consistent with these findings. However, it was observed that campers, especially ones that were new to the camp, took more time before ticcing openly in front of others, and a number of campers appeared to suppress and hold in their tics until the midway point of the week. In informal conversations with some of these campers, they indi-

• 25

cated that it took time for them to adapt to the new social norm of tics being accepted and encouraged. Many expressed further that the camp environment was unlike home and school where they were commonly told to “stop it.” The varying levels of comfort campers felt as part of the camp’s social environment was seen to be a critical factor in their self-confidence and the degree to which they eventually opened up about their TS.

Data gathered from the study also revealed several themes related to camp-ers’ social development at camp, spanning a range of positive and negative perceptions and experiences. Within the overarching theme of social develop-ment, sub-themes identified included the development of (a) friendships, b) optimism (as result of meeting older counselors with TS), as well as exposure to (c) educational experiences, and (d) coping with bullying.

Theme 2a: FriendshipsIf you were in school and you tried to make friends with somebody it might be more difficult because they see you as slightly different and therefore we have to take more time to adjust…And camp like where everybody is having these issues, having tics, having outbursts, it’s a lot easier. It makes you feel like this is the school and how it should be, feel, and it’s more natural. —16-year-old camperCampers and staff members frequently spoke about the impact of making

friends at camp. Campers in particular commented that they felt it was easier to make friends at camp than back at home. These comments reflected not only the commonalities between the campers, but a diminished feeling of self-con-sciousness about their disorder. Another contributing factor that was seen to affect the development of friendships at camp was the ability for the campers to quickly move beyond talking about their disorder. Campers indicated that they commonly needed to spend a lot of time clarifying what their disorder was to their friends back home, which they described as a stressful and uncom-fortable experience. In contrast, being surrounded by others at camp with TS drastically limited the need for these explanations, making it easier to develop friendships.

Informal conversations also revealed a great deal about the development of friendships between campers. By the end of camp, many campers made inten-tional efforts to exchange e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and social media contacts. Supporting this observation, campers commented that they highly valued staying in touch with camp friends throughout the year. Maintaining these connections appeared to correlate with a strengthened realization that campers were not alone in their disorder.

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Theme 2b: OptimismIt’s so nice because their [counselors’] tics aren’t as bad. It gives me hope that my Tourette’s won’t be as bad when I’m older. And it gives me hope that they are so poised and so mature in their Tourette’s and they’re successful and that gives me hope definitely. —16-year-old camperAnother major theme revealed by the data was the development of a more

optimistic outlook about living with TS. It was very apparent that the senior cabin counselors at camp had a profound impact on this particular element of the campers’ social experience. Within focus groups, campers consistent-ly used words such as “hope” and “motivation” to describe their relationships with their counselors.

On the other side of the equation, staff members indicated that being a positive role model for campers was one of the most rewarding benefits of their jobs. As adults living with TS, they were driven to demonstrate levels of un-derstanding and appreciation for what the campers were experiencing. Many staff members shared statements such as, “I can understand someone who can’t control their tics,” and “We know exactly what they are going through.” One specific staff member, who was once a camper at the camp, said the following about the impact of his role as a counselor:

When I was a camper, my counselor was a big role model for me…I didn’t know anyone with Tourette’s, and she kind of helped me out to understand what it was and you know she gave me that other perspec-tive. So I’m just kind of like paying it forward by being that person just letting them know like answering the questions that they have and letting them know that like it will be fine even though you have it… Like you can do whatever you want to do. You can be who you want to be no matter what.

In this way, cabin counselors contributed greatly not only in the delivery of the camp program, but also in positively shaping the campers’ outlook on their disorder. This attitudinal shift among the campers was seen to be a benefit to the social experience at camp.

Theme 2c: Educational ExperienceBefore coming here, I thought I had it bad with my tics. —16-year-old

camperWhile the majority of campers exhibited knowledge of the verbal and mo-

tor tics that come with TS, many were surprised to learn about the co-exist-ing symptoms of the disorder such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and anxiety. Many had also never been exposed to more severe forms of TS prior to coming to camp.

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Through informal conversations with staff members, it was apparent that the campers expressed excitement and intrigue in learning about these different characteristics of TS, especially during organized cabin periods.

In observing a rest hour period with the youngest boys cabin (aged 10–12), one camper excitedly approached the camp director and shouted, “I didn’t know about COD, what is COD?! I didn’t know that came with it.” The camp di-rector corrected the camper with a chuckle, indicating that they meant “OCD” before proceeding to explain what OCD was. This moment, along with others, highlighted how discussions between campers helped to broaden their scope of what it means to have TS. Moreover, it appeared that camp offered a unique opportunity and setting for campers to engage and socialize around their TS. The uniqueness of these socializations was consistent in focus groups, where many campers suggested that they have little to no opportunity back home to meet and talk with others with the disorder.

As mentioned previously, the camp experience also exposed the campers to different levels of tic severities. It was commonly explained in interviews that the exposure allowed the campers to realize how “good” or “bad” they had it, as it concerned specific tics and co-existing disorders. One of the leading causes for these reactions was witnessing the intensity of tics among the camp-ers with severe forms of TS. The tics exhibited by these campers were much more prominent, manifesting as consistent uncontrollable vocalizations and harsh movements. While in some cases this exposure to more severe cases of TS served as an educational experience, it was also observed that when these campers exhibited a tic, it frequently drew laughter and unwanted staring by others. This leads into the fourth sub-theme of social development drawn from analysis of camper and staff data: bullying.

Theme 2d: BullyingI know it sounds vice versa, but some kids in my cabin treat me badly for my tics while no [sic] one of friends treat me bad at home and they don’t have Tourette’s, which I find kind of ironic, but that’s just my ex-perience. —14-year-old camper with a severe TS symptomsThe severity of tics among the campers occurred along a rather broad

spectrum, ranging from campers who exhibited little to no signs of tics, to others who vocalized and twitched uncontrollably. Due in large part to this range of symptoms, reports of bullying were not uncommon in interviews with staff members, who observed older campers picking on other campers’ tics throughout the week. In speaking about the cause of this bullying, the camp director shared,

I do have issues of bullying between Tourette’s kids because, um, they’re bullied all through the year and then they see that other people have,

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you know, all these other kids have Tourette’s… their tics are made fun of throughout the year so now they have the opportunity to make fun of somebody else’s tics.Through additional observational data, the researcher found that a con-

tributing cause to this bullying was the level of receptiveness and toleration that the camp exhibited toward such behaviors. As suggested by many of the interviews and focus groups, campers were commonly the only case of TS back home. Upon arriving at camp, there appeared a period of transition, where certain campers struggled to rid themselves of their identity as a victim. As part of this transition, some older campers appeared to take advantage of their new social status by picking on others. These instances of bullying were common during times when the entire camp community was convened, such as before meal times and during twilight activities.

One camper with a severe form of TS expressed in a focus group interview that attending camp made them feel as though they were “the worst-case sce-nario.” It was clear from observing campers with more severe cases of TS that their unique circumstances affected their social experience at camp, and yet despite these unfortunate social dynamics, it was observed that they, too, still established friendships with others and that they enjoyed their week at camp. Upon further investigation, it appeared as though the camp’s staff did not have specific plans or strategies in place for addressing these campers, other than simply promoting acceptance and mitigating inappropriate reactions by others.

The overall goals of the camp’s program were to provide opportunities for the campers to “learn new skills, develop character, and make friends.” The camp offered a variety of programs, including structured skill periods (i.e., ar-chery, horseback riding, arts and crafts, etc.), outdoor recreational activities (i.e., boating and swimming) and specialized programs (i.e., themed twilight activities, cabin periods, and challenge course activities). These programmat-ic efforts elicited a number of positive and negative viewpoints from camp-ers, and sub-themes relating to this category of camp experience included (a) unique programming opportunities, and (b) cabin bonding.

Theme 3a: Unique Programming OpportunitiesAt camp you have a lot of activities like the Hunger Games that we never really do anything like that back at home and Gaga, which is the same thing, but there’s games like it, but not exactly like it and I think that’s a good thing about camp. You get to do unique activities that only that camp does. —13-year-old camper

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Many campers commented in focus group interviews that they thoroughly enjoyed the programs that were offered, and that many of the camp activities offered were typically unavailable back home, such as water blobbing (an activ-ity involving an air-inflated trampoline device for jumping into the lake), Gaga (an enclosed variation of dodge ball), arts and crafts, themed twilight activities, high ropes courses with zip lining, and the singing of camp songs. Many camp-ers also cited and outwardly expressed their enjoyment of twilight activities such as The Hunger Games, Gold Rush, camp-wide capture the flag, campfires, and the week ending dance.

Through observational data, it appeared that these sorts of camp programs positively affected the ability of campers to engage and socialize with each other. The opportunity to participate in the ropes course and ride the zip lines seemed to be a particular catalyst for camper bonding. The ropes course was composed exclusively of high-rope elements such as the Catwalk, Multivine Traversing, and an Inclined Log that led to the zip-lining platform. Many campers had to overcome not only the challenge of the course’s elements, but also their person-al apprehensions and fears (i.e., a fear of heights or a fear of failure).

Although it was observed that some campers embraced the challenge of these elements and completed them without hesitation, there were a number of campers who struggled to complete these tasks. Regardless of their perfor-mance, though, it was observed that campers were consistently supportive of and encouraging to one another. Campers were commonly seen shouting out words of encouragement such as “You can do this!”, “If I can do it, you can too!” and “It was so much fun, you have to try it!” These activities appeared to have a positive impact, as campers in many cases were seen talking about their experiences throughout the rest of the week, especially during meal times and cabin periods.

Theme 3b: Cabin BondingThey [campers] can’t just walk away from a situation as easily. They can’t just say, ‘Oh, I don’t, I don’t like this kid’… we’ll [counselors] kind of bring them together and they kind of have to be there for the week and so they have to learn how to adapt to more and work with other people. And they might not get off the right foot at first, we can show them how they can change either one or the other can change their ways and help them to work together more. So I think from a social standpoint, I guess it helps them with resolving conflict and especially it helps, I guess it helps them with their overall social skills. —Senior cabin counselorOne of the most influential parts of the camp’s program observed was the

live-in experience in cabins. The camp was composed of five different cabins that were assigned according to gender and age. As part of cabin life, the camp-

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ers were pushed to develop and practice habits necessary for successful cooper-ative living, such as the sharing of living space, cabin-cleaning responsibilities, and participation in cabin-related activities (i.e., cabin free time and sitting together at all meals). Among these, the most critical part of the cabin experi-ence observed was the bonds that arose between cabin mates throughout the week. As a live-in senior counselor for a group of nine boys aged 12–14, the re-searcher observed that the cabin’s participation in camp-wide activities assisted in the development of relationships between campers. For instance, during the twilight activity, The Hunger Games, each cabin was assigned as a competing “district” against other cabins. Within their cabin assignments, campers partic-ipated in a number of team-building activities, ranging from the making of dis-trict flags, to developing strategies for displaying cabin spirit, to the selection of cabin participants for both individual and group skills competitions. This intentional programming appeared to provide a positive means for campers to engage socially in a way that was also fun and meaningful.

Numerous staff members reported additional perspectives on the impact of the live-in cabin experience. One staff member commented that the cabin experience encouraged campers to “rely on others” to get through the week: learning how to cope with being away from home, how to establish relation-ships with fellow cabin mates and counselors, and learning responsibilities for maintaining the cleanliness of the cabin, while supporting the general perfor-mance of the cabin in camp-wide activities. These intentional programmatic aspects of the live-in cabin experience were seen to produce increased levels of rapport between campers and staff, as well as the learning of various social skills.

Staff members also suggested that the live-in experience helped teach campers how to resolve conflicts. Many staff members shared the opinion that campers with the disorder were often catered to by their parents at home. In contrast, camp provided a space for campers to take responsibility for their own actions and to resolve their own conflicts. Although it was observed that campers experienced various conflicts throughout the week (i.e., arguments over tics and general tension in making decisions as a cabin), it was seen that cabin-related programs, in conjunction with the intentional efforts of camp staff, served as important factors in providing a positive social experience.

There are numerous recommendations based on the findings of this study that the camp might consider to improve the outcomes of their program. As seen throughout the study, the social impacts of the camp program revolved greatly around the campers meeting others with TS for the first time. With this, the exposure of different levels of tic severities and co-existing disorders often resulted in campers coming to a new understanding of their own condition in

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context with that of others. Though this reconceptualization was generally pos-itive, there were also negative evaluations that emerged, particularly for camp-ers with more severe TS symptoms. To improve this educational component of the camp experience, camper and staff interviews suggested that incorporating organized TS group discussions may offer a great deal of value to the social experience at camp. Such discussions might give campers the opportunity to share experiences and feelings related to their disorder, and allow them a more intentional space to ask questions and build greater levels of rapport with one another. It is suggested that these group discussions could be incorporated during the free-time periods that are already built in as part of the camp’s cur-riculum.

A second recommendation relates specifically to campers with severe TS at camp. As seen in this study, these campers struggled socially due to the severity of their tics, so much so that one of the campers indicated that being at camp made them feel as though they were the “worst-case scenario.” Observations revealed that these campers were frequently embarrassed throughout the week due to the nature of their tics, resulting in a different level of social integration and impact in comparison to other campers. Based on these anecdotes and observations, it is recommended that camp administrators take intentional efforts in developing staff trainings for strategically addressing the needs of future campers with severe forms of TS. This may involve bringing in outside specialists who work primarily with extreme cases of TS, or providing explicit trainings and strategies for staff members to utilize in their work at camp. Or-ganized TS discussions may also help to provide a productive forum for these campers to openly talk about their condition and their specific social needs.

A third recommendation is for the camp to assess overall length and con-tent of its staff trainings. The training attended by the researcher was a one-day training that provided basic information about the disorder, medical proce-dures of the camp, and brief period of time in which to review camper profiles. Although the staff members for this particular TS camp travel from across the country in order to attend, based on the researcher’s past experience work-ing as a camp administrator and facilitating staff trainings, it is recommended that that the training period last at least a full weekend. With this, addition-al specific trainings should include, but should not be limited to, intentional team-building activities, practicing conflict resolution scenarios, discussing clear descriptions of staff protocols, and programmatic planning. Covering these specific topics will undoubtedly help to develop more cohesion amongst the staff and also prepare them with tools and confidence to more fully execute their responsibilities. Lastly, the camp should consider soliciting feedback from all staff members either after the conclusion of the training period or at the end of camp to assess how adequately the training met their needs. Based from these evaluations, changes or modifications can be made.

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A fourth recommendation is that the camp should consider developing ad-ditional programs and social retreats for campers throughout the year, to better support and maintain the positive outcomes emerging from the camp’s week-long summer program. As seen in the course of this study, numerous camp-ers spoke very highly of their social experience at camp and the impacts that it had in shaping their outlooks on living with TS. Knowing these outcomes, the camp has a unique opportunity to provide specialized programs to address the current lack of TS support groups. The implementation of these additional programs would provide opportunities to strengthen the camp’s mission, while also serving as a way to maintain the personal connections between campers and the camp as a whole.

Further to this recommendation, the camp should also consider supple-menting existing camp programs and developing opportunities to engage with families affected by TS. This may include weekend retreats or weeklong pro-grams for youths with TS to experience along with their families. As demon-strated by Lambert (1998) parents of youths with TS place a great deal of value on interacting with other parents who are going through similar experiences and challenges. Creating additional weekend retreats and family gatherings may provide additional avenues of social support for the families affected by the disorder, while also creating a means for introducing more people to the camp environment.

In the course of this study, the researcher witnessed that a number of campers exhibited less tics while participating on the camp’s ropes course and zip line. Based on these observations and past experiences of the researcher, who himself lives with TS, it is common that activities requiring a great deal of focus can limit the compulsion to tic. Based on this information, the camp may also wish to consider providing a greater number of programmatic oppor-tunities that help campers achieve similar “flow” experiences. Although it is difficult to provide specific suggestions for such programs, the camp may con-sider soliciting feedback from camper evaluations to discover if specific camp activities are seen to cause more or less tics. This may also serve as an important area of future research in assessing youths with TS in recreational settings such as summer camp.

A final recommendation is for the camp to include evaluations adminis-tered to the parents and families of the campers. Although it is seen that the camper is typically the beneficiary of the camp experience, it can be equally important and informative to assess what parents observe from their children after the conclusion of camps. In so doing, the camp would have the oppor-tunity to evaluate parental perceptions as a means of assessing the impacts of current programs being offered.

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This foundational study provided important knowledge and background in exploring the social impact of a weeklong summer camp program for youths diagnosed with TS. It should be understood that the findings in this study re-flect experiences specific to the camp setting in which the study took place. Until more data is gathered from other camps, the data gathered in this study is not generalizable to the greater population of youths with TS who attend summer camp.

The examination of the social impacts of camp for youths with TS is an evolving phenomenon that to date has seen very limited research. Therefore, it is recommended that future researchers conduct comparative studies between multiple camps offered exclusively for youths with TS. As seen within the lit-erature review of this study, there are very few existing TS camps across the country. Examining multiple camps within the context of one study will help to assess whether similar or different outcomes occur, and whether generaliza-tions across camps can be made. With this, the use of different data collection procedures may be used to focus on different aspects of the camp experience for this population. This may include researching areas such as the emotional implications of the camp experience, tic frequencies, or various other qualities of life affected by camp.

A second area of future research should evaluate the social impact of camp by conducting a posttest with campers after the conclusion of the camping pro-gram. Performing a postcamp analysis (e.g., 1-month, 6-month follow-up tele-phone interviews or surveys) may help to develop a more robust understand-ing of how campers perceive their camp experience, and the potential impacts it has in their lives outside of camp.

A third area of future research should involve the assessment of other rec-reational venues in which youths with TS participate. As seen in this study, campers spoke very highly on their experiences participating in fun recreation-al programs at camp. Because of this, it would be important to assess if, and how, social experiences within different recreational constructs may generate similar or different outcomes. Specific programs that may be important to re-search are community based programs and organized after school programs. Information from such studies may not only help to compare other recreation-al experiences to camp, but it may also generate tangible working knowledge for practitioners to use in accommodating the needs of this population.

The current study assessed the impacts of youths being around others with TS within the same camp environment. However, it would be important for future researchers to assess how these experiences may differ within different environments involving traditional participants. For example, this may involve assessing youths with TS who participate in traditional camp programs or rec-reational opportunities outside of the camp environment. Assessing different

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socially inclusive experiences may help to bring about a greater understanding of the differences between inclusive and segregated experiences for the TS pop-ulation.

