Background: Over the past 10 years, research has started to investigate the pedagogic practices of instructors and coaches working in adventure sports settings. Outdoor instructors face particular challenges regarding the impact the dynamic environment has on the coaching process and their students. This challenging combination of factors obliges…

Adventure has outgrown its use as a metaphor and motive for educational journeys into the cultural outdoors. Self-reliance cannot counter the mechanisation of everyday life. "Adventure" is produced and serviced by the very people who felt its worth to their own individualisation and now advance its professionalisation for their own…

Recent leadership research has demonstrated a need for better understanding the process of becominga leader because it might be qualitatively different to being a leader. If so, there is likely to be a need for pedagogies designed deliberately to support first-time outdoor leadership experiences and any such pedagogies must be informed by the…

Background: One of the core environmental studies learning objectives at NOLS is for students to develop a "sense of place" by experiencing wilderness and exploring relationships with their surroundings. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore how students report developing a sense of place after completing a course based out…

This article presents a research-based study of the role of ePortfolios in the development of vocational students' skills. The authors discuss the process of finding a hybrid learning solution that can address the issues faced by vocational teachers and their students. The authors report on a case study using educational design research (EDR) at…

Evidence-based programming and the importance of research has gained attention among outdoor and adventure-based programs in recent years (Sibthorp, 2009) regardless of the challenges that often accompany this type of investigation (Bialeschki, Henderson, Hickerson, & Browne, 2012). Programs must often develop their own evaluation instruments,…

The outdoor leadership field is maturing in its understanding of activity safety and objective measures of risk exposure. Patterns of injury, relative exposure between related activities, and risk profiles per user group are only just beginning to accumulate academic findings from which a collective understanding of managing adventure-based risk…

Ecologists have long theorized about humans' psychological relationship to the natural world. The importance of feeling connected to nature is a theme in the writing of ecologists (Leopold, 1949; Orr, 1994; Roszak, 1995). They have argued that this connection to nature is a key component of fostering ecological behavior. In a meta-analysis of the…

This paper utilised a two-part mixed-methodology to examine the value placed on judgement and decision-making by a sample of qualified mountain leaders in the UK. Qualified leaders (N = 331) completed a web-based survey and a smaller sample (N = 8) were then interviewed. Survey data showed that mountain leaders place greater value on their…

The outdoor community has long been used to study motivation and sensation seeking. While sensation seeking is related to the personality traits extraversion and openness there has been little research conducted on the whole personality profile of this community. This study used the Five Factor Model and the Big Five Inventory to measure the…

Means-end theory was used to analyze differences in outcomes from original interviews and follow-up interviews occurring four years after Outward Bound (OB) and National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) 2006 course participation. In 2006, a semi-structured, in-person interview was conducted after participants (N = 510) completed their course. In…

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of the proposed Outdoor Leader Career Development Model (OLCDM) through the development of the Outdoor Leader Career Development Inventory (OLCDI). I assessed the reliability and validity of the OLCDI through exploratory factor analysis, principal component analysis, and varimax rotation, based…

This research examines the characteristics of adults that girls and adult OST facilitators consider most important for supporting positive youth development experiences in the outdoors. Three factors are identified: Emotional support, challenge support, and outdoor preparedness. While Emotional Support is rated most important by both girls and…

This study of an outdoor-based leadership course for teenagers shows how open-ended, difficult group tasks can enable participants to develop "dispositions for learning," which promote "responsible leadership." The latter is defined as responding ethically and uniquely to encounters with difference. Uses of educational…

Outdoor leader and adventure sport education in the United Kingdom has been characterized by an over-emphasis on technical skills at the expense of equally important, but often marginalized intra- and inter-personal skills necessary for contemporary outdoor employment. This study examined the lived experience of vocational outdoor students in…