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Robb, Gary M., Ed.The Bradford Papers Annual, Volume III, 1988.Indiana Univ., Bloomington. Dept. of Recreation andPark Administration.Oct 8884p.; For 1987 papers, see RC C17 001.Bradford Woods, 5040 State Road E7 North,Martinsville, IN 46151 ($12.50).Collected Works - Serials (022)

MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS.*Adventure Education; *Experiential Learning;*Leadership; *Outdoor Education; *RecreationalActivities; Recreational Programs; TherapeuticRecreation

This annual collection promotes scholarly writing,applied research findings, and innovative programs and activities inexperiential education. Topics of the 1988 papers include (1) "GenderIssues in Outdoor Adventure Programming" (Natalie L. Bartley andDaniel R. Williams) about the effects of outdoor leaders' gender,personality, soft skills training, and leadership styles on studentoutcomes on a 23-day Outward Bound mountain course; (2) "EnhancingMixed-Gender Programming" by (Cheryl Estes and Alan Ewert) about theeffects of student gender on expectations, communication, motivation,perceptions, and attributions for success in experiential andadventure programs; (3) "Live Simply that Others May Simply Live"(Almut Beringer) about the rationale and anplicability of the"volultary simplicity" lifestyle in a residential camp setting; (4)

"Adventure Education for People Who Have Disabilities" (DeborahSugarman), a review of the literature on adventure education programsfor people with physical, cognitive, or psychological disabilities;(5) "Agreement Reached on Outdoor Leadership Certification" (SimonPriest) on the opinions of 169 experts from 5 English-speakingcountries on the pros and cons of outdoor leadership certificatioli;(6) "Outdoor Recreation-the Holistic Leisure Pursuit" (Phyllis Ford)the view that outdoor recreation is a holistic approach to theleisure experience, encompassing every form of recreation; (7)

"Ethics for Adventure Programming" (Thomas E. Smith) on fourpotential strategies for developing ethical awareness in adventureprogramming; and (8) "Experimental Challenge Program Development inthe Mental Health Setting" (Christopher C. Roland, Thomas Keene,Michael Dubois, and Joseph Lentini) on the development of anexperiential challenge program in a mental health setting. Eacharticle is accompanied by an abstract, key words, and a referencelist. (SV)

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THE

FORDAPERS

ANNUALVolume III, 1988

U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOttoce of Educationai Research and Improvement

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Volume III 1988

vi Editorial Guidelines

iv Editor's Comment

CONTENTS

1 Gender Issues in Outdoor Adventure Programming: An Outdoor LeadershipModel Exploring Gender, Personality Soft Skills Training and Leadership Styleof Outdoor Leaders.

Natalie L. BartleyDaniel R. Williams

10 Enhancing Mixed-Gender Programming: Condiderations for ExperientialEducators

Cheryl EstesAlan Ewert

20 Live Simply That Others May Simply LiveAlmut Beringer

27 Adventure Education for People Who Have Disabilities: A Critical ReviewDeborah Sugarman

38 Agreement Reached On Outdoor Leadership Certification?Simon Priest

44 Outdoor Recreation - The Holistic Leisure PursuitPhyllis Ford

50 Ethics For Adventure Programming: Four Points of DepartureThomas E. Smith

66 Experimental Challenge Program Development In The Mental Health SettingChristopher C. RolandThomas KeeneMichael DuboisJoseph Lentini

An Annual Publication of Bradford WoodsIndiana University's Center for Outdoor Education, Camping and

Leadership Development5040 State Road 67 North, Martinsville, IN 46151

ifi

Editor's Comment

THE BRADFORD PAPERS ANNUAL is designed to promote scholarly writing,applied research findings and innovative programs and activities in experiential educa-tion.

Experiential education includes areas such as camping, outdoor education, recrea-tion, challenge and adventure programming. In addition, the ANNUAL considersgeneric articles that have application to the experiential education field. For example,articles that have application to human interaction, group developement, risk taking,behavior, research design, management principles, etc., as they may translate to experi-ential education programs may be appropriate for inclusi'n in the ANNUAL.

The Bradford Papers Annual is one of the first refereed publications in theexperiential field. Each article sibmitted undergoes extensive peer review by a minimumof three members of the Editorial Review Board. We invite your comments on the valueof this new journal and hope that readers will be encouraged to support this new effortthrough article submissions and word of mouth promotion.

Gary M. Robb, Editor

4

iv

Editorial StaffGary M. Robb, Editor

Editorial Review BoardRey Carlson, L.H D., Professor Emeritus, Department GI Recreation and Park Administration,

Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Mary Faeth Ghenery, Ph.D., Synergies Research and Resources Group, Inc., Seattle, Washington

Alan Ewell, Ph.D., Director, Project Leader / Research Scientist, USDA - Forest Service, ForestFire Labortaroy, Riverside, California.