In conclusion, this phenomenological approach in studying the social im-pacts of camp for youths with TS found a series of themes revolving around relatedness, social development, and programmatic outcomes. As a founda-tional study, it contributes to the growing knowledge of camp research in un-derstanding the social impacts of camp among different populations of people. While this study is not generalizable to the greater camping context, it presents important implications and cause for current and future camp professionals seeking to serve this population.

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Garst, B. A., & Bruce, F. A. (2003). Identifying 4-H camping outcomes using a standardized evaluation process across multiple 4-H educational centers. Journal of Extension, 41(3).

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Goodwin, D. L., & Staples, K. (2005). The Meaning of Summer Camp Expe-riences to Youths With Disabilities. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 22(2), 160–178.

Henderson, K. A., Whitaker, L. S., Bialeschki, M.D., Scanlin, M. M., & Thurber C. (2007). Summer camp experiences: Parental perceptions of youth devel-opment outcomes. Journal of Family Issues, 28(5), 97–101.

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Kenney, C., Kuo, S., & Jimenez-Shahed, J. (2008). Tourette’s syndrome. Ameri-can Family Physician, 77(5), 651–658.

Lambert, S. (1998). A social skills group for boys with Tourette’s syndrome. Clinical Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 3(2), 267–277.

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Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 36–57

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Exploring Social Capital as a Factor in Community-Level Outcomes

Jayson Seaman is an associate professor in the Kinesiology Department, Outdoor Education; Erin Hiley Sharp is an assistant professor of Human Development and Family Studies; Sean McLaughlin is a lecturer in Recreation Management and Policy; Corinna Tucker is a professor of Human Development and Family Studies; Karen VanGundy and Cesar Rebellon are associ-ate professors of Sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Please send correspondence to Jayson Seaman, jayson.seaman@unh.edu.

This study examined youth participation in both organized and unstructured outdoor activities throughout adolescence, in a rural region in the northeast-ern United States. Survey data were collected at 7th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grade from 186 respondents across the region and was analyzed explore the relationship between antecedent predictors, outdoor activity participation, and outcomes related to developmental and educational achievement. Higher outdoor activ-ity involvement was linked with positive outcomes but was also associated with other known predictors of development success including parents’ educational level, marital status, and involvement in future planning. The concept of social capital helps to explain overall patterns in the data, to broaden understanding of social dimensions of outdoor activity involvement, and to suggest directions for future research on positive youth development through outdoor activity.

outdoor recreation, rural education, positive youth development, so-cial capital, outdoor education

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Adolescents spend 40% to 50% of their waking hours in discretionary ac-tivities, representing an important context for youth development (Verma & Larson, 2003). While activity involvement has been associated with positive youth development (PYD) in recent years, organized and unstructured out-door activities have been acknowledged as especially promising avenues for PYD (Mainella, Agate, & Clark, 2011; Sibthorp, 2010). In the youth develop-ment literature, however, outdoor activities often are undifferentiated from other options like academic clubs and sports, with researchers emphasizing more generic characteristics such as adult supervision, program structure, and skill-building opportunities (Mahoney, Larson, Eccles, & Lord, 2005). Con-versely, many outdoor education researchers highlight the distinctiveness of outdoor settings, yet studies are frequently limited to brief time periods or relatively specialized interventions (Neill, 2002); clear links between outdoor activity involvement over time and the achievement of key long-term develop-mental tasks are comparatively underresearched.

The present study aimed to address some of the gaps in these literatures by examining patterns of participation in outdoor activity and their relation-ship to important developmental outcomes across different participation rates. Analysis was based on a longitudinal dataset from a study of rural youths in economically precarious but naturally resource-rich communities in northern New Hampshire (Tucker, Cox, Sharp, Van Gundy, Rebellon, & Stracuzzi, 2013). The three main objectives of this study were (1) to identify profiles of youths who fit different patterns of participation in both organized and unstructured outdoor activities over time, (2) to explore antecedent factors that predict the profiles that emerge from the data, and (3) to explore differences in develop-mental outcomes associated with the profiles of participation that were identi-fied. Variables were selected from the PYD and outdoor education literatures, and from recent studies of educational attainment in rural communities, es-pecially those that emphasize social capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988).

The role outdoor activity plays in youth development is a topic that has preoccupied many social reformers and educators throughout the 20th century (Kaplan & Kaplan, 2002; Loynes, 2008; Quay & Seaman, 2013; Smith & Knapp, 2010). But it is the 2007 publication of Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, in which children’s time in nature is claimed to contribute to positive development, that arguably sparked the most recent widespread interest in the developmental role of the outdoors. In this influential text, Louv decried both the loss of natural landscapes and the declining tendency for children to enjoy unstructured leisure time in natural settings (Louv’s alarm is not unfounded. See Kellert; Pergrams & Zaradic, 2008). Last Child in the Woods catalyzed a social movement to end “nature deficit disorder” by restoring the outdoors as a uniquely beneficial developmental setting (see Charles, Louv, Bodner, & Guns,

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2008). Louv’s book contained several explicit and implicit claims about the de-velopmental domains that were likely to be affected by outdoor participation, including creativity, health, attention, self-confidence, social relationships, and attachment to place. This movement—and the outcomes it champions—con-tinue to garner attention in the popular media; an article recently featured on the Children in Nature Network website references a growing body of research showing that even minimal contact with nature can lead to cognitive and aca-demic gains (Musolf, 2014).

Similar developmental outcomes to those Louv specified have been studied extensively in relation to organized outdoor programs such as Outward Bound. Researchers in this area have focused considerable attention on self-concept outcomes such as leadership, self-efficacy, locus of control, and personality at-tributes, as well as psychosocial domains including cooperation, social compe-tence, and interpersonal communication (Hans, 2000; Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). Relatively few studies, however, situate these attributes in the context of broader, longer-range developmental processes or achievements. In an early cross-sectional study, Conrad and Hedin (1981) linked involvement in outdoor programs to a range of individual benefits including those that con-tribute to educational success. A more recent research review by Rickinson et al. (2004) echoes the previous focuses on “self ” constructs including “attitudes, beliefs, self-perceptions” (p. 6), and, like Conrad and Hedin’s classic study, finds (albeit equivocally) contributions made by outdoor programs to educational outcomes.

Widmer, Duerden, and Taniguchi (2014) recently reported a study focus-ing more directly on the links between outdoor recreation participation and academic outcomes, finding summer adventure program participation to be significantly related to academic attitude and motivation and to mitigate sum-mer “learning loss.” The authors attributed these outcomes to the mechanism of generalized self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), yet acknowledged that their find-ings must be interpreted in light of the brief timescale of their study; they called for studies that examine the relationship between outdoor activity participa-tion and academic outcomes on a longer-term basis.

In sum, considerable research on organized outdoor programs demon-strates a focus on self-related variables, yet the contribution of these outcomes to important areas such as educational attainment, future orientation, and re-lationships to community and family has been studied on a far more limit-ed basis. These domains not only point to leading developmental processes throughout adolescence (Polivanova, 2006), how their relationship is shaped within out-of-school programs is increasingly recognized as crucial for under-standing societal concerns like economic inquality (Weis & Dimitriadis, 2008). Moreover, the social dimensions of outdoor activity involvement are common-ly treated in terms of interpersonal attitudes, leaving broader social processes

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that are known to shape developmental pathways largely unaddressed and un-der-theorized.

An emerging literature also indicates interest in linking outdoor activi-ty and the disciplinary perspective of PYD and “positive psychology” more generally (Berman & Berman, 2005; Sheard & Golby, 2006). PYD is a specific framework that focuses on youth strengths and directly emphasizes the “bidi-rectional linkage between the individual and the context” (Council, 2006, p. 29; Widmer et al., 2014). The inclusion of setting- and community-level factors in analyses is a distinguishing feature of PYD research. PYD scholars seek es-pecially to identify those features of the activity environment that contribute to individual development. These include “structure, adult supervision, and an emphasis on skill building” as well as regular meetings, clear expectations and rules, and organized, goal-oriented tasks (Mahoney et al., 2005, p. 4). These features have been associated with outcomes in the following domains:

(a) acquiring habits of physical and psychological health, (b) forming a positive orientation toward school and achievement, (c) getting along with others including peers and adults, and (d) acquiring appropriate value systems about rules and conduct across differ-

ent contexts. (Mahoney et al., 2005, p. 6).

Mahoney et al. also write that, as a function of modern societal conditions, “new tasks such as identity formation, personal mastery/efficacy, intimacy with peers, and preparation for the transition to adulthood and postsecond-ary education or work became increasingly important across adolescence” (p. 6). These developmental tasks orient researchers to the broader domains from which particular variables should be specified and relationships examined, en-couraging a move away from research that examines changes in specific psy-chological attributes in a standalone fashion.

Recognizing the apparent compatibility between sought-after outcomes of outdoor programs and the interests and methods of the PYD movement, schol-ars such as Sibthorp (Sibthorp, 2010; Sibthorp & Morgan, 2011), Duerden (M. Duerden, 2010; M. D. Duerden, Taniguchi, & Widmer, 2012), Mirkin (2013), Larson (2000), and Costello et al. (2000) have discussed participation in or-ganized outdoor programs as compelling venues for both understanding and promoting PYD processes. For example, Sibthorp and Morgan argue that out-door adventure courses are “prototypical” of the structures recommended by PYD advocates: “Adventure-based programs excel in most of these areas. Sup-portive relationships, empowerment, structure, and skill building are doctrine for most adventure programs” (p. 108). Other researchers have highlighted comparable features in organized programs such as 4H and Future Farmers of America (Larson, Hansen, & Walker, 2005; Lerner & Lerner, 2013), and artic-ulate similar outcomes. Finally, like Richard Louv, authors such as Mainella,

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Agate, and Clark (2011) and Caldwell and Witt (2011) point to the impor-tance of considering unstructured personal leisure and play, in part because a considerable amount of time in childhood and adolescence is spent pursuing activities that are not subject to adult structure and supervision, but nonethe-less shape development in important ways. This emerging interest area urges a more comprehensive program of research on of the role of outdoor activity in youth development than what has been pursued to date, and which helps understand the relative contributions of activity involvement in both organized and unstructured outdoor settings.

Although still in its nascent stage, this line of inquiry advances existing research approaches to research on outdoor activity involvement in a num-ber of useful ways. First, in the outdoor experiential education literature, in-dividual psychological and social psychological variables are often measured in isolation and without reference to the larger developmental processes in which they are embedded and to which they contribute (for a recent example, see Hayhurst, Hunter, Kafka, & Boyes, 2013). As Sibthorp and Morgan (2011) write: “One area where adventure programs do not align well with literature on positive youth development is connecting the program with families and com-munities” (p. 111). Widmer, Duerden, and Taniguchi’s 2014 study on outdoor adventure programs and academic self-efficacy is an exception, but even this study was limited in scope and duration. The framing of PYD as a broader in-terest area encourages further studies in which researchers may attempt to link discrete program outcomes with longer range developmental tasks, such as the way educational expectations are shaped by family structures and processes, in addition to sporadic or ongoing involvement in specific organized or unstruc-tured leisure settings.

Second, social dimensions of involvement are often conceptualized as per-sonal attitudes toward social phenomena (e.g., group cohesion, teamwork), leaving broader family- and community-level processes largely unaddressed. Duerden and Witt (2010) argue: “It is a common oversight to focus solely on the impact of individual programs on participants without considering the in-fluence of other contexts that also impact these same youths” (p. 110). Taking a longer range, community-level approach encourages greater sensitivity to influential contextual factors and ostensibly helps overcome methodological problems often associated with more directed and targeted studies on youth programs, which can have a “confirmatory bias” (Phillips, 2014). Likewise, fo-cusing broadly on outdoor activities—including unstructured outdoor expe-riences in a variety of settings—can address the potential structure bias that tends to characterize both the PYD and the outdoor education literature (see also Kellert, 2002).

Finally, PYD scholars consistently stress the importance of an ecological perspective, which was a prominent interest in the present study. As Seaman (2009) argued, concerns about evidence of the effects of outdoor activity in-

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volvement should be balanced by a commitment to authenticity in the identifi-cation of a problem, the design of a study, and the interpretation of its results. In other words, neither activity involvement nor developmental outcomes should be considered in a vacuum, but rather their relationship should be ex-amined in light of the specific challenges, opportunities, and conditions that exist within particular ecological niches (see also Bronfenbrenner, 1989; M. Duerden, 2010). For rural youths, this means resolving the perennial conflict between remaining in geographic areas with strong social bonds but limited postsecondary educational and vocational opportunities, versus pursuing ed-ucational goals elsewhere, a decision with profound consequences for one’s social relationships, economic mobility, and identity (Crockett, Shanahan, & Jackson-Newsom, 2000). This dilemma is particularly acute in northern forest regions, where communities have been impacted by declining extraction and manufacturing industries, and are trying to grow new economic sectors such as outdoor tourism (see Hamilton, Hamilton, Duncan, & Colocousis, 2008).

Citizens in rural communities are often characterized—even by them-selves—as “being independent, practical, plain, broadly skilled, and close to nature because of outdoor activities” (Crockett et al., 2000, p. 47). In addition, social ties are believed to be particularly strong in rural communities, and these ties “facilitate development by bringing adolescents into a wider network of supportive adults and by promoting participation in youth activities that are valuable socialization experiences” (p. 55). Examples include productive work in household economies and involvement in civic or school-related clubs as a main leisure time activity. These same tight kinship and social networks, however, can be experienced by some youths as constricting their range of ac-ceptable identities, and could diminish the perceived value of postsecondary education; these dual factors can impose limitations on postsecondary expec-tations and educational achievement of rural youths, unless program interven-tions are configured to help youths develop strong community ties while also imagining expansive social futures. Thus, a central aspect of rural youth de-velopment involves reconciling strong and influential community attachments with individual desires or needs to pursue life goals elsewhere (Crockett et al., 2000; Cuervo & Wyn, 2012) and the way youths reconcile these issues shapes their future orientations and educational outcomes.

One way the relationship between community networks and rural youth development has been conceptualized and studied is through the framework of social capital (Adedokun & Balschweid, 2008; Byun, Meece, Irvin, & Hutchins, 2012). Social capital can be defined in the broadest sense as “relationships grounded in structures of voluntary association, norms of cooperation, and attitudes of social trust and respect that facilitate coordination and cooperation of mutual benefit” along with “advantages and opportunities accruing to peo-

42 •

ple through membership in certain communities” (Hall, 2004). Applying the concept of social capital to outdoor education, Beames and Atencio (2008) ac-knowledge that definitions of social capital diverge depending on its theoretical tradition of origin, and therefore must be carefully specified in particular stud-ies (see also Tzanakis, 2013). Beames and Atencio argue against the temptation to associate social capital with improved interpersonal attitudes and instead encourage researchers to use it to examine “the development of social relations that benefit both the individual and their broader communities” (p. 99). The conception of social capital best suited to this kind of analysis, they contend, is one that helps understand community-level patterns of diffusion and real-ization of developmental outcomes. This conceptualization is most consistent with Coleman’s (1988) and Bourdieu’s (1986) theories, and although these dif-fer somewhat—as we discuss later—it is also how the rural education literature has examined educational attainment, to which we now turn.

Crockett, Shanahan, and Jackson-Newsom’s (2000) recommendation to highlight social capital as a factor in rural youth development was pursued comprehensively by Adedokun and Balschweid (2008) and Byun et al. (2012). In their review of the literature on rural educational attainment, Adedokun and Balschweid found outcomes to be not only shaped by structural conditions (socioeconomic status, family size, geographical dispersion), but also to the extent community members access and participate in networks of voluntary association. These networks—facilitated, for example, by involvement in civic organizations such as Future Farmers of America and 4H—can, on the one hand, enable youth encounters with mentors who promote different expecta-tions and identities, while on the other hand, bind youths even more tightly to local social relationships, making it harder to imagine leaving. According to Adedokun and Balschweid, limited research “has examined the influence of the social interactive processes within rural communities on the educational achievements and aspirations of rural adolescents” (p. 8). This includes “how the relationship between community social interactive processes and educa-tional outcomes might vary across different socioeconomic groups in rural communities” (p. 9). In approaching the current study, we saw outdoor activity involvement as a potentially important venue for these socially interactive pro-cesses to occur.

In a nationwide study of 5,663 survey respondents, (Byun et al., 2012) ex-amined the extent to which educational aspirations were influenced by social capital. Using Coleman’s and Bourdieu’s formulations of the concept, the au-thors focused on “the structural and process components of social capital that are associated with rural youths’ educational aspirations” (p. 361). Structural components included parents’ marital status, family size, and number of sib-lings dropping out of school. Process components focused on parental expec-tations for college attendance and talk with parents about college and career options. Byun et al. also examined factors such as perception of financial hard-

• 43

ship, parental education, and gender. Their study found interactions between family structure and process and school influences, namely that youths from two-parent, educated households held higher educational aspirations. A sepa-rate national study (Martin, 2012) found similar results, however, it also found participation in organized leisure activity to be a factor in the transmission of educational advantage across generations, with family education level having a significant effect on involvement.

Recent research on rural youth development stresses social capital as an important dimension of educational attainment, yet also suggests that inter-actions between family conditions and activity involvement exert a strong in-fluence on the distribution, access, and effects of social capital. Therefore, one might expect outdoor activity involvement in rural communities to be a media-tor between family conditions, social capital, and educational expectations and attainment. Herein lies the purpose of the present study—to begin to address gaps in the existing literatures on outdoor education and rural youth devel-opment by examining relationships between adolescent activity involvement, antecedent predictors of participation levels, and variations in developmental outcomes in behavioral, personal growth, educational, future orientation, and community domains.

The current study used exploratory longitudinal methods along with per-son-centered analytic strategies. This approach allowed us to examine rela-tionships between key indicators at the aggregate level and also study variation between groups of adolescents who differ in the extent of their participation in outdoor activity, both organized and unstructured. This strategy was meant to communicate with concentrations in the extant research, while also revealing variation in a way that helps understand how long-term patterns of outdoor ac-tivity participation relates to other developmental influences at the individual, family, and community level.

Data for the present analysis was drawn from a larger study that surveyed youths across all public schools in the rural, northernmost New Hampshire county at 7th grade, 8th grade, 10th grade, and 12th grade from 2008–2013. Anal-yses included only respondents who completed the survey at all time points (n=186), representing 49% of all area youths who advanced from 7th to 12th grade during this period. Person-centered analyses on activity involvement items across the four waves of data revealed patterns of participation in or-ganized and unstructured outdoor activities, what we call participant profile groups.

Core variables were as follows:• Participant profiles were calculated by including responses (Yes/No) to

participation in organized (e.g., 4-H, Scouts) and unstructured (e.g., hik-

44 •

ing, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling) outdoor activities at 7th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grades.

• Antecedent predictors were calculated by including the following wave 1 (7th grade) variables: adolescent gender; parents’ level of educational at-tainment; perception of financial strain; parents’ marital status; and dis-tance (in minutes) from school. Analysis also included the aggregate scores of waves 3 and 4 (10th and 12th grade) items concerning the extent to which youths report having discussed future educational and career plans with their parents.

• Developmental outcomes were calculated by including the following vari-ables at wave 4 (12th grade): school connectedness; school achievement; community attachment; commitment to the area; community voice; ex-pectations for future; appreciation for the outdoors; perception of future opportunity; substance use; and the self-concept domains mastery and self-esteem.

• Analytic methods. Person-centered strategies allow for identification and analysis of different patterns across youth who vary in their extent of activ-ity participation. These techniques have become common in the youth ac-tivity literature as they enable insights into the person/context relationship that is central to PYD research, and consistently indicate that patterns of higher activity participation are related to positive educational and social outcomes (Bohnert, Fredricks, & Randall, 2010; Ferrar, Chang, Li, & Olds, 2013; E. H. Sharp, Tucker, Baril, Van Gundy, & Rebellon, 2014). In the present study, cluster analysis in SPSS was used to group youths accord-ing to consistency of involvement in organized and unstructured outdoor activity at four time points throughout adolescence so that comparisons between youths could be conducted. Correlational techniques were used to assess the relationship between outcomes that are frequently studied in the outdoor education literature and longer-term developmental outcomes of interest here. Finally, chi-square and ANOVA techniques were used to evaluate between-group differences in antecedent and outcome variables.

Two-step cluster analysis yielded a three-group solution that met the qual-ity criteria for “good” fit: (1) Intermittent to no involvement in any outdoor activities (36%, n=62); (2) Consistently involved in unstructured outdoor activities with little to no involvement in organized outdoor activities (41%, n=72); and (3) Consistently involved in both organized and unstructured out-door activities (23%, n=40). Six percent (n=12) of cases were excluded due to missing data.

• 45

Patterns in the aggregate data show relatively consistent participation in unstructured outdoor activities from grades 7–12, dropping three percent from 81% to 78% over this period. Notably, a national survey of youth who passed through this age range during this same period show a decline from 64% to 60% (Foundation, 2013), indicating that the rural youth in this sample both participated at a rate roughly 20% higher than youth elsewhere, and also maintained slightly more steady involvement as they aged. This finding is con-sistent with prior speculations in the literature on the role of outdoor activity in defining rural time use. Organized outdoor activities, however, involved only a minority of youth in 7th grade and this dropped 50% by 12th grade. Table 1 presents percentages of youth involvement from 7th-12th grade overall and by gender.

Unstructured Structured

7th grade

8th grade

10th grade

12th grade

7th grade

8th grade

10th grade

12th grade

Overall 81% 83% 85% 78% 20% 17% 11% 8% Girls 77% 78% 86% 75% 16% 17% 9% 6% Boys 80% 87% 83% 82% 23% 18% 12% 10%

Table 2 presents means and standard deviations for each of the three groups in numbers of years (in the four waves) in which outdoor activity involvement was reported.

Group 1: Intermittent to no involvement

Group 2: Consistent involvement

in unstructured only

Group 3: Consistent

involvement in both

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Structured .06 .25 0 0 2.45 1.06 Unstructured 2.23 .89 4.0 0 3.63 .70

46 •

After examining rates of participation within each of the groups, we con-ducted chi-square analyses and found that gender did not significantly pre-dict group membership (χ2 = 1.303, p = .521). This finding was somewhat surprising given that significant differences in overall activity participation (afterschool programs, sports, civic organizations, music clubs) in this sample were found between males and females in another study (Sharp, 2010). In that study, females were significantly more likely than males to engage in high levels of activity, with 86% of girls indicating average or high levels of participation, and 86% of boys indicating average or below average levels. These differences suggest that outdoor settings might be more attractive to boys than other avail-able activities, a point to which we return at the end.

Group 1: Intermittent to

no involvement

Group 2: Consistent involvement

in unstructured only

Group 3: Consistent

involvement in both

Female (n=91) 40% 39% 22% Male (n=83) 31% 45% 24%

Between group differences for other antecedent predictors of involvement (7th grade) included: No significant difference in cluster placement for distance to school (F = .384, p = .682) or adolescent perception of financial strain (F = 1.049, p = .353). However, youth with parents who were still married were more likely to be members of both groups 2 and 3 (χ2 = 9.801, p = .002) and less likely to be in group 1 (χ2 = 9.408, p = .002), compared to adolescents with un-married parents. In addition, parents’ educational attainment was significantly associated with the activity clusters (F = 7.815, p = .001); adolescents in group 1 had parents with lower levels of educational attainment compared to groups 2 and 3 (Tukey post hoc, p = .001, .007, respectively). Groups also differed significantly in the extent to which members discussed future educational and career plans with parents throughout high school (F =5.964, p = .003), with ad-olescents in group 1 (M=2.20, SD=.87) scoring significantly lower than group 2 (M=2.7, SD=.66) but not group 3 (M=2.35, SD=.82) (0–4 scale; Tukey post hoc, p = .003).

We performed two analyses on developmental outcome areas. First, bivar-iate correlations were sought between all variables of interest in order to deter-mine the relationship between traditional variables—particularly self-concept

• 47

domains—and other, longer rage developmental tasks that bear on youths’ so-cial and educational futures. Table 4 presents correlations among key variables.

Second, ANOVA was used to assess between-group differences on devel-opmental outcomes at 12th grade. Significant differences were found in several outcome areas that reflect key developmental tasks of adolescents. These in-clude educational achievement and expectations, perception of future opportu-nity, community attachment, appreciation for the outdoors, and substance use (marijuana). Trends were in the anticipated direction, with greater outdoor activity participation being associated with more favorable outcomes. Table 5 shows differences in developmental outcome areas.

As can be seen in Table 5, members of group 1 scored significantly lower than groups 2 and 3 on several notable indicators of developmental achieve-ment, including grades, expectations to finish college, perception of future op-portunity, community attachment, appreciation for the outdoors, and signifi-cantly higher on marijuana use.

This study sought to examine relationships between outdoor activity in-volvement throughout adolescence and important developmental outcomes in educational, community, self-concept, and behavioral domains among a sample of rural youths. We emphasized educational outcomes because of the consequences of schooling on rural youths’ future opportunities for material security in economically declining areas, and in their decisions to stay or leave. The study is unique in its longitudinal design as well as its community-level analysis, in which youth profiles were calculated based on patterns of partici-pation over time, and in which differences were sought between profile groups on acknowledged developmental predictors and outcomes. The present study therefore offers an initial look at the long-term effects of outdoor activity in-volvement on youth development in naturally occurring conditions, as urged by recent scholarship.

The results can be interpreted in several ways, some of which support long-running claims, whereas others challenge conventional research interests and approaches. First, correlations at the aggregate level show strong posi-tive relationships between traditional areas of interest—namely self-concept domains—and educational, community, and behavioral outcomes. These find-ings can be interpreted to validate previous findings from shorter-term studies, indicating that outdoor activity involvement is associated with positive devel-opmental outcomes in school achievement, future aspirations, and commu-nity attachment, through mechanisms such as self-esteem and mastery (Hat-tie et al., 1997; Sibthorp, 2003; Walsh & Golins, 1976). Alternatively, the near equivalence of self-concept domain scores across groups at grade 12 suggests that self-concept as a discrete outcome might not provide as sure a foundation

48 •

pV

ariable 1

2 3

4 5

6 7

8 9

10 11

12 13

1. School belonging

2. G

rades .331**

3. Expect to get a secure job

.200** .223**

4. Expect to finish college

.270** .204**

.360**

5. C

omm

itment to the area

.145 -.041

.114 -.038

6. Perception of future opportunity

.449** .529**

.350** .377**

.016

7. Sense of voice

.418** .140

.175* .148*

.385** .152*

8. C

omm

unity attachment

.530** .258**

.292** .276**

.360** .363**

.656**

9. A

ppreciation for the outdoors

.211** .193**

.130 .143

.259** .202**

.199** .431**

10. Self-esteem

.358** .166*

.156* .155*

-.014 .411**

.159* .235**

.054

11. Mastery

.281** .116

.088 .104

-.092 .469**

.036 .191**

.067 .458**

12. Alcohol use

-.115 -.192**

-.134 -.122

.055 -.143

-.203** -.197**

-.060 -.102

-.117

13. Cigarette use

-.199** -.247**

-.075 -.282**

-.085 -.308**

-.169* -.234**

-.127 -.202**

-.216** .326**

14. Marijuana use

-.245** -.271**

-.228** -.195**

-.122 -.343**

-.276** -.352**

-.145 -.204**

-.187* .443**

.622**

Note. **p <

.01; *p < .05

• 49

()f

py

fp

A

ctivity Profile Group

O

utcomes at 12

th grade 1 = Interm

ittent to no involvem

ent in either (N

= 62)

2 = Consistently

involved in unstructured only (N

= 72)

3=Consistently

involved in both (N

=40)

F-value

1. School connectedness a

3.52 (1.31) 3.84 (1.24)

3.96 (1.14) 1.82

2. G

rades 6.68 (1.90)

7.41 (1.14) 7.35 (1.48)

4.33* 2>1 Future orientation outcom

es

3.

Expect to get a secure job 5.23 (1.21)

5.53 (0.79) 5.40 (0.87)

1.62 4.

Expect to finish college 5.02 (1.55)

5.18 (1.72) 5.80 (0.46)

3.69* 3>1 5.

Com

mitm

ent to the area 2.33 (1.31)

2.59 (1.23) 2.80 (1.35)

1.62 6.

Perception of future opportunity 3.82 (0.73)

4.12 (0.57) 4.09 (0.58)

4.44* 2>1 C

omm

unity orientation outcomes

7. Sense of voice

1.08 (0.73) 1.26 (0.73)

1.46 (0.91) 2.77

8. C

omm

unity attachment

1.53 (0.73) 1.85 (0.73)

1.88 (0.68) 4.15* 3>1

9. A

ppreciation for the outdoors 1.22 (0.78)

1.83 (0.78) 1.89 (0.80)

13.0* 1<2,3 Self-concept outcom

es

10. Self-esteem

2.31 (0.59)

2.34 (0.08) 2.34 (0.59)

0.05 11. M

astery 2.22 (0.48)

2.22 (0.49) 2.28 (0.54)

0.25 B

ehavioral outcomes

12. Alcohol use

1.35 (1.48) 1.63 (1.60)

1.30 (1.40) 0.85

13. Cigarette use

1.33 (2.34) 0.82 (1.85)

0.73 (1.77) 1.45

14. Marijuana use

1.62 (2.43) 0.83 (1.67)

0.75 (1.68) 3.42* 1>2,3

Note. *p

.05. aSchool connectedness variable ranges from 0 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree. G

rades variable ranges from 1

= mostly F’s to 9 = m

ostly A’s. Future expectations variable ranges from 0 = not at all likely to 6 = very likely. Perception of

opportunity variable ranges from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. 0 = strongly disagree to 3 = strong agree. B

ehavioral variables range from

0 = no times to 6 = nearly every day.

50 •

for claims about consequential long-term developmental achievements as re-searchers imagine. If that were the case, one would expect groups to differ in self-concept areas according to consistency in outdoor activity participation over time. These findings, at the very least, indicate a need to further under-stand the relationship between short-term program outcomes and long-term developmental processes, and perhaps to justify a continued focus on self-con-cept domains.

Although positive correlations were found between self-concept domains and educational, community, and behavioral outcomes, the equivalence be-tween groups questions the prevailing logic connecting outdoor activity partic-ipation and long-term developmental achievements. This logic is demonstrated in Widmer, Duerden, and Taniguchi’s recent study (2014), wherein self-effica-cy was both targeted in an intervention and regressed on academic outcomes; youth who participate in adventure programs develop more positive efficacy beliefs, the thinking goes, and this translates to improved scholastic disposi-tions (see also Lerner & Lerner, 2013). Our findings, in which groups differed on other known predictors of educational attainment and their corresponding outcomes, do not undermine this logic so much as suggest that other mecha-nisms are also at work. These processes may be understood through commu-nity-level analyses, and in particular through the mechanism of social capital.

In the rural youth development literature, social capital is predominantly viewed through the sociological frameworks of Coleman (1986) and Bourdieu (1986). Coleman focused largely on family structural conditions that enable relationships conducive with educational benefits. Capital, in Coleman’s work, involves the generation of social ties that have a productive function in real-izing individual goals that would otherwise not be possible. Social capital is a “fungible” asset, meaning it can be traded on to achieve other goals, and is one component of the creation of human capital, which implies “changes in persons that bring about new skills and capabilities that make them be able to act in new ways” (p. S100). Social capital works by changing “the relations among persons that facilitate action” and by allowing “the resources of one relationship to be appropriate for use in others” (pp. S100, S109). Coleman emphasized parents’ education for its effect on intellectual stimulation, and two-parent family struc-ture for the availability of heightened child contact and discussions of future planning, as being particularly influential. In addition, integration with so-cial institutions that is enabled by this family structure assists with what Cole-man calls “intergenerational closure,” or consistency from adults in messages about normative expectations for personal conduct and success. Our analysis indicates, per Coleman’s formulation, that (a) family structures and processes are, as in other research, predictive of educational success, and (b) outdoor activity involvement among rural youth is one factor in an overall matrix of

• 51

social capital production that extends the influence of the family by leveraging community resources such as other adults who can confirm shared normative expectations. This network of social relations—of which outdoor activities are evidently a part—serves as a kind of capital that “pays off ” in terms of educa-tional expectations and success.

Beames and Atencio (2008) supplemented Coleman’s concept of social capital by drawing on the work of Bourdieu (1988). They argued that empir-ical studies of social capital and outdoor activity participation should be sen-sitive to how their relationship is shaped by factors like social class, affiliation with schooling practices, and processes of identity formation. In Bourdieu’s framework, social capital is not reducible to objective conditions or proximal social relations, but works in part through “more or less institutionalized re-lationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (p. 51). The accumula-tion of social capital requires particular investments, that is, efforts to socialize members to normative expectations that include personal desires to adopt cer-tain identities that are legitimated by dominant social institutions. “This work,” Bourdieu writes,

implies expenditure of time and energy and so, directly or indirectly, of economic capital, [and] is not profitable or even conceivable unless one invests in a specific competence (knowledge of genealogical rela-tionships or of real connections and skill at using them, etc.) and an acquired disposition to acquire and maintain this competence, which are themselves integral parts of this capital. (p. 53). It would be a stretch to say that our analysis offers strong support for Bour-

dieu’s conceptualization, which is more aimed at class reproduction than the more benign “positive development.” Nonetheless, antecedent differences be-tween groups in the present study suggest that outdoor activities may exac-erbate existing uneven distributions of social capital, in part through the in-fluence more highly educated parents exert on children’s activity choices. In other words, one could conceive of organized outdoor activities as a propi-tious investment in social capital as youth age, externally outsourcing, so to speak, functions that either complement parental efforts or that family resourc-es are themselves unable to realize (see also Laureau, 2003). See, for instance, the higher level of educational expectations among members of group three, alongside their comparably lower levels of future planning and fewer two-par-ent households, but slightly higher educational levels. Social capital is also of course therefore a formative resource less available to members of group 1, who score significantly lower on key indicators and possess fewer of the char-acteristics that point toward access to social capital.

For families who face uncertain economic prospects in a rural region un-dergoing transformation, viewing outdoor activities as a venue for fostering certain dispositions of character in their children can be understood as an in-

52 •

vestment in social capital. On the one hand, these investments can help youth form identities linked with more ambitious educational plans (Intrator & Sie-gel, 2014), which can establish a foundation for pursuing educational oppor-tunity elsewhere. On the other hand, as new tourism sectors grow, emerging adults will play an important role in their realization as engines of economic and social revitalization. The kind of social capital that is attained through en-during involvement in outdoor activities might help awaken youth to opportu-nities along either pathway. In rural areas, youth-focused organizations might capitalize on the familiarity and availability of outdoor settings as a venue for positive youth development as well as promoting use of the outdoors among families, who can independently pursue activities in unstructured ways. Con-tinuing to explore the distinct contribution of both organized and unstruc-tured outdoor activities, together and separately, will help to better understand developmental processes for youth in different social environments.

The current study was exploratory in nature and its claims should be weighed against a number of limitations. First, data—while fairly compre-hensive in its longitudinal quality—represented a fairly homogeneous group of youth growing up in one region, limiting the generalizability of our find-ings. Comparative analyses will need to be conducted to determine trends in other populations. Second, outdoor activities were only differentiated in the survey according to organized and unstructured categories. The unstructured category, for example, captured snowmobiling and hiking—two activities we suspect involve youths who might vary in important ways. Future research should differentiate more carefully between outdoor activities and the youths who participate. Third, the surveys also did not specify “dosage,” hence our use of the term consistency throughout adolescence. We can make no claims about how much of what kind of outdoor activity is maximally beneficial, to whom, and to what effect. Finally, we excluded other activities from our analysis. It is possible that outdoor activities are engaged in by youths who are also involved in other activities, and that a high degree of overall activity involvement—not any one activity alone—most supports integration into social networks that yield personal benefits. We highlighted outdoor activity because of its histori-cal importance in the region and the high numbers of youth who sustain par-ticipation, yet further research is required to more convincingly ascertain its potentially unique properties and meanings for rural individuals and groups.

In their chapter on rural youth, Crockett, Shanahan, and Jackson-New-some (2000) made several recommendations for future research that have both been fruitfully explored in developmental and educational contexts and that

• 53

could afford productive insights into the impacts of different kinds and extents of outdoor activity participation. First, they urge studies on “carefully defined local samples,” requiring sensitivity to “ecological diversity” among populations (p. 66). Youth development does not occur in a vacuum but is shaped by fam-ily, community, and regional norms and practices, along with characteristics of the youth themselves. Moving away from universal claims about the benefits of outdoor activities will help identify relationships between person, activity, and context that are crucial to more effective research and programming.

A second, but related point Crockett et al. (2000) make is the adoption of more refined conceptions of “risk, resilience, and social capital.” In rural popu-lations, for example, aggregate comparisons are often made to nonrural youths. However, Crockett et al. suggest that “more careful attention should be paid to the sources of risk, in particular rural locations, and to the types of protective strategies that could be applied to foster positive outcomes” (p. 67). Our anal-ysis supports their point that some rural youths are more “at risk” than others, and these youths often have access to fewer developmental supports including sources of social capital (e.g., family structures and processes, community as-sociations). Further studies that use person-centered analyses at the commu-nity level could be a fruitful way to study long-term trends, as opposed to (or in addition to) the cross-sectional designs that populate the literature at this point. Future work along these lines would be useful in exploring the “interplay of social change and social capital” that constitute contemporary interactions among “youth, ecological context, and life course” (p. 68).