Albert Fink, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Special Education, Indiana University, Bloomington,Indiana.

Phyllis M. Ford, Re.D., Professor and Chair, Department o; Park and Recreation Resources,Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

Edward J. Hamilton, Indiana University, Department of Recreation and Park Administration,Indiana.

Mark D. Havens, Ed.D., Accessible Adventures, Welches, Oregon.

Jasper S. Hunt, Jr. Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Educational Adminsitration andFoundations, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington.

Jim Keilsmeier, Ph.D., President, National Youth Leadership Council, Inc., Center for YouthDevelopment and Research, University of Minnesot i, St. Pari, Minnesota.

Gary Nussbaum, Ed.D., Assistant Professor, Department o: Recreatiou and Leisure Services,Radford University, Radford, Virginia.

Thomas J. Rillo, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Recreation and Park Administration, IndianaUniversity, Bloomington, Indiana.

Anthony Richards, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Health and Physical Education,Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Christopher Roland, Ph.D., President, Roland and Associates, Inc., Hancock, New Hampshire.

Thomas E. Smith, Ph.D., Psychologist-Adventure Guide, The Racoon Institute, Cazenovia,Wisconsin

Norma Stumbo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreationand Dance, Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois.

Rita Yerkes, Ed.D., Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Re -re ation and Leisure StudiesDepartment, State University College at Cortland, New York.

The Bradford Papers Annual is published annually in October and sponsored by Bradford WoodsOutdoor Education Center, Department of Recreaton and Park Administration, School of Health,Physical Education and Rec region, Indiana University/Bloomington. The ANNUAL is distributedfrom the point of origin. The opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the authors and notnecessarily those of Indiana University, the Editors or members of the Editorial Review Board.

v

Editorial Guidelines and Policies For AuthorsPublication Date Annually: October

DEADLINES:SUBMISSION: March 1NOTIFICATION DATE: June 1REVISIONS DUE: July 1

SELECTION CRITERIA AND POLICIESPeer Review ProcessEditorial board reviews (each paper read by 3 reviewers)Timeliness and contribution to literature.Evaluation data availability from conference where paper was presented (if applicable).Relevance for the Bradford Papers Annual in relationship to previous content.Editor reserve the right of final decision.NO payment made for articles submitted.Accepted articles become property of Bradford Woods-photos, maps, etc. will bereturned upon request.

MANUSCRIPT INFORMATIONIt is preferred that all manuscripts be submitted on computer disk as follows:1. 5.25 inch floppy disk2. Formatted on DOS 3.23. Wordstar 3.3 or Word Perfect 5-0 (IBM compatible)If it is not possible to send on floppy disk, all materials must be typewritten, doublespaced on 81/2 X 11 inch white bond paper. (four copies must be submitted)Margins should be set for 70 space line.All pages should be 25 inches long.Maximum length for manuscript should be 10-15 pages.All pages should be numbered consecutively.Only the title should appear on the manuscript itself.The title should appear at the top of the first page.Each table, drawing, illustration or map submitted must be camera-ready and preparedwith India ink.Photo copies of drawings, illustrations, or maps are unacceptable.All photographs submitted must be 8 X 10 inch black and white glossies.On a separate sheet sent with the manuscript, include:

An abstract of approximately 150 words._Title, submission date, author(s)._Five to seven key words._Biographical sketch of the author(s) not to exceed four lines.Research oriented manuscripts should contain: Need or purpose of the study, reviewof literature/related research, procedures or methodology, findings and conclusions,and suggestions for applying research findings.

vi

Reference citations should be suffic:ant to cover background information and relatedliterature. Reference citations should adhere to AF ,onnat.All references to books, bulletins and articles must be identified in the text by lastnameof author, year of publication, and where appropriate, pagination-all within parenthe-ses. Depending on construction of the sentence, the citation will appear as Jones (1987)or (Jones, 1987). Pagination follows the year of publication, separated by a corona(Jones, 1987, p. 32).Specify subsequent citations of the same source in the same way as the first. If an authorhas more than citation in the came year, distinguish them by use of letters (a, b, c,eta.) attached to the year in both text and reference and appendix (Johnson, 1986a,p.1)0).'Wheii a work has two authors, always cite both names every time the reference occursin the text. When a work has more than two authors, but less than six authors, cite allauthors the first time the reference occurs; in subsequent citations includc only thesurname of the first author followed by "et al" and theFor institutional authorship give identification each time citation appears (Departmentof Education: Annual Report, 19r p.7;A list of references used in the text must be appended alphabetically on a separate pageat the end of the manuscript as follows:

Lefcourt, H.M., Martin, R.A. & Salen, W.E. (1984). Locus of control and social support:Interactive moderators of stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47,378-389.