Several broad scholarly and practical implications can also be gleaned from this study. Researchers interested in advancing a developmental perspective on outdoor activity should consider a suite of individual and social conditions to more fully understand processes and outcomes of involvement. Quantitative and qualitative analyses will be required for this effort. From a practical per-spective, communities should not only prioritize recruitment of youths from underrepresented groups, but should work to address youth interests, parents’ concerns, and the structural conditions that currently prohibit involvement. Efforts can beneficially shift, in other words, from focusing only on design-ing specific programs for already-involved youths, to community-level efforts that target different children and youths in novel ways, for example, by coor-dinating programs across age levels, leveraging resources and expertise across institutions, and developing community infrastructure so families with young children can access the outdoors independently. Future research on positive development through outdoor activity involvement could benefit from taking an ecological approach that addresses these factors more directly. Efforts to situate outdoor activity involvement amidst broader developmental and social processes are an important direction for research on the developmental ben-efits and limitations both organized and unstructured outdoor activities for a range of youths.

54 •

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Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 58–79

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Exploring Complex Relationships on Extended Wilderness Courses

Benjamin J. Mirkin is an assistant professor of Mountain Recreation Management at Lyndon State College, Vermont. Please send correspondence to Benjamin.Mirkin@lyndonstate.edu

This study explored how adolescents’ perception of the social climate on wil-derness expedition courses related to changes in how they approached peer interactions. Contrary to the hypothesis, on average, their orientation toward adaptive peer interaction decreased (n=251) from pre- to postcourse test. The individual level predictors of change in peer interactions were student’s percep-tion of group cohesion, task orientation, instructor control; and at the group level, instructor perception of the fun or playfulness of the course, as well as the course make-up (i.e., having participants who have been on previous similar experiences). This research contributes to knowledge of how the social climate on outdoor education courses facilitates adaptive shifts in social motivation for youth.

peer interaction, achievement goals, adolescent development, social climate

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A primary focus of outdoor courses has long been to create positive group experiences that build social competence among members (Todd, O’Con-nell, Breunig, Young, Anderson, & Anderson, 2008; Walsh & Golins, 1976). Broader educational research suggests that developing social competence cre-ates a positive orientation toward the social world that spurs adaptive beliefs and behaviors that facilitate adjustment in a variety of contexts (Mouratidis & Michou, 2011; Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008). Related research also strongly shows that individuals’ motivations are influenced by elements of the classroom cli-mate (Patrick, Ryan, & Kaplan, 2007). In contrast, it is not well understood how various contextual features such as social climate interact with and influence individuals’ social motivations and outcomes on outdoor courses, even though these are often crucial claims of program effectiveness. Better understanding how the social climate on wilderness expedition courses relates to adolescents’ social motivations could therefore improve programs’ abilities to facilitate more adaptive forms of peer interaction.

A growing body of evidence suggests that organized nonformal activities structured and supervised by adults and that provide opportunities for skill building, foster a variety of long-term benefits for youth including greater edu-cational, civic, and occupational success (Gardner, Roth, & Brooks-Gunn, 2008; Mahoney, Larson, & Eccles, 2005). Nonformal youth settings such as Boys & Girls Clubs, 4-H programs, and Outward Bound-style wilderness courses are examples of such programs, and it is believed that meaningful collaboration with peers in such programs contributes to beneficial outcomes (Costello, Toles, Spielberger, & Wynn, 2001; Duerden, 2010; Larson, 2000). A major element in the success of these programs is believed to be the motivations they foster as well as the promotion of positive peer relationships. However, the connection between youths’ goals for their social interactions and specific elements of the setting or social climate of the experience has not been examined extensively.

Authors in the youth development and activity literature have also ob-served different motivational patterns among participants in nonformal educa-tional settings such as those listed above, and argue that these patterns are inte-gral to program effectiveness. Essentially, some nonformal settings encourage youths toward different motivational patterns in the social domain, their social climates helping to establish more personally meaningful relationships with peers, and contribute to shared goals in valuable ways. This stands in contrast to settings such as school, where opportunities for positive peer social interaction and meaningful contributions to collaborative tasks often are more constricted (Costello et al., 2001; Larson, 2000). One can extrapolate from this literature an important relationship between individuals’ motivations, the ways peer re-lations are established, maintained, and perceived by members, and practical conditions or tasks that facilitate collaboration, as well as the possible role of extended wilderness expeditions. It is hoped that studying this “triumvirate” of motivation, social climate among peers, and environmental or programmatic

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conditions will reveal features of nonformal youth programs—here, extended wilderness courses—that can be emphasized or adapted to better facilitate de-sired outcomes.

The current study explored how adolescents’ perception of the social climate on wilderness expedition courses related to changes in how they ap-proached peer interactions. This research examined predictors of change at both an individual and group level and therefore contributes to knowledge of how the social climate on outdoor education courses is perceived and facili-tates adaptive shifts in social motivations for youth.

With the expansion of programs and increasing interest from policymak-ers and the public came the need to explain the value and societal worth of outdoor trips (Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). Soon after Walsh and Golins’ (1976) unpublished essay came an early and still largely unmatched large-scale study of experiential education by Conrad and Hedin (1981), which identified specific characteristics of participants’ experience (i.e., relationship with adults, autonomy, challenge, etc.) that contributed more to developmen-tal benefits than program characteristics and student characteristics combined (Conrad & Hedin, 1981). They noted and emphasized that developing social relations with others greatly influenced personal and social development. Subsequent studies have largely taken the effect of “the group” for granted but have documented outcomes such as enhancement of self-concept, leadership, academic, interpersonal gains, personality, and adventuresomeness (Hattie et al., 1997). Program characteristics such as the physical environment, activities, processing, the group, instructors, and the participant are also known to lead to how outcomes are achieved (McKenzie, 2000). What is more complex and more difficult to find agreement on is what the appropriate outcome(s) in the social domain are and how they are best reached and quantified.

Over the past 30 years, achievement goal theory has emerged as a promi-nent approach to understanding achievement motivation (Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006), and is especially useful for analyzing the influence of classroom environments on students’ motivation and learning patterns (An-derman & Maehr, 1994; Meece et al., 2006; Midgley et al., 1998). Achievement goal orientations, a framework that fits within broader social cognitive per-spectives (Bandura, 1997; Locke & Latham, 2002), proposes that as learners are motivated by goals and that as they achieve their goals, their motivation is strengthened, leading to skill acquisition an adoption of new goals (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2008).

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Achievement goal theory focuses on goals involving the demonstration or development of competence in various domains. As part of the theoretical framework of achievement goal theory, social achievement goals focus on the achievement of social competence and pertain to the orientation to the so-cial world that individuals adopt in order to attain social competence (Ryan & Shim, 2008). A basic premise of this view of social achievement goals is that regardless of what an individual is looking for in a social situation, it is likely they also desire a feeling of social competence. In order to obtain this goal of a feeling of competence, some individuals are (a) motivated to develop their social competence by developing relations with others in an adaptive peer in-teracting manner, while other individuals seek to (b) demonstrate their social competence, or (c) simply try to avoid looking incompetent. Each of these ori-entations has implications for individual’s beliefs and behaviors (Ryan & Shim, 2008).

This paper will focus on social development goals, the adaptive form of social achievement goals, where individuals with this orientation to the social world focus on developing social competence with peers. With this orientation to the social world, individuals’ attention is on learning new ideas, growth, and improvement. Success is self-defined and judged by whether an individual is improving social skills, deepening the quality of relationships, or developing one’s social abilities in general (Ryan & Shim, 2006, 2008; Shim, Cho, & Wang, 2013). Findings support the idea that focusing on developing social compe-tence with a focus on improvement and self-referenced standards of success appears to help create a positive orientation toward the social world, which sets in motion adaptive beliefs and behaviors that facilitate adjustment in a variety of settings (Mouratidis & Michou, 2011). For this paper, social achievement goals have been operationalized as peer interaction, since individuals’ social goals determine the manner of their peer interaction.

Studying various specific aspects of social climate among peers, as predic-tors of individual goals for peer interaction, will reveal some unique features of extended wilderness courses that can be emphasized or adapted to better facilitate desired outcomes. Prior pilot work established key areas of the so-cial climate on wilderness courses (Mirkin, 2012; Mirkin & Middleton, 2014). Through the combination of information gathered through the quantitative data followed by analysis of interviews (Mirkin & Middleton, 2014), the Group Environment Scale (GES) (Moos, 2002) was narrowed to the most influential aspects of the social climate of outdoor courses (Table 1) and used in this study.

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Each of these areas of the social climate has been previously researched within outdoor adventure experiences. Outdoor courses have the creation of positive group experiences as a primary focus (Todd et al., 2008). Several researchers have specifically stated that cohesion plays an important role in a positive group environment (Breunig, O’Connell, & Todd, 2007; Sharpe, 2005) and individual perception of development (Sibthorp, Paisley, & Gookin, 2007). Leader control and leader support have been cited as critical components of outdoor program success (Raiola, 2003; Sibthorp et al., 2007). Independence, which is similar to the concept of autonomy, has been cited in Outward Bound research as related to intrinsic motivation (Wang, Ang, Teo-Koh, & Kahlid, 2004). Order and Organization and Task Orientation both relate to the idea that ideally, organizations create structure and an incremental and well-se-quenced problem solving task as central in outdoor courses (McKenzie, 2003; Walsh & Golins, 1976).

Based upon the established idea that social climate influences individual motivations (Patrick et al., 2007) combined with previous identification of the importance of the social domain on outdoor courses (Conrad & Hedin, 1981;

Relationship Dimension Cohesion: The members’ involvement in and commitment to the group and concern for friendship they show for one anotherLeader Support: The amount of help, concern, and friendship the leader shows for the members

Personal Growth Dimension Independence: How much the group encourages independent action and ex-pression among membersTask Orientation: The emphasis on completing concrete, practical tasks and on decision making and training

System Maintenance and Change Dimension Order and Organization: The formality and structure of the group and the ex-plicitness of rules and sanctionsLeader Control: The extent to which the leader directs the group, makes deci-sions, and enforces rules(Definitions taken from Moos, 2002)

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Hattie et al., 1997; Walsh & Golins, 1976), this study attempted to quantify in-dividual changes in motivation toward adaptive forms of peer interaction in a manner similar to what is done in the traditional school setting. In examining individual peer interactions, the relationship to the social climate was explored in order to help understand what about the social climate on outdoor trips may help individuals achieve adaptive forms of social change.

This quantitative, survey-based study investigated a sample of 251 students from 45 National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) ranging from 14–30 days, taking place in the Rocky Mountains, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. Par-ticipants ranged from age 14 to 20, and were part of NOLS courses during the summer of 2012. Prior to their NOLS course, all selected summer 2012 NOLS students were sent a link with Ryan and Shim’s (2006) survey assessing social achievement goal orientation, operationalized here as peer interactions, prior to their course. At the close of courses, to better understand the context of the experience and potential changes in peer interactions, participants were given the Real Form of the Group Environment Scale (GES) (Moos, 2002) with the social achievement goal orientation survey in addition to Instructor Reports of Course Characteristics. Analysis used multilevel modeling (MLM) to enable data from this study to be analyzed accurately by representing individuals (lev-el 1) nested in their outdoor adventure education courses (level 2).

Pretests were administered through Qualtrics with emails sent from NOLS Research to participants providing an email link to the pre course survey, one month prior to the start of a course. The pretest compiled basic demographic information such as gender, age, ethnicity, and previous NOLS courses. Addi-tionally, the duration of the experience was included through the identification of the course. Posttests were administered at the close of NOLS courses. They were packed in to courses with their final re-ration. Instructor reports were completed at the close of the trip, while students were completing their course evaluations and surveys.

Social Achievement Goals were the primary outcome variable in this study. The pre- and post-test included Ryan and Shim’s (2006) 18-question Social Achievement Goals survey, which uses a 5-point Likert-type scale to assess social goal orientations. This instrument was developed for classroom use for students of elementary to college level. It was piloted on outdoor courses in the summer of 2010, as well as spring and summer of 2011 and found to be an insightful tool for assessing changes in motivation for peer interaction in this context.

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The Group Environment Scale (GES) contains the primary predictors in this study, elements of the social climate. This survey instrument was designed to measure the relevant dimensions of the construct of the social climate of group settings. The GES was created through theoretical and empirical meth-ods for the purpose of helping researchers discover why settings differ so great-ly in the quality of relationships, different instructional strategies, and levels of organization and clarity (Moos, 2002). In order to make the GES language appropriate for NOLS courses, the word “group” was changed to “course,” “member” was changed to “student,” and “leader” was changed to “instructor.” During the administration of the posttest, 10 of the 54 items were accidentally left off the form during scantron construction. These questions were eliminat-ed from the pre- and posttest for consistency.

For each course, there was an Instructor Report of Course Characteristics. To create this brief survey, input was solicited input from a panel of experts obtaining feedback on aspects of a course that outdoor professionals, graduate students, and professors felt affected the social climate, which could be objec-tively reported by instructors and contribute to the understanding of the social climate on a specific course. Course characteristics that were determined to be most influential in the group experience included physical difficulty, rain/uncomfortable weather, food quality/quantity, insect issues, and level of fun / playfulness of the course, all measured with a 1–5 Likert-type scale, as well as a question about how frequently games were played during each week of the course.

Analysis of all data began with exploratory and descriptive analyses and then proceeded to fitting appropriate multilevel models. A multilevel approach to data analysis enabled the integration of this nested information into the larg-er picture of the NOLS sample (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) by representing individuals (level 1) nested in groups (level 2).

For the social achievement goals questionnaire, exploratory factor anal-ysis was performed to assure all factors grouped together as predicted. Using the Principal Axis Extraction Method and Varimax Rotation, with criterion of Eigenvalues greater than one, all three factors were retained for both pre- and posttests, but three items were eliminated to increase reliability. In the final scales, social development goals (6 items) had Cronbach’s alpha of .77 for the pretest and .83 for the posttest; social demonstration approach goals (4 items) had =.75 for the pretest and .81 for the post test; while social demonstration avoid goals (5 items) had an = .82 for the pretest and .85 for the posttest.

Changes in Social Development Goal OrientationIn assessing the complete sample (n=251), a paired samples t-test com-

pared differences in social development goal mean scores before and after the

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course. Contrary to the hypothesis, on average, scores were significantly higher before these outdoor courses (M = 4.22, SD = .58) than after the experience (M = 4.11, SD = .73), t(250) = 2.64, p < .05. This reveals that on average, af-ter their courses, students were less motivated (Figure 1.) toward developing meaningful relationships with their peers, and their focus had shifted away from learning, growth, and improvement of relationships. While an average change of -.11 is not a large shift, it does represent a significant trend away from the adaptive social development goal orientation, on average, for these adolescent participants.

4.05

4.1

4.15

4.2

4.25

Pre Course Score Post Course Score

Soci

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opm

ent G

oal

Ori

enta

tion

Mea

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Subsequent to exploratory analysis of differences between pre- and post-tests, a series of multilevel models was fit to predict change in social devel-opment goal orientation. The change scores for social development goal ori-entation were computed by subtracting posttest from pretest scores. Analysis proceeded with the creation of an unconditional model, which contains no predictors; subsequent models added predictors to see their impact and signif-icance within the model.

The estimated fixed effect for this model, 00, representing the average trip-level change in social development goal orientation score, was -.11 (p<.05), confirming what was found through the previously mentioned paired samples t-test; the average course level social development goal orientation change score had a decrease of .11 from pre- to postcourse. The estimated random effects were 2 = .43 (p < .001) and 00 = .03 (p > .10), meaning that although there was statistically significant variation in change in social development goal orienta-tion between participants within courses, there was very little variance across courses in this sample. Additionally, with a variance component for course of .03, very little variation in course mean could be “explained” by course level (level 2) predictors. Essentially, there was variability across individuals within

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courses, but the average change in social development goal orientation was not systematically different across courses.

To conclude, the fixed effect was statistically significant, demonstrating there was a significant average decrease in change of social achievement goal orientation score, however, there was not significant variability across cours-es. The fact that the within-course random effect was statistically significant meant that this research was able to predict variability using level one and two predictors in subsequent analyses.

The next phase of analysis investigated which aspects of the social climate relate to participants’ social development goal orientation change score. A ran-dom coefficient model was fitted with individual perception of group cohesion as the level-1 predictor for each aspect of the social climate. Likely due to the lack of variability within courses, the models did not converge when the effects of level-1 predictors were estimated as random effects; therefore, in the follow-ing models the effects of level-1 predictors were fixed.

Continuing with the analysis of cohesion as the level-1 predictor, the fixed effect in the above model, 00 = -.10 (p<.05), meaning that the average course-level social development goal orientation change score was -.10 for the mean level of cohesion (standardized cohesion score is centered on zero). With a relaxed alpha level, (p<.10) the estimate of 10 = .06 indicated that on average, people who differ by one point in perception of cohesion on their course differ by .06 points in social development goal orientation change score.

The only other aspect of the social climate that was a significant predictor of changes in social development goal orientation was perception of task ori-entation. Similar to perception of cohesion, with a relaxed alpha level, (p<.10) the parameter estimate of task orientation, 40 = .10 indicated that on average, people who differ by one point in perception of task orientation on their course differ by .10 points in social development goal orientation change score.

All results are listed in a Taxonomy of Level 1 Models (Table 2). It is evi-dent from the goodness-of-fit statistics for Model 7 that the fixed effect leader control improves the goodness-of-fit statistics in a more substantial way than any other predictor; however, it is not a significant predictor (p>.10). In Model 12, cohesion, task orientation and leader control are fixed effects; goodness-of-fit improves compared to all other models that have significant predictors, as demonstrated by the -2LL measure of goodness-of-fit reducing from the un-conditional model with a -2LL of 511.47 to 465.20 when cohesion, task orien-tation, and leader control are added. Comparing estimates of within-course variance ( 2) from the unconditional and conditional models, it was found that the inclusion of student perception of cohesion, task orientation, and leader control has “explained” 9.3% of the “explainable” variation within courses.

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Continuing to add various predictors, aspects of the social climate, does not improve the goodness of fit in a meaningful way and there are no other signifi-cant predictors until course level predictors are added (Table 2).

Interestingly, it appears that individual perception of cohesion and task ori-entation was related to increasing social development goal orientation change score while perceived leader control was negatively related. According to this model, courses with higher perceptions of group cohesion and task orientation combined with lower perceptions of leader control tend to have higher changes in their social development goal orientation change score.

The level-2 predictors in this study were the individual perceptions of the social climate (i.e., cohesion, leader support, leader control, independence, task orientation, and order and organization) at the close of courses aggregated to the group level (i.e., group mean scores for each course), as well as the average previous experience of participants, group mean age of the course participants, ratio of gender, ethnicity, and course duration. A series of means as outcomes models were fitted to determine if there were a relationship between course level aggregated scores and average social development goal orientation change score.

In this section, the only significant course-level predictor was previous NOLS course experience 07 = 1.04 (p<.05). This was interpreted as courses that differed by one point in mean previous NOLS experience of participants differed by 1.04 points in average social development goal orientation change score. Experience is measured with a score of one referring to an individual’s first experience with NOLS and two their second. Fourteen of 251 participants had done one previous NOLS course. No participants had done more than one previous course. Essentially, average change in social development goal orien-tation was larger when participants were in groups with other students that had previous NOLS experience. This could mean that the social development goal orientation decreases less or not at all when there are students on the course with previous NOLS experience.

To better understand what was occurring in aspects of the social climate of these courses, course characteristics from instructor reports were investigated as predictors of perceptions of the social climate, focusing on those aspects that emerged as influencing the social achievement goals of students. The instruc-tor reports contained measures of “adversity,” which was compiled from in-structor perception of physical difficulty for students, amount of rain, amount of uncomfortable weather, food quantity, food quality, and bug issues, as well as the instructors report of “playfulness/fun” and an approximate measure of frequency of games played throughout each course. These predictors were first investigated through multiple regression analysis to determine what course

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characteristics predicted the perceptions of the social climate included in the final model.

Multiple regression analysis where individual perceptions of post course cohesion were regressed on various predictors revealed that “fun/playfulness” predicted increased perception of cohesion, = .18, t = 2.71, p < .01, as did ‘Uncomfortable Weather’, = .14, t = 2.03, p < .05. This model explained 4.2% of the variance in cohesion, F(2, 219) = 4.81, p < .01. This demonstrates that when students perceived higher levels of cohesion within their course group it had a positive relationship to changes in social development goal orientation. This regression analysis found that on average, when instructors reported their groups being more fun or playful, cohesion increased. Similarly, when students faced uncomfortable weather, cohesion also increased, regardless of what level of uncomfortable weather students’ experience. Upon adding other predictors, none were significant.

Similar procedures were performed to determine what predicted student perception of task orientation. Task orientation was regressed on several areas from the instructor reports meant to conceptually cause adversity, and then what would typically be thought of as more positive influences were added to the model. The only significant predictor of increased task orientation was “Rain,” = .17, t = 2.54, p < .05. As rain increases, students perceive their social climate to be more task oriented. This model explained 2.8% of the variance in task orientation, F(1, 225) = 6.45, p < .05. No other predictors were significant.

Lastly, predictors of leader control were investigated. Various predictors on individual perceptions of post course leader control were regressed. It was found that the number of games played throughout the course negatively pre-dicted increased perception of leader control, = -.16, t = -2.49, p < .05, while “adversity,” which was compiled of instructor perception of physical difficulty for students, amount of rain, amount of uncomfortable weather, food quantity, food quality, and bug issues, positively predicted leader control, = .14, t = 2.17 , p < .05. This model explained 5% of the variance in leader control F(2, 220) = 5.74, p < .01. No other predictors were significant in this model.

As stated previously, on average, leader control had a negative relationship with changes in social development goal orientation, meaning that less leader control has what can be thought of as a positive impact on the social climate of a course, with regard to social development goals. This regression analysis found that on average, as adversity increased, so did leader control and that an increased number of games played by the group were related to reduced leader control.

To address the influence of course characteristics on participant social de-velopment goals, the information gathered from instructor reports were also utilized as additional level-2 predictors. A combination of physical difficulty,

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weather, insect issues, and food issues were combined to make an “adversity scale” for each course in addition to these aspects being analyzed individually. Each predictor was first tested in a means as outcomes model and if significant added to the best-fit model from the previous question to determine their sig-nificance within the model. Finally, the complete model was compiled with a composite model of level-1 and 2 predictors and presented through the con-struction of fitted plots to aid in interpretation.

In looking at the means as outcomes analysis of instructor perceptions of each course level predictor, it is evident that food and fun/playfulness serves a vital role in changes in social development goal orientation. The only sig-nificant predictors of social development goal orientation were the reversed idea of food quality (meaning lower number is higher quality food) 015 = -.09 (p<.10), the reversed idea of food quantity (meaning lower number is more food) 016 = .12 (p<.05), and fun/playfulness of the course 017 = .11 (p<.01). Es-sentially, this revealed that when instructors believe their students have higher quality food and an adequate quantity of food without being too much, as well as perceiving their group as fun or playful, their students have greater changes in their social development goal orientation.

When the above mentioned significant predictors were added to the best fit model from the previous section, only the additions of fun/playfulness 017 = .11 (p<.01) contributed to improving the goodness-of-fit and reduced within course variance (Table 3). This best-fit final model inferred that on average, courses that consist of a greater proportion of students with previous NOLS course experience in which the instructors believe students are having fun and being playful during the course, where students have higher perceptions of co-hesion and task orientation, combined with lower perceptions of leader con-trol were more likely to result in positive changes in social development goal orientation.

The reduction in the within-course variance component represented a 16.28 percentage point decline in within course residual variance between the Unconditional Model and Model 30. It could be said that approximately 16.28% of the “explainable” variance in within-in course changes in social de-velopment goal orientation is explained by previous NOLS course experience of participants, the fun and playfulness of the course, as well as student’s per-ceptions of cohesion, task orientation, and leader control.

All of the conclusions drawn from this data make logical and intuitive sense while further providing explanation of key areas of the social climate in this particular setting, central to which is believed to be the role of adversity or challenge in fostering camaraderie, aided by leaders who gradually withdraw control so groups increasingly feel responsible for their own achievements.

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Fun/playfulness of the course and uncomfortable weather are both aspects that bring course groups together, and therefore it seems logical they predict students’ perception of cohesion. Increased rain on a course would logically increase the group’s task orientation; they need to get things done to stay warm and dry. Lastly, leader control, a negative predictor of changes in social devel-opment goal orientation, was negatively predicted by playing a greater num-ber of games, and positively predicted by adversity. When there is increased adversity on a course, on average, students perceive their instructors taking greater control, possibly to help their group succeed, and also likely as a risk management strategy. The facilitation of games seems to convey the impression that instructors imparted less control.

Parameter Model Model Model Model Model Model Model 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

Fixed Effects Intercept 00 -0.10* -0.08~ -0.09* -0.09* -0.06 -0.06 -0.07

(0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) COHESION_C 10 0.04 0.04 0.04

(0.03) (0.03) (0.03) TASKORIENT_C 40 0.09 0.09 0.09

(0.05) (0.05) (0.05) LEADERCONTROL_C 60 -0.03 -0.03 -0.02

(0.03) (0.03) (0.03) Experience_C_mean 07 1.38** 1.26* 1.71***

(0.45) (0.49) (0.47) FoodQuality_C 015 -.09~ -0.11

(0.05) (0.05) FoodQuantity_C 016 .12* 0.04

(0.06) (0.06) Fun_C 017 .11** .11** .13* .11*

(0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04)

Variance Components

Level 1: Within-Course 2 .39*** .39*** .39*** .39*** .36*** .36*** .36*** (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.03) (0.03) (0.03)

% reduction in within-course variance 9.30 9.30 9.30 9.30 16.28 16.28 16.28 % reduction in between-course variance NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Goodness-of-fit -2LL 429.58 428.67 425.82 431.08 352.74 397.92 394.40 AIC 437.58 436.67 433.82 439.08 368.74 415.92 412.40 BIC 451.26 450.36 447.50 452.77 394.76 446.38 442.86 ~ p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

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While all of the results related to the predictors make intuitive sense, the primary results contradict the hypotheses that social development goals (i.e. how participants approach interactions with peers) would change in an adap-tive direction during these extended wilderness courses. On average, students’ orientation toward social development goals decreased at a level that cannot be attributed to chance. The concern here is that something(s) about their partic-ipation in an extended wilderness course altered students’ social motivation so they became oriented away from a social development goal orientation. Mov-ing away from this orientation during their course can be understood as a mal-adaptive shift that could have negative implications for participants’ social goal orientation in other settings, and therefore, other aspects of their lives could be negatively impacted if the trends here indicate a more general shift away from a social development orientation. Of particular concern is the role extended wilderness courses might play in fostering such a shift.

On the one hand, findings are unsurprising since, as an outdoor skill and leadership school, these outcomes are consistent with NOLS’s mission and program descriptions. On the other hand, insofar as NOLS wishes to realize broader developmental outcomes for participating youth, the general decline in social development goal orientation from pre- to posttest might present an area for organizational reflection and development. Below, the way the data seem to accurately represent consistency between NOLS’s mission and ap-proach will be studied, before discussing nuances in the data that point to areas that should be of interest among outdoor adventure organizations promoting more general developmental outcomes.

The mission of the National Outdoor Leadership School is to be the leading source and teacher of wilderness skills and leadership that serve people and the environment. The NOLS community—its staff students, trustees, and alumni—shares a commitment to wilderness, education, leadership, safety, community, and excellence. These values define and direct who we are, what we do, and how we do it (http://www.nols.edu/about/values.shtml).This statement of mission and values reflects the educational institu-

tion NOLS strives to be. The emphasis is on teaching skills and leadership, a self-characterization that corresponds with NOLS’s broader reputation. The mission does not purport to emphasize group cohesion and clearly states their primary goals as teaching wilderness skills and leadership. This can be con-trasted with Outward Bound, which uses words such as “character develop-ment” and “compassion” in its mission statement.

Findings regarding students’ perceptions of the social climate of their courses and related changes in social development orientations are perhaps best understood in light of NOLS’s mission and values. In general, the average students perceiving average levels on all core social climate indicators, experi-

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enced declines in social development goal orientation. A closer look, however, reveals interesting patterns that parallel a 2011 pilot study (Mirkin & Middle-ton, 2014) in suggesting cohesion and task orientation as elements of the social climate play an important part in fostering social development goals. Similar to the 2011 study, the present study also found that individual perceptions of cohesion and task orientation were related to increasing social development goal orientation change score while perceived leader control was negatively related and had a substantial impact on goodness-of-fit (Table 3). According to this model, courses wherein students had higher perceptions of group co-hesion and task orientation combined with lower perceptions of leader control were more likely to have larger positive changes in their social development goal orientation change score.

In the fitted plot of the best-fit model (Figure 2), it was increasingly evident that both course level and individual level predictors had a meaningful impact on students’ change in social development goal orientation. For the purpose of this graph, variables labeled high or low were one standard deviation above or below the mean score. It can be seen in this plot that fun, and the general way the group is facilitated in terms of fun/playfulness, task orientation, and leader control is substantially more influential to social development goal orienta-tion than the makeup of the course. When students’ perceived their courses as having high levels of leader control, the change in social development goal orientation moved in a negative direction. It appears that NOLS instructors emphasized what needed to be done, or stressed completing tasks, without

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Student Perception of Cohesion (centered)

High Group-MeanPrevious NOLSExperience, High Fun,with High TaskOrientation and LowLeader ControlHigh Group-MeanPrevious NOLSExperience, Low Fun,with Low TaskOrientation and HighLeader ControlLow Group-MeanPrevious NOLSExperience, High Fun,with High TaskOrientation and LowLeader ControlLow Group-MeanPrevious NOLSExperience, Low Fun,with Low TaskOrientation and HighLeader Control

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controlling how they were done and without interfering with the social dy-namics of the group; this had a positive relationship with adaptive changes in social motivation.

Students’ perception of the task orientation of their group was thus related to changes in social development goal orientation. On average, when students perceived higher task orientation, it related to greater positive changes in social development goal orientation. In practical terms, a task-oriented group has the potential to keep participants focused on a common goal, which might not necessarily promote cohesion itself, but perhaps keeps the group maintaining functional relationships. This task-oriented group is the impression NOLS con-veys in its literature and, consistent with its reputation and mission, this also appears to be one factor that facilitates social growth. This effect was height-ened when combined with perceptions of cohesion and lower levels of leader control. Again, this is a core element that NOLS likely wants to maintain and maximize.

There are alternative explanations for the decline in social development goal orientation. One explanation for the negative change could be an instru-mentation issues with Ryan’s scale, perhaps people have a tendency to over-estimate at pretest and this could be mitigated in the future by using a proxy pretest with this instrument and or reworking Ryan’s instrument with the goal of lowering the mean scores. Another possible explanation is that high pretest scores have set a ceiling. Based on this author’s pilot work (Mirkin & Mid-dleton, 2014), which had similarly high pretests but significantly increased posttest scores, this does not seem to be the case. While the initial number, on average, is high, it has previously been demonstrated that it can and does increase after some experiences.

Students who return to NOLS for a second course are likely to understand the mission and goals of the program as well as being practiced in the norms of “expedition behavior,” and can help a participant group to function well to-gether. At NOLS, expedition behavior, or “EB,” is emphasized; in the NOLS Leadership Educators Notebook (2009) there is an entire chapter dedicated to it. The first article about EB, entitled “Expedition Behavior: Creating a Positive Culture and Learning Environment on NOLS Courses,” concludes, “Be the kind of person others want as a tentmate on an expedition where you know you will be working hard together, through difficult challenges. Being a thoughtful, contributing member of a team” (Gookin & Leach, 2009, p. 16). It is plausible that if NOLS students return for a second course, they understand, support, and have benefitted from the idea of EB, and they are able to share that with their course both directly and also informally through modeling proper ex-

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pedition behavior. Having individuals who have chosen to come back for a second NOLS course as part of the participant group positively influences the social climate, which appears to contribute to changes in social development goal orientation of participants.

This section provides empirical evidence that should aid in making stron-ger, more precise claims about what practices and emphases specifically pre-dict what outcomes, positively and negatively. There was nothing surprising in these findings. They correspond with various training manuals and match-es common understandings of adventure programs. Persevering in the face of adversity, such as uncomfortable weather, helps bond a group by making them work together even to meet basic needs. It may simply be that this shared adversity fosters mutual respect and support among group members and this promotes cohesion, or it may yield a task focus during challenging times that helps people to work together and, as a result, form social bonds. Regardless of why uncomfortable weather helps increase group cohesion, it is helpful for instructors and organizations to realize the opportunity for cohesion in the difficulty that uncomfortable weather represents. Importantly, there might be limits to this: too much or too severe bad weather could cause a leader to exert more control, especially if risk management becomes a concern. There is prob-ably a “right amount” of bad weather for the promotion of cohesion, and al-though impossible to program into a wilderness course, further research could examine what this right amount is and how to help achieve it by managing participants’ perceptions and attitudes.

The finding that fun/playfulness has a meaningful impact also might influ-ence practice in beneficial ways. This data supports the idea that when students are having fun, group cohesion is enhanced. This finding echoes both an un-published pilot study from 2010 as well as a published pilot study from sum-mer of 2011 (Mirkin, 2012) that used Adventure Treks courses as a sample, an organization that emphasizes fun as a primary goal. Adventure Treks courses had consistently high levels of cohesion, which positively related to changes in social development goals in that sample (Mirkin, 2012; Mirkin & Middleton, 2014).

The point here is not to suggest that NOLS should be more like Adventure Treks. Rather, for some organizations, it is suggested that this general find-ing across two studies points to areas that could be emphasized to engender fun and playfulness in outdoor programs, which even here predicted positive changes in a desired developmental outcome when it yielded perceptions of a cohesive group climate.

Lastly, predictors of leader control were investigated.The number of games played throughout the course negatively predicted increased perception of leader control, while “adversity” positively predicted leader control. As stated

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previously, on average, leader control had negative effects on changes in social development goal orientation, meaning that less leader control has what can be thought of as a positive impact on the social climate of a course, with regard to changes in social development goals. On average, as adversity increased, so did leader control. In addition, an increased number of games played by the group were related to a reduced perception of leader control. Again, there appears to be a “right amount” of adversity—one that promotes a task orientation within a group, but does not become so much as to require excessive group man-agement or intervention by the leader. How leaders achieve and mange this balance would be an interesting area for interview research or organizational self-study.

All of the results drawn from this section of data analysis and the related discussion make logical and intuitive sense while further providing explana-tion of key areas of the social climate. It seems to follow logically that fun/playfulness of a course and uncomfortable weather both tend to build cohe-sion, but likely for very different reasons. Increased rain on a course increas-es a group’s task orientation; they need to get things done to stay warm and dry. Lastly, leader control, a negative predictor of changes in social develop-ment goal orientation, was negatively predicted by playing a greater number of games, and positively predicted by adversity. It appears that during courses with more adversity, instructors tend to take greater control, likely to help their group succeed or to manage environmental risks that are out of their control. Contrastingly, playing games seem to empower students to solve problems on their own while allowing leaders to step back and exert less control.

This study contributed to or created several promising new areas for pos-sible research:• In a similar study to this one in terms of outcomes and predictors, utiliz-

ing a sample from different organizations with different missions, such as NOLS, Outward Bound, and Student Conservation Association in order to investigate how the mission of the organization and the nature of their programs relates to the social climate of its courses, and how this shapes outcomes (Kellert & Derr, 1998). Attending and observing staff training for each organization would also add depth to the analysis.

• An additional investigation of social climate, but in relationship to oth-er developmental outcomes, such as the valued NOLS outcomes of com-munication, leadership, small group behavior, judgment in the outdoors, outdoor skills, and environmental awareness. This could create a greater understanding of social climate in relationship to different dependent vari-ables, such as belief in leadership abilities. This could aid administrators in determining what aspects of the social climate should be focused on to enhance gains in students’ beliefs about their leadership (or whatever out-come is deemed valuable) abilities, in light of different program goals.

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• Use specific trainings (i.e., building group cohesion) with some instructor teams and not others, as a control group, to see if this impacts peer interac-tion.

• Create and test an “offset model” that focuses on the areas shown to be beneficial to group cohesion and overall gains in social development goal orientation.

• Include exit interviews to further understand the patterns discovered and ask the participants with the strongest effect why they answered the way they did. This could add a greater depth of understanding to what is oc-curring in the social climate or the individual that is facilitating growth.

• Additional investigations into the idea of the role of “fun” in development of youth. By exploring the role of fun, a greater understanding of its pur-pose in youth development settings could be further understood and ap-plied.

• Continued investigation in to role of risk in group cohesion. It seems im-portant to understand if there is a point where increased risk is no longer beneficial to participant development, in order to maximize developmen-tal benefits without increasing risk for the sake of risk.