Teaff, J.D. (1985). Leisure service with the elderly. St. Louis: Time:, Minor/Mosby

RETURN ADDRESS INFORMATION The following information should accompanythe manuscript:

Name of author(s)Title of author(s)Place of employmentAddressCity

StateZip CodeOffice phone numberHome phone number

ALL MANUSCRIPTS SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Gary M. Robb, EditorThe Bradford Papers Annual

Bradford Woods5040 State Road 67 North

Martinsville, Indiana 46151(317)342-2915 or (812)855-0227

vii

Gender Issues in Outdoor AdventureProgramming: An Outdoor Leader-ship Model Exploring Gender, Per-sonality Soft Skills Training andLeadership Style of Outdoor LeadersNatalie L. BartleyDaniel R. Williams

This article is concerned with the theory behind a research project done on leadershipin outdoor adventure programming. An outdoor leadership model was developed toexplcre the relaticr.bhip of gender, personality, soft skills training and leadership stylesof outdoor leaders and their students' course outcomes. The study examined 29instructors and their students (total 79) who participated on a 23-day Colorado OutwardBound School standard mountain course.

Multiple regression analysis, t tests, chi-square, and Pearson correlation coefficientswere used to analyze statistical relationships among the variables. Within the limitationsof this study, the following conclusions were indicated. The personality traits and softskills training of instructors were associated with the students' course outcomes.Leadership style was not. Personality was associated with soft skills training. A trendemerged that gender had some effect on leadership style.

Recommendations for the experiential education field, in general, include the devel-opment of a soft training curriculum fcr outdoor leaders and the careful assigment ofinstructor pairs to courses to ensure a balance of personality nits and soft skills/hardskills.

KEYWORDS: Outdoor Adventure Programming: Outdoor Leadership VariablesModel.

In the Experietial Education field, thereis a twofold debate emerging concerningleadership. One aspect addresses the issueof gender awarer.ess and the developmentof male and female characteristics in lead-

ers. The other aspect concerns the possibleimbalance of hard skills and soft skills ofleaders. Both aspects are current issues forOutward Bound schools as well.

Dr. Natalie L. Bartley is presently the Management Training Center Coordinator atthe Model Outdoor Recreation Program for the Air Force, at the Mountain Home AirForce Base in Idaho. She received her Ed.d. from the University of Utah in Recreationand Leisure.

Dr. Daniel R. Williams is presently an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah'sDepartment of Recreation and Leisure. He received his Ph.d. from the University ofMinnesota in Forest Resources.

1

Masculinity and FemininityThough the outdoors have traditionally

been depicted as a male domain, there is anincreasing number of women students andwomen leaders. Gender issues are startingto come to the forefront. These issuesinclude: the establishment of expectedgroup and individual brehavior, sex-rolemodeling, the combining of feminine andmasculine values, "gender issues" aware-ness training for staff, participants' im-pression of leaders' soft skills and hardskills, and the role of gender related per-sonality traits in program philosophy andleaders' behavior. Knapp (1985) felt thatthe Experiential Education professionshould explore whether gender related per-sonality characteristics should be devel-oped in the leaders and the participants andhow these characteristics could be devel-oped.

The concept of psychological androg-yny dates back to the Orient and the Occi-dent (Marecek, 1979). Androgyny, thecombination of the best of stereotypicallymale and female traits for maximumadaptability, has only recently been sug-gested as healthy. It is suggested "thattraditional ideas of gender-appropriate-ness constrain men and women from de-veloping broad flexible behavior reper-toires and thereby limit human adaptabil-ity" (Marecek, 1979, p. 241). An androgy-nous leader would be able to respond toparticipants in ways that are not rigidlyassigned to either sex. The ideal outdoorleader would attempt to encourage studentgrowth in personality domains of bothmasculine and feminine traits.

Bem's (1974a, 1974b, 1981) work onthe Androgyny theory and Gender Schemathecry suggests that males and femalesacquire a cognitive stricture (schema) of anetwork of associations that are connectedto concepts of masculinity ard feminity.Gender schema are standards by whichpeople evaluate their own sex. There are

2

differences between individuals in thestrength of their gender schema and in theextent to which masculinity or femininityis reflected in their attiutdes, attributes,behavior and evaluation of gender relatedevents in their lives. Thus, an outdoorleader's gender schema might influencehis or her leadership style and the experi-ence that participants have on a course.The Androgyny theory and GenderSchema theory may have implications forcounseling skills, re:fling for outdoor lead-ers and instructors, and for program designand implementation.

Soft Skills and Hard SkillsKnapp (1985) suggested that "one goal

must be to develop well-balanced leaderswho can demonstrate both hard and softskills with equal competence" (p.17). Softskills can be thought of as the competenciesnecessary for effective interpersonal help-ing skills, as opposed to hard skills whichare technical competencies in mountain-eering, first aid, logistics, and other,. Softskills presumedly are used by the outdoorleaders to teach or help the participant todevelop psychosocial coping skills and aresometimes perceived as being gender re-lated.