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Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 80–98

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Scott Schumann is assistant director and director of field studies at the Stamford American International School. Jim Sibthorp is a professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism at the University of Utah. Please send correspondence can be directed to Jim Sibthorp, jim.sibthorp@health.utah.edu

Outdoor educator teaching self-efficacy beliefs are important to the process of teaching in the outdoors. Errors in these self-beliefs, which are one’s judgments of ability to successfully perform necessary teaching tasks, carry consequences for student learning and safety in outdoor contexts. This paper presents two studies conducted to develop a teaching outdoor education self-efficacy scale (TOE-SES). In Study 1, data were collected from 303 participants in collegiate outdoor programs. Exploratory Factor Analysis reduced a 49-item pool to a 23-item scale comprised of 5 subscales. In Study 2, data were collected from 200 National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructor and outdoor educator course participants. Confirmatory Factor Analysis results indicated an accept-able fit for a 22-item, 5-factor scale with strong subscale internal consistencies.

outdoor education, teaching, self-efficacy, measurement

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Outdoor educator teacher self-efficacy beliefs are important to the process of teaching in the outdoors. Specifically, an outdoor educator’s self-efficacy be-liefs may influence the approach and avoidance of instructional strategies, the likelihood to experiment with new strategies (Allinder, 1994), and persistence amidst setbacks while teaching (Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). An effective outdoor educator must not only be competent in the foundational skills required to teach in traditional, classroom-based settings (e.g., engage students, differentiate instruction, and assess student performance), he or she must also be competent in outdoor-specific teaching skills (Gilbertson, Bates, McLaughlin, & Ewert, 2006, p. vii). For example, an outdoor educator who is teaching students how to kayak on a whitewater river may need to maintain her students’ physical comfort in challenging environmental conditions (e.g., hot sun, wind, rain, or snow), gain students’ trust amidst actual physical hazards, improvise instructional techniques amidst minimal resources (e.g., draw in the sand rather than on a chalkboard or overhead projector), minimize impacts to the environment, and select a river-based “classroom” to ensure a balance of risk management and opportunities for student learning. Thus, errors in an ed-ucator’s self-efficacy beliefs, which are one’s judgments of ability to successfully perform necessary teaching tasks, carry consequences for student learning and student safety (cf. Martin & Priest, 1986).

Self-efficacy beliefs are considered the “foundation of human agency” (Ban-dura, 2001, p.10). They are beliefs in “one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (Bandura, 1977, p. 3). Essentially, self-efficacy beliefs are future-oriented beliefs about one’s likelihood of success in accomplishing a task. Their influence on behavior, and more specifically teacher behaviors, is well documented in the form of teacher self-efficacy beliefs (Tschannen et al., 1998). An important distinction is that self-efficacy beliefs reflect perceptions or judgments of competence and these judgments may often be over- or underestimations of an individual’s actual ability (Cakir & Alici, 2009; Woolfolk Hoy & Burke-Spero, 2005). In addition, self-efficacy beliefs are generally considered context and task-specific (Bandu-ra, 1986; Propst & Koesler, 1998). Pajares (1997) notes that when evaluation of one’s capability is matched to a specific task in a specific setting the self-efficacy judgments are most likely to predict behaviors related to persistence, motiva-tion, and approach or avoidance of tasks. Despite the uniqueness of outdoor education tasks and the consequences associated with inaccurate outdoor edu-cator teaching self-efficacy beliefs, there is no instrument available to accurate-ly measure those beliefs. Thus, the final purpose of the two studies presented in this paper is to develop and validate a self-efficacy scale specific to teaching in outdoor education contexts.

A self-efficacy scale for outdoor education would provide valuable in-formation to outdoor educator trainers and outdoor educators-in-training. Scores on such a scale would help trainers better understand the accuracy of

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perceptions of competence in emerging educators-in-training. Does he fail to recognize his strengths and limitations? Will he be safe? Will he approach tasks beyond his ability or unnecessarily avoid teaching challenges which he can surmount? Similarly, an outdoor educator-in-training might gain valuable information about the domains of skill where she is over or underestimating her likelihood of success and subsequently utilize this knowledge to avoid un-desirable consequences such as injury (cf. Martin & Priest, 1986) or take full advantage of her skills and maximize student learning.

The importance of examining outdoor educator self-efficacy during the training phase is emphasized by research findings that indicate unrealistical-ly positive or negative self-efficacy beliefs are commonly found to develop in teachers when they first begin the teaching process (Cakir & Alici, 2009). These initial experiences are the some of the most powerful influences on long-term teacher self-efficacy beliefs and future behaviors (Shaughnessy, 2004).

Teacher self-efficacy has been found to predict teachers’ goals and aspira-tions (Muijs & Reynolds, 2002), the likelihood of experimenting with teaching strategies (Allinder, 1994), and persistence in the face of setbacks (Tschan-nen-Moran et al., 1998). It should be noted, however, that statements about the influence of teacher self-efficacy (or as it was initially termed, teacher efficacy) should be interpreted with caution due to a historical litany of measurement issues. Despite this caveat, the above findings are of particular relevance for the application of teacher self-efficacy in outdoor education.

Although there is no instrumentation for outdoor educator self-efficacy, there has been considerable attention directed toward teacher self-efficacy in the traditional classroom-based context. Unfortunately, the varieties of ap-proaches taken by researchers to understand teacher self-efficacy have made it an elusive construct to capture (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). For example, the construct teacher self-efficacy was not initially being examined, but rather, the broad construct teacher efficacy was being measured (Armor et al., 1976). Teacher efficacy was defined as a teacher’s judgment of her abilities to bring about the outcomes of student engagement and learning, even in difficult or unmotivated students (Armor et al., 1976; Bandura, 1977). The lack of “self ” in the term “teacher efficacy” and its definition directs the meaning (and measure-ment) toward the effectiveness a teacher might have on outcomes rather than the teacher’s ability to perform specific tasks. The operationalization of teach-er efficacy resulted in measuring constructs distinctly different from teacher self-efficacy including locus of control (Rotter, 1966) and outcome expectan-cies (Bandura, 1986; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). The distinction between a self-efficacy belief and outcome expectancy is noted by Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998) who explain that beliefs about whether a teacher can perform certain

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actions (teacher self-efficacy) is a much different conceptualization than beliefs about whether actions will effect general outcomes (outcome expectancy). As such, and for subsequent clarity, the present study will use the term teacher self-efficacy or when appropriate, teaching outdoor education self-efficacy.

Recent efforts to examine teacher self-efficacy come from the theoretical traditions of Bandura’s work (1977, 1997) with an added emphasis on context and task specificity. Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007) offer a useful instrument to capture teacher self-efficacy which recognizes the importance of context and tasks in a variety of domains associated within teacher’s daily lives. Adaptation and extension of this approach to the outdoor education setting may be a use-ful strategy to develop a self-efficacy scale for outdoor education.

In an effort to direct the development of the Teaching Outdoor Education Self-Efficacy Scale (TOE-SES), teaching outdoor education self-efficacy is de-fined as an educator’s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to successfully accomplish teaching tasks in outdoor education settings. An analysis of the skills required of outdoor educators was necessary to develop an outdoor education-specific scale. However, unlike tra-ditional education, outdoor education is a generally unregulated field in the United States, lacking in federal or state recommended competencies. There-fore, several sources were examined in both the traditional and outdoor edu-cation contexts to create an inventory of relevant domains and competencies.

Examination of teacher qualification criteria as established by the Coun-cil of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) allowed for easily accessible and identifiable competencies which may be relevant for outdoor educators. These competencies include instructional planning, instructional strategies, possess-ing content knowledge, differentiating instruction for diverse learners, engag-ing students, assessing student learning, and developing rapport with students (CCSSO, 2010). These competencies or ability domains serve as a useful start-ing point, yet they may fail to capture the necessary context and multi-dimen-sional nature of outdoor education practice.

The Wilderness Education Association (WEA) has recently developed ac-creditation standards in accordance with the U.S. Department of Education (Pelchat & Williams, 2009) in an effort to establish federally recognized com-petencies for outdoor leadership training. The competencies include outdoor living, planning and logistics, risk management, leadership, environmental in-tegration, and lastly, education. Several subcomponents of the “education” (p. 37) competency are consistent with those identified by CCSSO (2010). Plan-ning and assessment, instructional strategies, and student engagement appear to be three domains which are germane to the teaching trade regardless of con-text and thus, are included in the TOE-SES.

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Comparison of the WEA competencies with other sources describing the nature of outdoor education practice produced four more competencies rele-vant for inclusion. Outdoor education-related research (e.g., Schumann, Pais-ley, Sibthorp, & Gookin, 2009) and texts (e.g., Gilbertson et al., 2006; Gookin, 2003; Martin, Cashel, Wagstaff, & Breunig, 2006) contain recommendations for areas in which outdoor educators should be competent. In addition, prac-titioners themselves function as a source because various strategies known as “folk pedagogies” (Baldwin, Persing, & Magnuson, 2004, p. 168) are utilized but receive little attention in the literature. The following additional domains of competence were developed: outdoor classroom management (Priest & Gass, 2005; Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009), technical skill (e.g., Shooter, Paisley, Sib-thorp, 2009; Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009), interpersonal skill (McKenzie, 2003; Schumann et al., 2009; Shooter et al., 2009), and environmental integration (Martin et al., 2006).

Ultimately, after examination of (a) CCSSO recommended competencies, (b) the WEA competencies, (c) outdoor education-related research and liter-ature, and (d) informal interviews with current outdoor educators and staff-ing supervisors, seven domains were identified which appear to be relevant to outdoor educator self-efficacy beliefs. The following is a description of each domain.

Instructional planning and assessment is the ability to appropriately select, plan, and prepare activities and lessons based upon assessment of students’ needs or abilities and also assess student performance in subsequently deliv-ered lessons and activities. Preparing to teach in the outdoors is an important skill. Effective outdoor educators need to “do their homework” (Gookin, 2003, p. 12) before the activity to ensure they have an adequate knowledge base from which to teach. Gookin explains, “a teacher generally needs to know 5 to 10 times as much detail as is taught to be considered proficient enough to teach the topic” (p. 12). In addition to developing content knowledge, the educator must be able to assess the current ability and comfort level of her students in order to select an appropriate level of challenge and outdoor location for in-struction (Nicolazzo, 2004; Priest & Gass, 2005) as well as assess student per-formance. A sample item for instructional planning and assessment is as fol-lows: “Use several different assessment techniques to enhance your knowledge of students’ progress.”

Implementation of instructional strategies refers to an ability to effectively deliver teaching strategies to demographically diverse students of all abilities. Just because an instructor knows how to perform a skill does not mean he knows how to teach it. In some cases, competent outdoor educators are required

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to analyze a task, break it down into its components, and then provide effective instruction to convey tasks through various means such as verbal, visual, and kinesthetic approaches (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009). Despite the lack of tradi-tional teaching resources in an outdoor setting, outdoor educators must still utilize sound practices such as the use of visual aids. This may require creating, and effectively using, an improvised whiteboard (e.g., conceptual drawings in the sand). At other times, skills are taught through direct instruction (Gookin, 2003) and outdoor educators may need to competently use the instructional strategy of feedback (e.g., Schumann, et al., 2009) to inform students of their progress. A sample item is as follows: “Provide feedback to all of your students regardless of their ability.”

Student engagement is the ability to gain and maintain student interest in learning and generate motivation to continue the learning process. Instructors who are engaging can effectively use their voice, energy level, and body lan-guage to maintain student interest through a lesson (Gookin, 2003). They can engage students through providing choice and making material relevant to the students’ interests (Jensen, 1998). A sample item is as follows: “Use a variety of strategies to engage even the least motivated students during a long day of outdoor activity.”

Outdoor classroom management refers to the ability to effectively teach in the natural environment while managing students’ physical comfort and man-aging risk to the participants. The outdoor education environment provides a resource-rich classroom for teachers to interact with, yet it also presents a variety of conditions that must be managed for student safety and learning. Outdoor educators are required to select educational experiences appropriate to the environmental conditions (Priest & Gass, 2005, p. 115). Outdoor educa-tors are also required to teach in contexts which potentially contain dangerous objective hazards such as rock fall, avalanche danger, or lightning (Wagstaff & Attarian, 2009). A sample item is: “Monitor each of your students’ physical comfort and protection from the environment (extreme temperatures, wind, rain…).”

The technical skill domain refers to the ability to successfully and safely perform the necessary outdoor skills relevant to accomplishing a particular lesson or activity. “Technical skills are the physical tasks associated with the hands-on activities of outdoor education” (Shooter, Sibthorp, & Paisley, 2009, p. 7). Although technical skills are not always the intended outcome of outdoor education they commonly serve as the means through which the outcomes

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are achieved (Priest & Gass, 2005). These skills include outdoor recreation ac-tivities such as rock climbing or paddling. This goes beyond simply knowing about the skill, it addresses the ability to do it. An educator who cannot model skills such as rolling a kayak, crampon technique, or route finding is a less ef-fective instructor than one who possesses the necessary skills. An item from the technical skill domain is as follows: “Accurately use a map and compass to determine your location. 1”

The interpersonal skill domain refers to the ability to build rapport, effec-tively listen, understand, empathize, demonstrate sincerity, and show respect for student differences in culture, interests, and skill. The importance of out-door educators to competently communicate and connect with students on a personal level is well documented in the literature (e.g., McKenzie, 2003). To achieve desired outcomes an educator must be able to communicate with students in ways that place value on student opinions, encourage participa-tion, and clearly convey ideas. More specifically, communication skills are used by educators to build rapport with students. Instructor rapport is predictive of several outcomes in National Outdoor Leadership School curriculum (i.e., leadership, outdoor skill, environmental stewardship; Sibthorp, Paisley, & Gookin, 2007). Lastly, outdoor education is a social endeavor and educators must be able to adapt these strategies to recognize cultural differences as well as differences in student ability (Gilbertson et al., 2006). A sample item is as fol-lows: “Communicate with your students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to cultural differences.”

Environmental integration refers to an outdoor educator’s ability to ef-fectively address ecological considerations throughout his or her educational practice in the effort to develop students’ environmental ethic and connections to the environment. Introducing students to local flora and fauna, facilitating discussion around ecological concepts, and bringing to light environmental impacts resulting from land use and management are all foundational aspects of outdoor education (Pelchat & Williams, 2009; Martin et al., 2006, Gookin, 2003). A sample item is as follows: “Integrate current land management issues into your daily lessons.”

1

desert skills).

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DeVilles’s (2003) guidelines for scale development and Bandura’s (2006) recommendations for self-efficacy scale development were followed in order to develop the present scale. TOE-SES items include the use of “you” because the purpose is to assess the educator’s subjective belief in his ability. They also include verbs such as “can” or “are able to” so that the items point to the suc-cessful attainment of the task. Items attend to self-efficacy strength, which is the degree of confidence in a respondent’s ability to perform in a domain (i.e., 0 to 100% certain; Bandura, 2006). In addition, Bandura recommends examin-ing generality, which refers to the breadth of the domain. Finding the optimal level of breadth and specificity does not come without its challenges. Items extremely specific would come at the “expense of external validity and practi-cal relevance” (Pajares, 1997, p. 561). In an effort to achieve context specificity and breadth, each of the items are situated in outdoor education across the seven domains, yet remain general enough to ensure the present instrument’s utility across the outdoor education self-efficacy construct. As such, each item will be in response to the prompt: “How certain are you that you can currently perform the following tasks throughout a week-long wilderness backpacking expedition with ten students?”2

Based on the above scale design and identification of teaching outdoor ed-ucation domains, 49 items were developed for the initial item pool. Content validity was maximized through use of an expert panel comprised of outdoor education program researchers, field staff, and curriculum directors across a variety of programs (e.g., Outward Bound USA, The National Outdoor Lead-ership School, and the Wilderness Education Association). Panel members first examined the domains and confirmed or disconfirmed the definitions, the comprehensiveness of the domains, and offered additional domains if neces-sary. Expert panel members then examined each item for clarity and assigned each item in the initial pool to one of the seven domains. Recommendations for improvement were offered and taken into consideration. The seven original domains remained and where appropriate, items were rewritten.

2

cur-rently perform the following tasks throughout a week-long sea-kayaking expedition with ten students?”

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The target scale length for the final version of the TOE-SES was approxi-mately 25 items. After efforts to improve content validity were taken, an initial pool of 49 items was developed that consisted of 8 items in the instructional planning and assessment domain, 11 items in the instructional strategies do-main, 5 in the outdoor classroom management domain, 7 in the technical skill domain, 6 in the interpersonal domain, 5 in the student engagement domain, and 7 in the environmental integration domain. The questionnaire also con-tained demographic information regarding number of weeks of field experi-ence as an outdoor educator (a week is 7 days), gender, and age.

The 49-item scale was administered to undergraduates in collegiate out-door programs across the United States (n = 303). Due to the outdoor educa-tional emphasis of these programs, participant familiarity with item content, and that the participants are generally at the beginning of their outdoor edu-cator careers, they were well situated to participate in the development of the scale. Given the target scale length of approximately 25 items, the sample size was adequate (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001) and consisted of 99 females (32%) and 204 males (68%). The mean age was 23 years (SD 4.57), and the mean number of weeks of outdoor educator experience was 12 (SD 25.2).

The objectives were to produce seven distinct subscales to represent the breadth of outdoor educator teaching self-efficacy beliefs, with alpha coeffi-cients above .80 through a 25 item multidimensional scale. Because this was an exploratory instrument, preliminary statistical evaluation of the suitability of the scale for factor analysis was conducted as recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001). To reduce the scale items, a series of principal-axis factor analyses was conducted, each followed by direct oblim rotation solutions be-cause it was anticipated that the underlying subscales would be correlated. In addition, subscale item analysis was conducted as per Devillis (2003) using means, standard deviations, inter-item correlations, content validity feedback, and discrimination statistics. Items were deleted based on low squared multiple correlations, followed by low item-scale correlations.

The suitability of the scale for factor analysis was acceptable with a Kai-ser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) sampling adequacy statistic of .938 and a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity, p < .001. The initial factor analysis was performed

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on the 49-item instrument with forced extraction of the hypothesized 7 factors. The analysis revealed 7 factors with eigenvalues exceeding 1.0. After examina-tion of the scree plot and indicators of factor and item viability, it was decided that a five-factor solution was the most interpretable. Several items in the in-structional planning and assessment subscale, instructional strategies subscale, and the student engagement subscale loaded onto the same factor, thus result-ing in a single factor we identified as instruction and assessment (IA) defined as the ability to effectively prepare and implement teaching strategies, gain and maintain a diverse group of students’ interests, and assess student performance.

In order to identify the final subscale items, a series of principal axis anal-yses were used. An item was considered for inclusion on the final scale if it had a structure matrix loading of greater than .45 on a given factor (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001) and satisfied the item characteristics recommended by DeV-illis (2003). Ultimately, after item deletion, a 23-item multidimensional scale was identified (Teaching Outdoor Education Self-Efficacy Scale, TOE-SES 23), which explained 58.26% of the variance with satisfactory subscale internal con-sistencies. The TOE-SES 23 contained five subscales: instruction and assess-ment (IA, = .90), technical skill (TECH, = .81), interpersonal skill (INT, = .82), outdoor classroom management (OCM, = .83), and environmental integration (ENV, = .88). Table 1 presents a pattern matrix for the factor loadings of the final solution. A factor correlation matrix is presented in Table 2.

The primary purpose of Study 2 was to examine the validity of the five subscales of the TOE-SES 23 through confirmatory factor analysis. Conver-gent validity was also assessed through four additional items from Skaalvik and Skaalvik’s (2007) teacher self-efficacy (TSE) scale which examines teach-er self-efficacy beliefs in traditional classroom-based settings. It was hypoth-esized that the TSE items would be positively correlated with the TOE-SES 23 subscales. The total questionnaire, as administered, consisted of 23 TOE-SES items, 4 TSE items, 2 demographic items (sex and age) and 1 item regarding field weeks employed as an outdoor educator.

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Item Sub-Scale

IA TECH INT OCM ENV

Be prepared to explain subject matter in several distinctly different ways to your students. .57 Create lessons that meet the needs of a diversity of learners. .79 Accurately assess each student’s performance. .59 Facilitate discussion in a variety of ways. .48 Adapt your instruction to attend to the spectrum of abilities in your group. .55 Use teaching strategies that address different learning preferences. .58 Introduce topics in creative ways that are engaging for your students. .49 Accurately monitor each of your students’ protection from the environment. .50 Select appropriate outdoor instructional sites to maximize student challenge while managing risk. .52 Adapt your instruction based on changes in the hazards present in your outdoor classroom. .63 Effectively manage instructional time so that students’ basic needs are met (food, shelter, rest…). .54 Without error, demonstrate how to use a map and compass. .80 Accurately develop a travel plan to reach your final destination. .70 Appropriately adjust travel plans due to changes in environmental conditions. .67 Demonstrate how to conduct a patient assessment of an individual who has been injured by rock fall. .45 Communicate with your students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to cultural differences. .54 Communicate empathy for each of your students. .75 Communicate patience with your students after a long day of difficult weather. .70 Communicate with your students in ways that demonstrate sensitivity to gender differences. .77 Facilitate discussion surrounding ecological concepts. .46 Interpret the basic health of environmental systems. .64 Deliver lessons to inform students of local flora and fauna. .75

Integrate current land management issues into your daily lessons. .77

Alpha coefficient .90 .81 .82 .83 .88 Note: N = 303. Total variance explained by all factors was 58.26%.

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( ) IA TECH INT OCM ENV IA 1.00 TECH .42 1.00 INT .57 .28 1.00 OCM .47 .51 .39 1.00 ENV .32 .37 .37 .31 1.00

The scale was administered to National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) participants on Outdoor Educator and Instructor Courses in 2011. Established in 1965, NOLS combines the development of outdoor leadership, outdoor education, and technical skills with academic disciplines such as biol-ogy and natural history. Students on outdoor educator and instructor courses typically aspire to work professionally in outdoor education and are in the pro-cess of gaining further skill development. Two hundred participants (n = 200) completed the instrument which was an adequate sample size for this model (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Of the sample, 112 were male (56%) and 88 were female (44%), mean age was 24.8 years (SD 6.43), mean number of field weeks was 12.79 weeks (SD 28.8). This sample was comparable to the sample in Study 1.

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested the fit of the proposed model from study 1. The CFA utilized AMOS 4.0 structural equation modeling soft-ware. The hypothesized model of the TOE-SES 23 was tested using a maximum likelihood estimation of the five distinct, yet correlated, latent variables. In or-der to recognize the covariance structures, error terms on adjacent items on the same subscale were allowed to correlate if covariances were above .1.

Hu and Bentler (1995) suggest reporting two types of fit indices, a residual fit index and a comparative fit index. The goodness-of-fit index (GFI) was used an indicator of absolute fit. The optimal value for not rejecting correct models is about .91 in a sample of 200 (Sivo, Fan, Witta, & Willse, 2006). The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was used to compare the model’s lack of fit compared to a perfect model; Browne and Cudeck (1993) explain that RMSEA value of .08 or less would indicate a reasonable error of approximation and models between .05 and .08 represent an acceptable fit. The root mean square residual (RMR) was used as a residual-based fit index. An RMR value of zero indicates a perfect fit, thus a smaller RMR indicates a better fit. Because of its sensitivity to small sample sizes, Bollen’s (1990) incremental-fit index (IFI) was used as an indicator of type two incremental fit (>.95 = good fit). As suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999), the comparative-fit index (CFI) was also

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used due to its sensitivity to small samples (>.95= good fit). It is also recom-mended to examine the path coefficients; factor loadings should exceed .70 so that items are explained more by the hypothesized reflective construct than by the associated error (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Finally, a summative score was created for the traditional classroom-based TSE scale (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007) and the five TOE-SES 23 subscales; it was hypothesized that TOE-SES and TSE scores would be positively related.

The results of the confirmatory factor analysis are presented in Figure 1. Initial examination of the path coefficients and modification indices identified one potentially problematic item in the interpersonal skill subscale. The item loaded across three of the subscales. Upon inspection, retention of the item was not warranted due to sufficient content coverage by other items and the item was removed from further analyses. The resultant model, the TOE-SES 22, was tested. In general, based on examination of the fit indices and path coefficients, the results indicated that the TOE-SES 22 model exhibited an acceptable fit. Indices which are sensitive to smaller sample sizes, demonstrated a good to ex-cellent fit and provided support for the proposed factor structure of the TOE-SES 22: RMSEA = .069, IFI = .959; CFI = .958. The GFI was .862 which is approaching the cutoff for a good model fit of .91 with this sample size. The RMR was .152, indicating marginal fit. Path coefficients were also examined. All standardized regression coefficients of the items on their respective domain subscales were significant at p < .001. Excluding one item in the technical skill domain sub-scale (…demonstrate how to conduct a patient assessment), all item weights were above .7. Thus, considering the results of the fit indices and regression weight characteristics it appears that TOE-SES 22 factor structure is acceptable.

Factor correlations ranged from .54 to .90. The TECH and OCM factors were the most highly correlated at .90. A path coefficient so high is indicative of multicollinearity, implying that the two domains of TECH and OCM may be empirically inseparable even though they might be conceptually different.

In comparison to the exploratory factor analysis in Study 1, the refined factor analyzed model in study two demonstrated superior internal consisten-cy across the subscales. The TOE-SES 22 accounted for 74.60% of the variance and displayed strong internal consistency across the five distinct subscales: IA ( = .94), OCM ( = .92), TECH ( = .86), INT ( = .92), and ENV ( = .93).

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Convergent validity was evidenced by the hypothesized positive correla-tions between each of the TOE-SES 22 subscales and the traditional class-room-based teacher self-efficacy scale (TSE; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007). All correlations were significant at the p < .01 level, correlations between sub-scales are presented in Table 3. The instruction and assessment (IA) sub-scale correlated the most highly with the TSE (.74); these subscale items were likely the most similar to one another because they addressed aspects of instruction that are germane to teaching regardless of context. The envi-ronmental integration (ENV) subscale correlated the least with the TSE (.56) which seems appropriate because items in the ENV subscale may repre-sent some of the teaching tasks most unique to outdoor education practice.

Note. N = 200 IA = Instruction and Assessment, OCM = Outdoor Classroom Management, TECH = Technical Skill, INT = Interpersonal Skill, ENV = Environmental Integration, TSE = Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007) *Correlation is significant at p < .01 (2-tailed)

IA OCM TECH INT ENV TSE IA 1.00

OCM .72* 1.00 TECH .62* .78* 1.00

INT .73* .65* .57* 1.00 ENV .65* .64* .67* .45* 1.00 TSE .74* .66* .62* .62* .56* 1.00

The purpose of this paper was to develop and validate an instrument to measure teaching outdoor education self-efficacy beliefs. Two studies were conducted to accomplish this goal: the first utilized exploratory factor analysis (EFA), the second involved confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The final result of these analyses was the Teaching Outdoor Education Self-Efficacy Scale 22 (TOE-SES 22), a five-factored multidimensional scale with an acceptable mod-el fit and sound subscale internal consistencies.

Study 1 examined the viability of seven discrete domains of outdoor edu-cation practice; the hypothesized domains were developed from outdoor and traditional education sources. Results indicated a 23-item, five-factor structure was more appropriate. Empirically, an outdoor educator’s beliefs about his or her likelihood of success in assessing students, planning and implementing in-struction, and engaging students are closely related and may be considered a single skill domain. Although these domains of educational practice are parsed out in outdoor educational research and texts, it seems likely that proficiency

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in one domain equates to proficiency in the others. Thus, the three domains of outdoor educational practice (instructional planning and assessment, in-structional strategies, and student engagement) were collapsed into a single domain termed: instruction and assessment. Refinement during this initial stage of scale development retained the conceptual characteristics of outdoor education practice, yet improved the parsimony of the overall scale increasing its utility for future use.

In Study 2, a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the factor structure of the hypothesized five distinct, yet correlated subscales of teaching outdoor ed-ucation self-efficacy. The subscales included (a) instruction and assessment, (b) outdoor classroom management, (c) technical skill, (d) interpersonal skill, and (e) environmental integration. Although the results indicated an acceptable fit, there were indications that the model could be improved. Future researchers looking to improve the scale might consider examining the effect of addition-al items or perhaps reexamining the subscales and corresponding domains to ensure the latent construct of teaching outdoor education self-efficacy is com-prehensively captured.

The relation between the TECH and OCM domains is of particular in-terest. The two subscales are conceptually different, yet empirically, appear to measure the same latent construct. This is consistent with previous authors in outdoor education who explain that technical skills are required for an outdoor educator to effectively manage a classroom in an environment with technical characteristics (e.g., avalanche terrain or whitewater). At the same time, it is understood that the ability to demonstrate a skill (e.g., a technical river cross-ing) is not equivalent to the ability to manage a classroom in which students are learning that skill. For example, because an outdoor educator can catch an eddy in class III whitewater does not necessarily indicate she can manage a site where students are learning how to do this skill (Nicolazzo, 2004). Therefore, to collapse the two domains into one might be empirically sound yet comprise the conceptual validity of the scale and the decision was made to retain the distinction.

Lastly, efforts to simply increase teaching self-efficacy beliefs and use the TOE-SES 22 for measurement would be remiss without attending to the ac-curacy of the beliefs. Particularly in outdoor education contexts, inaccurate teaching self-efficacy beliefs carry consequences for student learning and safety (cf. Martin & Priest, 1986). Outdoor educators’ teaching self-efficacy beliefs can become inflated and in some cases, outdoor educator training programs inadvertently foster inflated beliefs of competence (Schumann, Sibthorp, & Hacker, in press). As such, teaching outdoor education self-efficacy beliefs should be compared to external objective assessments (e.g., staff trainer or su-pervisor evaluations). Herein lays the utility of the TOE-SES 22. Examination of the accuracy of TOE-SES 22 beliefs can provide useful feedback for emerging

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Research in Outdoor Education 2014, Vol. 12, pp. 99–116

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Mandy Pohja is a research project manager in the National Outdoor Leadership School. Cara Ocobock is a PhD graduate of Washington University–Saint Louis. John Gookin is the Curricu-lum and Research Manager at the National Outdoor Leadership School. Please send correspon-dence to Mandy Pohja, mandy_pohja@nols.edu.

The study of energy economics, known as energetics, has played a key role in shaping human ecology, evolution, and performance (Leonard & Ulijaszek, 2002). Research on energetics gives insight into how humans interact with their environment and how differences in body shape and size can impact that in-teraction. This understanding is particularly insightful for humans living in the backcountry for extended periods of time. Selecting food types and amounts to meet high-energy demands in the backcountry setting is a challenge, be-cause energy demand models have primarily been based on lab studies that, in hindsight, appear to routinely underestimate energy demands on backcountry expeditions.

This study examined Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) as it pertains to two to three week periods of time spent backcountry hiking, rock climbing, and skiing/camping in a winter environment. Total Daily Energy Expenditure is calculated by totaling the energy spent on basal metabolic rate, activity, ther-moregulation, and Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). In total 59 participants were tested on courses with the National Outdoor Leadership School. Information from the study has been instrumental in informing the ration and nutrition practices at NOLS, as well as providing insight into other outdoor programs and backcountry users.

energetics, energy use, nutrition, backcountry travel, backcountry nutrition, physiology

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A number of studies have been conducted assessing how humans allocate energy by examining subsistence strategies, growth and repair, reproductive output, thermoregulatory demands, mobility patterns, and human brain-size evolution (Durnin, 1990; Roberts, Heyman, Evans, Fuss, Tsay, & Young, 1991; Haggarty et al., 1994; Leonard & Robertson, 1994; Aiello & Wheeler, 1995; Panter-Brick, 1996a, b; Leonard & Ulijaszek, 2002).

Furthermore, body shape and size have been implicated as factors impact-ing the cost of both thermoregulation and activity (Ruff, 1991, 1994; Tikui-sis, Moroz, Vallerand, & Martineau, 2000; Steudel-Numbers, 2006; Tilkens, Wall-Scheffler, Weaver, & Steudel-Numbers, 2007; Holliday & Hilton, 2010). This large body of work has examined the impact of individual environmental and morphological factors on human energy expenditure in the laboratory as well as indoor environments. But little research has been conducted on the comprehensive impact that environmental and morphological factors have on Total Daily Energy Expenditure among human populations living in a variety of natural environments (Askew, 2009). Thus, the field of outdoor education also lacks information on ration planning and food consideration for extended backcountry trips. Research specific to backcountry expeditions tends to focus on high altitude expeditions or short-duration climbs of large peaks. Limited within the field is an understanding of nutrition needs and adaptations for spending extended time in a backcountry environment (Hesterberg & John-son, 2013).

NOLS is a nonprofit outdoor education program that was founded in 1965. NOLS offers students the chance to live in the wilderness for an extend-ed period of time, anywhere from two weeks to four months, while learning a variety of outdoor skills. NOLS has core curriculum that is taught on every ex-pedition, including technical skills, leadership, risk management, and environ-mental studies. The ultimate goal is to train students to become independent wilderness travelers and leaders. NOLS has supplied field rations on expedi-tions for over five million user days, making it the premier ration provider in the world for recreational trips. Under the current ration system, NOLS uses a pounds-per-person/per-day formula to determine how much food should go on expeditions. While there is not a specific meal plan for most courses, the system allows students to create meals based on preference, time, and caloric needs. The average ration is 1.6 lbs per person/day for a hiking course, and up to 2.2 lbs per person/day for a winter course. Calorie averages are around 1,000 kilocalories per one pound of food (Howley Ryan, 2008). While this system has stood the test of time, little research has been done to understand the bal-ance of calorie consumption and energy expenditure pertaining to this ration.

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The 59 subjects (40 males, 19 females, ages 18–30 years), participating in this study took part in four semester-long courses. Two of the courses (n=25) were in the spring/summer semester that lasted for three months and the other two (n=28) were in the fall/winter semester that lasted four months. Six sub-jects took part in the pilot study that was conducted during the summer of 2010 (Table 1.1).

This subject pool was advantageous for two reasons. First, NOLS stu-dents were highly active and highly motivated to participate in data collection throughout their course. This made them ideal for both representing physical-ly active populations and managing the logistics and time commitment neces-sary for this study. Second, the semester-long courses allowed for students to be tested during two separate activity types. Subjects taking part in the spring/summer semester were exposed to wilderness hiking and rock climbing for a month each. Subjects taking part in the fall/winter semester were exposed to wilderness hiking and winter ski travel for a month each. This means that two data sets were collected from each student: one during their hiking section, and a second during a more extreme activity, either climbing (hot climate) or ski travel (cold climate) depending on the course in which they participated. The students selected their NOLS course voluntarily prior to knowledge of the study, but all students agreed to the study upon arrival.

Each participant underwent two phases of testing for a total of seven met-rics. Many of these tests were completed multiple times and multiple days, re-sulting in a tremendous amount of data recorded for each student. The data in Table 1.2 and Table 1.3 represent summary versions of the data, while entire descriptions can be found in Appendix I.

Table 1.4 gives a visual representation of data collection in conjunction with the remainder of the semester. Field testing sections were on average 5 to 7 days of the section.

Course Semester Activities Course Duration WSS 1 Spring/Summer Hiking & Climbing 6/2/11 – 8/10/11 WSS 2 Spring/Summer Hiking & Climbing 6/4/11 – 8/12/11 FSR 5 Fall/Winter Hiking & Winter 9/4/11 – 12/3/11 FSR 8 Fall/Winter Hiking & Winter 9/8/11 – 12/10/11 Pilot Summer Hiking & Climbing 7/1/10 – 8/4/10

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gThese data were collected three times throughout the semester long course: before the course began (Pre-Course Lab), in between the different climate regimes (Mid-Course Lab) and at the end of the course (Post-Course Lab). Test Method Resting Metabolic Rate Portable respirometry unit (Cosmed K4b2,

Chicago, IL, USA) following Gayda et al. (2010) Heart Rate Calibration Subjects wore both the portable respirometry unit

and a heart rate strap during calibrations so that metabolic rate and heart rate were collected simultaneously

Anthropometric and bioelectrical impedance measurements.

Utilized the Tanita Ironman Scale (reliability is +/- 5% as compared to gold standard DEXA scan).

gy y gThese data were collected for five-day periods, twice during each semester course. Each course had one testing period during a hiking section and one testing period during either a climbing or winter section. Test Method Acti-Trainer Heart Rate Monitor Measures minute-by-minute heart rate as well as 3-

axis accelerometry data to count steps. Doubly Labeled Water Eight Subjects were given an oral dose of DLW

(116.08-122.62g; 10% H218O, 6% 2H2O). Urine

samples were taken before and after the administration (and kept cold).

Food Diary Exact food types and quantities that were consumed throughout the day.

Activity Diary & Temperature Recordings Taken by NOLS Instructors

Finally, the locations of the testing sites are pertinent in regard to climate and altitude. The majority of the testing took place in Lander, Wyoming, at 1,600 meters. The two mountain locations (Wind River and Absaroka) have el-evations ranging from 2,000–3,000 meters. The climbing locations include City of Rocks at 2,000 meters and Devil’s Tower at 1,500 meters. The river base of Vernal, UT is at 1,600 meters. Table 1.5 provides additional information about each location and Table 1.6 provides insight to temperatures in these locations.

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Course Pre-Course Lab Testing

Hiking Mid-Course Lab Testing

Climbing Ski Travel Post-Course Lab Testing

Sample Size

WSS 1 Lander, WY

Absaroka Range, WY

Lander, WY City of Rocks, ID

– Vernal, UT 13

WSS 2 Vernal, UT Absaroka Range, WY

Lander, WY Devil’s Tower, ID

– Lander, WY

11

FSR 5 Lander, WY

Wind River Range, WY

Lander, WY – Absaroka Range, WY

Lander, WY

12

FSR 8 Lander, WY

Wind River Range, WY

Lander, WY – Absaroka Range, WY

Lander, WY

14

Pilot Lander, WY

Wind River Range, WY

– – – Lander, WY

6

Course Hiking Climbing Minimum Maximum Mean Minimum Maximum Mean WSS 1 1.2 42.1 15.6 15.1 45.1 23.3 WSS 2 0.3 39.2 13.5 15.4 46.7 23.5 Hiking Winter Minimum Maximum Mean Minimum Maximum Mean FSR 5 -2.1 30.3 6.2 -17.45 17.0 -4.9 FSR 8 0 41.4 14.0 -26.8 14.8 -9.4 Hiking Minimum Maximum Mean Pilot -3.3 25 12.8

In total, data collection ranged from July of 2010 through December of 2011. Results are discussed in the subsequent section.

The focus of this study was to understand the relationship between food and exercise in the wilderness environment. Crucial to this research goal was a better understanding of Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Data in Table 2.1 represents the various methods that were used to determine TDEE. The Doubly Labeled Water (DLW) applied to only the 11 participants selected for this invasive testing. Additionally, the Flex-HR is based on heart rate monitors for all participants, the Factorial Method is a predictive model that has been used previously, and the Allocation Model is a new predictive model designed by this study (reliability remaining untested).

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The Allocation Model is designed to better predict human Total Daily Energy Expenditure over a range of physical activity levels and in any given climate. This model consists of metabolic cost terms for basal metabolic rate (BMR), activity, thermoregulation, and the thermic effect of food (TEF).

Total Daily Energy Expenditure= BMR + Activity + Thermoregulation + TEF

The Allocation Model was used to calculate metabolic costs on a day-by-day basis as well as a daily mean for the entire data collection period. As demonstrated in Figure 2.1, the Allocation Model produced daily Total Daily Energy Expenditure with a mean of 3242+517 kcal day for the hiking (N=52), 2704+396 kcal day-1 for climbing (N=21) and 5200+802 kcal day for the winter travel (N=22). Figure 2.2 also provides the numerical values of range and mean for the various courses.

Beyond the TDEE, it is imperative to understand the breakdown of en-ergy expenditure between BMR, activity, thermoregulation and TEF for the different sections during the entire data collection period. These understand-ings greatly improve the ability to predict caloric needs in the future. Table 2.3 summarizes the percentage each cost comprises of the Total Daily Energy Ex-penditure budget for the three different activities and Table 2.4 summarizes the minimum, maximum and mean metabolic cost of each component, by course.

Section Subject DLW TDEE (kCal day-)

Flex-HR TDEE (kCal day-)

Allocation Model TDEE (kCal day)

Factorial Method TDEE (kCal day)

Hiking NS1-12 4264 5427 3280 3156 NS2-1 2837 2814 3217 2591 FS5-12 2593 3949 2595 2196 FS8-10 3597 3138 3118 2839 Pilot 1 3340 3729 3675 2286 Pilot 3 3641 4031 3537 2644 Pilot 4 4313 4889 4276 2839 Climbing NS1-12 3790 5668 3629 3093 NS2-1 2838 3651 2154 2027 Winter FS5-1 4517 9155 5090 3031 Skiing FS8-10 4137 4678 5687 3261

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*The Range and Mean Values are Provided for the Climates Experienced by Each Course

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Skill Type BMR Activity

Thermoregulation

TEF

Hiking 52.1% (1662) 24.4% (780) 15.5% (494) 8.0% (254) Climbing 62.3% (1690) 17.2% (465) 11.3% (306) 9.2% (250) Winter 31.7% (1680) 43.7% 2316) 19.2% (1018) 5.3% (282) *The percentage of TDEE each component makes up and it corresponding mean cost (kcal day)

are reported.

The most notable difference in allocation breakdown between the course types is the proportion of Total Daily Energy Expenditure that is made up by ac-tivity cost, as demonstrated in Figure 2.2. Activity comprises 36+3.6% of en-ergy expenditure for winter ski courses compared to 21+4.7% and 14+4.3% in hiking and climbing sections respectively. Surprisingly, the percentage that thermoregulation comprises of the total energy budget is similar between the climates: 13+4.4%, 9+1.3%, and 16+4.8% for hiking, climbing, and winter en-vironments, respectively.

Though the analyses presented earlier demonstrated that there is an in-creased energy expenditure associated with cold climates for each component of the total energy budget (Table 2.4), it is attributable to the high activity levels more than the cold temperatures. Winter courses involve a great deal of ski travel, shoveling, and using physical activity to stay warm. An additional study of a less active winter environment would provide additional insight to hypoth-esized increases to thermoregulation costs.

The NOLS population was used for this study for many reasons, but one of the most compelling was that we were able to observe one student in two separate environments, hiking and either climbing or winter ski environment. Analysis of the flex-HR results revealed that there was no significant difference between the hiking and climbing energy expenditure. However, subjects taking part in winter sections experienced significantly higher Total Daily Energy Ex-penditure than what they experienced in hiking sections. This mirrors studies done on indigenous populations that found increased metabolic rates associat-ed with cold climates (Leonard et al., 2002, 2005; Snodgrass et al., 2005, 2006, 2008).

The energy expenditure due to activity and thermoregulation were each significantly higher in the winter section than in both the hiking and climbing sections. And the expenditure due to activity and thermoregulation in tem-

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Section BMR (kCal day)

Activity (kCal day)

Thermoregulation (kCal day)

TEF (kCal day)

WSS1 Hiking

Minimum 1292 534 402 183

Maximum 2115 733 563 314 Mean 1731 609 480 252 WSS1 Climbing

Minimum 1427 394 272 131 Maximum 2108 942 353 386 Mean 1768 569 318 282 WSS2 Hiking

Minimum 1339 958 331 147

Maximum 1887 1355 640 338 Mean 1633 1122 461 262 WSS2 Climbing

Minimum 1348 174 242 124 Maximum 1844 674 369 346 Mean 1612 361 293 218 FSR5 Hiking

Minimum 1386 470 310 67

Maximum 2134 666 562 353 Mean 1665 527 423 240 FSR5 Winter

Minimum 1408 1686 346 181

Maximum 2030 2407 1448 444 Mean 1700 1953 920 290 FSR8 Hiking

Minimum 1345 625 279 86

Maximum 2273 1020 525 432 Mean 1687 747 425 236 FSR8 Winter

Minimum 1372 2196 562 195

Maximum 2161 3697 1525 453 Mean 1660 2678 1117 274 Pilot- Hiking

Minimum 1334 903 646 272

Maximum 1695 1258 1089 389 Mean 1500 1143 950 323

perate hiking sections were significantly higher than in hot climate climbing sections. There was no significant difference between hiking and climbing in the expenditure due to the thermic effect of food. However, in winter ski envi-ronments, the cost due to TEF was significantly higher than in hiking sections, but not in climbing sections.

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The data collected from the food logs was varied in quality and compre-hensiveness. NOLS is seeking additional research opportunities to explore the specifics of a likely caloric deficit on courses. Based on the work of this study, it appears to be very challenging to provide participants with enough food to meet their energy expenditure needs on high-activity days, particularly when constrained by the weight of food contributing to the difficulty of travel (ie on their back or in a sled). There may be physiological boundaries as well: there are limitations to the intake and digestion of food beyond the normal food intake each person is used to, leading to an energy deficit condition called over-exertion malnutrition (Askew, 2009).

The results presented here demonstrate the differences in energy expen-diture and its components between hiking, climbing, and winter ski travel. It is apparent that individuals traveling in the backcountry are expending a large number of calories to fulfill the physical requirements of the environment. Once again, those averages were 3,242 calories for hiking, (N=52), 2,704 calo-ries for climbing (N=21) and 5,200 calories for winter (N=22).

In general, NOLS estimates that one pound of dry ration equates to 1,000 calories of prepared food. This would mean that over five pounds of food would be required to reach calorie equilibrium for the average NOLS winter course. As of now, carrying 2.5 pounds of food per person/per day is the top end for maintaining a pack weight that can be transported from one camp to another.

The reality of high caloric expenditure coupled with the challenges of car-rying more food leaves expeditions struggling to balance the economics of en-ergy. Below are five suggestions for all backcountry users.

Use calories and pounds for planning. Instead of just buying random food for a trip, backcountry users should calculate estimated calorie needs for the trip and buy food accordingly. Even though it is unlikely anyone can carry and eat 8,000+ calories for a really challenging day, it will help recreationalists know what their bodies are enduring in the backcountry and ensure they do not overload their pack weight

Eat all the food. Although it seems foolish, often individuals and programs return from the mountains having carried unutilized calories the entire time. The best bet for minimizing calorie deficit is to actually eat the food partici-pants are carrying throughout the trip.

Consume energy before and during exercise. During long days on the trail, rock, or snow, the body needs constant nourishment. Eating every 60–90 minutes is the best practice for not having a noticeable drop in glucose and glycogen levels.

Carry less, get more. Of the three macronutrients, fat has the most caloric value at nine calories per gram as opposed to four calories per gram for protein

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and carbohydrates. When weight is a concern, packing foods with fat means the same weight of food will actually provide more calories.

Eat a snack immediately following exercise. Recent research suggests an anabolic window of 20–40 minutes postexercise in which cells are most open to tissue repair (Aragon & Schoenfeld, 2013). A snack with a 4:1 ratio of carbohy-drates to protein is considered the ideal ratio, with examples including cheese and crackers, peanut butter and bread, or fruit and nuts.

Subsequent studies should identify more accurate ways to understand food consumption and the daily balance of energy intake and output. Studies could also expand to include more activity types such as paddling and biking. Ad-ditional work to validate The Allocation Model is needed in order to accept the model’s predictive qualities and gain an understanding of its validity and reliability.

Several external anatomical measurements were collected following Lohman et al. (1988) (Table A.1). These measurements were collected using a standard cloth measuring tape in millimeters and large calipers. Body mass, percent body fat and muscle mass were collected using a bioelectrical imped-ance scale, Tanita BC-558 Ironman Segmental Body Composition Monitor (Tanita Corporation, Arlington Heights, IL, USA).

Resting metabolic rates were collected from each subject using a portable respirometry unit (Cosmed K4b2, Chicago, IL, USA) following Gayda et al. (2010). This system measures oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide pro-duction using a breath-by-breath analysis. RMR measurements were taken ear-ly in the morning before subjects had their first meal. Subjects were in a supine position on foam pads placed on the floor, in a temperature controlled room, and rested 15–20 minutes before measurements were taken. Measurements were then taken for 6–8 minutes with the last four minutes of the measurement averaged to determine RMR.

Heart rate calibrations, used to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure from heart rate using the Flex-HR Method, were also performed using a por-table respirometry unit (Cosmed K4b2, Chicago, IL, USA) following Gayda et al. (2010). Subjects wore both the portable respirometry unit and a heart rate strap during calibrations so that metabolic rate and heart rate were collected simultaneously. This provided the data to determine the relationship between heart rate and metabolic rate (kcal day) at a variety of exercise intensities. Data

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collected for resting metabolic rates were averaged (kcal day-) for the last four minutes of the RMR measurement. This was done for the precourse, mid-course, and postcourse resting metabolic rate measurements.

To execute the Flex-HR method, the flex-point and the linear relationship, calibration equation, between energy expenditure and heart rate at different exercise intensity levels were first determined. The flex-point was determined to be the mean of the highest heart rate at rest and the lowest heart rate during exercise. To determine the calibration equation for heart rates above the flex-point, the heart rates were plotted against their corresponding energy expendi-ture and the linear relationship determined.

Flex-Heart Rate Method. ActiTrainer heart rate monitors (ActiGraph, Pensacola, FL, USA) were used to collect heart rate data (Crouter, Churilla, & Basset, 2006). The ActiTrainer collected a minute-by-minute average heart rate and those data were stored in the unit’s internal memory and later downloaded

Measurement Definition Neck + Head length Taken from the C-7 spinous process to the skull apex Head circumference Taken from glabella to opisthocranion Neck length Taken from the junction of the neck and shoulder to the

mastoid process Neck circumference Taken from the length mid-point of the neck Total arm length Acromion to dactylion Upper arm length Acromion to olecranon Lower arm length Radion to stylion Hand length Stylion to dactylion Upper arm circumference Taken at the length mid-point of the upper arm Forearm circumference Taken at the length mid-point of the forearm Wrist circumference Taken just distal to the styloid process Chest breadth Males – nipple/fourth rib level, females – just below the bust Chest depth Males – nipple/fourth rib level, females – just below the bust Chest circumference Males – nipple/fourth rib level, females – just below the bust Bi-iliac Taken from the most lateral distance between the left and

right tubercles Bi-asis Distance between the left and right anterior superior iliac

spines Total leg length Greater trochanter to floor Upper leg length The lateral cord from the greater trochanter to tibia Low leg length Tibia to the tip of lateral malleolus Foot length Heel to toe Proximalthigh circumference

Taken at the junction of the thigh and pelvis

Mid-thigh circumference Taken at the length mid-point thigh Distal thigh circumference Taken just above the knee Calf circumference Taken at the maximal circumference of the calf Ankle circumference Taken just above the lateral malleolus

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for analysis and TDEE calculations. This device also collected the number of steps, 3-axis accelerometry data, date, and time. Subjects wore a combination ActiTrainer data recorder and heart rate strap for 6–11 days depending on the course (Table A.2).

Subjects wore the data recorder either on an elastic belt around the waist or attached to the heart rate monitor chest strap. Subjects were asked to wear the ActiTrainer during all waking hours, and, if they felt comfortable, to wear the unit while sleeping. Subjects were also asked to remove the heart rate monitor unit when submersed in water.

Heart rate data were downloaded from the ActiTrainers and then convert-ed to .csv files using the ActiGraph software (ActiGraph, Pensacola, FL, USA) for each Energy and Activity Assessment Battery of each subject. Missing data or erroneous heart rates (any heart rates above 200 or below 40) and their cor-responding times were deleted. For those subjects who did not wear heart rate monitors while sleeping, resting heart rate (and, therefore, resting metabolic rate) was inserted during sleeping hours. The calibration equations and RMRs from the data collection battery after the Energy and Activity Assessment Bat-tery of each climate were used. Heart rates below the flex-point were assigned the resting metabolic rate. All heart rates above the flex-point, indicating activ-ity, were run through the calibration equations to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure. These metabolic rates were then used to extrapolate a full 24-hour total metabolic rate. Daily energy expenditures were calculated for each subject within each climate regime.

Doubly Labeled Water Method. Total Daily Energy Expenditure (kcal day) was measured using the doubly labeled water (DLW) method which is a very precise measure of Total Daily Energy Expenditure. Eight subjects took part in the DLW validation portion of this study. Three of these subjects were measured twice, once in the hiking section and once in the climbing or winter ski section. Two subjects were measured once, one in the hiking section and

Course Hiking Climbing Winter WSS 1 6/24/11 – 7/4/11 7/20/11 – 7/25/11 – WSS 2 8/1/11 – 8/10/11 7/10/11 – 7/15/11 – FSR 5 9/14/11 – 9/20/11 – 11/23/11 – 11/29/11 FSR 8 9/25/11 – 10/2/11 – 12/1/11 – 12/7/11 Pilot 7/25/10 – 7/30/10 – –

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the other in the winter ski section. The other three subjects took part in the pilot study, which took place during a backcountry rock climbing section. Sub-jects were given an oral dose of DLW (116.08-122.62g; 10% H2

18O, 6% 2H2O). Dose bottles were rinsed with bottled water twice that was also consumed by subjects to ensure the full dose of this radioisotope was administered. Urine samples were collected prior to the DLW dose, 6–8 hours after the dose and then every other day for the duration of the Energy and Activity Assessment Battery. Urine samples were collected in clean, dry wax coated paper cups. Four 2ml cryovials (Sarstedt) were filled at each urine sample collection. Vials were labeled with the date, time and subject specific information. Vials were then placed in two waterproof plastic bags and kept cold in a small soft-pack cooler using either pack snow or mountain river water during the hiking sec-tions. In the climbing section, bagged vials were kept in a large cooler filled with ice. During the winter section, bagged vials were kept in a waterproof bag left exposed to the adequate freezing ambient temperatures (average -9.4°C). Once samples were taken out of the field, they were placed in a -80°C freezer at Washington University in St. Louis for long-term storage.

Doubly labeled water samples from five subjects in the main study were an-alyzed using the Picarro Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy system (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) at Hunter College in New York. DLW samples from the three pilot study subjects were analyzed with gas-isotope mass spectroscopy at the Baylor College of Medicine, under the direction of Dr. William Wong.

Activity, food and clothing diaries. Subjects were asked to keep self-re-ported activity and food diaries for the duration of the Energy and Activity Assessment Battery. Subjects reported activity type (hiking, walking, climbing, cross country skiing, digging snow, etc.), distance or duration of activity and backpack weight during reported activity. Subjects reported type and quantity of food. Collapsible measuring cups were provided to aid measuring accura-cy, though many subjects opted not to use these and instead estimated food amounts. Subjects also documented all of the clothing they took with them while in the field.

Activity diaries kept by subjects were transcribed into a database. Each day was entered separately to include the activity and its corresponding distance and duration. All distances and elevations were converted to meters. Data from the food logs were also transcribed into a database on a day-by-day basis. Kilocalories were calculated and assigned to each food entry using the NOLS Cookery (Pearson, 2004), NOLS Backcountry Cooking (Pearson & Kuntz, 2008), NOLS Backcountry Nutrition (Howley Ryan, 2008), and the official USDA Na-tional Nutrient Database for Standard Reference (USDA 2012). Kilocalories were summed for each day along with total carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugar, protein, total fat, trans fat, and saturated fat. The average for each subject was calculated for the Energy and Activity Assessment Battery of each climate.

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Temperature data. Temperature was measured using the Extech RHT10 Humidity and Temperature USB Data-logger (Extech Industries, Nashua, NH, USA). Two subjects each carried one data-logger in an outside pocket of their backpacks for the duration of the Energy and Activity Assessment Battery. This device measured and recorded temperature and humidity on a minute-by-min-ute basis, which was later downloaded for analysis.

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