Larson (1984) referred to the importanceof soft skills, stating that psychologicalskills training is a reflection of a fundamen-tal shift occurring between human servicesand the larger society. The public is in-creasing its interest and desire for psycho-logical and other personal growth services.Thus, in the context of experiential educa-tion, students may come to an outdooradventure program with a desire to learnskills to enhance th..: quality of their ownand others' lives and solve problems, notjust to acquire technical outdoor skills.

Psychosocial coping skills help studentsto adapt and perform in a variety of situ-ations (Larson 1984). Specific psychoso-cial coping skills that are appropriate to

9

teach in outd000r leadership situationsinclude relaxation, active listening, plan-ning, and assertiveness. Many of theseskills involve problem-solving skills. Inexperiential education programs, studentsmight look to male instructors for someskills and to female instructors for titherskills.

Outward Bound is one well-known pro-gram that addresses persoanl growth andself-awareness issues. The OutwardBound School's major goal is to create anenvironment (physically, socially, andpsychologically) conducive to enablingstudents to learn more about themselvesand their potential, and to develop self-confidence and compassion through expe-riences in group communication and de: i-sion making, and through coping with fear,uncertainty, and stress. Many other out-door programs have been developedaround the Outward Bound philosophy.

An attempt to identify the soft skills foroutdoor leaders was made by Buell (1983)and include counseling, human service,and human development competencies.Buell described these competencies as theability of leaders to vork with other hymnbeings. A supportive and helping relation-ship is developed through the use of spe-cific helping and counseling skiiis andprinciples. The outcbor leader has theability to a.7-0ist during psychological cri-sis. Buell warned that leaders need toknow the difference between counselingand therapy and to stay within their level oftraining and experience. Outdoor leadersand instructors, through the intensive con-tact with the participants and the relat:on-ships d.weloped during -Lid outdocr ad-verten pre, pram, have a gre.at notvlial forusing their !,,-)1"1 skills to teach their partici-pants psychosocial coping skills.

Swiderski (1987) proposed that hardskills, soft skills, and conceptual skills areaspects of competent outdoor leaders. Hesuggested that soft skills and conceptual

skills are neglected components of Ot,door Leadership Outd000r leadershave an impact upon their participants'potential for personal growth. This may bedone unknowingly through the leaders'personalities and gender, or through theconsicious applicaiton of their soft arj 11S.The importance of soft skills can be uncer-stood in reference to Rogers' thc'..uy of therole of a counsleor or helper. Carl Rogers,the well-known counseling theorist, out-lined the facilitative conditions that help tocreate a nonthreatening atmosphere whichallows for self-exploration and the in-creased likeihoci of change in self-con-cept (Long, 1978). These conditions can becreated on an outdoor course and includeempathic understanding, respect, andgenuineness.

Walsh and Golins (1976) summarizedthe diverse skills that outdoor leaders arerequired ') use:

By necessity of running operations in aspecial enviroment, such as the outdoors,the instructor is a trair.er....He must be ableto transmit the skills necessary for func-tioning in the enviorment. Not only musthe be technically proficient at the skill en-countered in negotiating the physical envi-ronment, he must be able to facilitate theaffective growth of the individuals throughtheir mastery of skills. This requires theability to be emphatic, genuine, concrete,and confrontive when necessary. (p.11)

Outdoor LeadershipBuell (1983) reflects the thoughts of

many writers in the leisure service profes-sion concerning the importance of leader-ship when he stated: "Leadership is thesingly most critical aspect of conductingoutdoor programs: (p.1). Currently thereseen's to be an increasing interest in evalu-ating outdoor programs and leadership inorder to provide qualitative/quantitativedocumentation (Hendy, 1976: Easely,1986; Phipps, 1988; and Tisdel, 1986).

3 ill 0

The study of leadership theories is poten-tially valuable in the evaluation of outdoorleadership and the understanding of theinterrelatedness of gender and soft skillsand leadership.

It appors that tAmerous theories existthat attempt to ext lain either the facts in-volved in emergence leadership or in thenature of leadership and its consequences.Many models have been proposed whichattempt to reconstruct the dynamics ofleadership using selected variablesU. _night to be involved in leadership.

A brief survey of the leadership theoriesinclude: greatman theories, trait theories,environmental theories, personal-situa-tional theories, psychoanalytic theories,leader role theory, role attainment theory,reinforced change theory, pathgoal theory,contingency theory, humanistic theories,exchange theory, behavioral theories, andattribution theory. Bass (1981) stated thatevery procedure known to social science ingeneral has been applied to the study ofleadership.

The Ohio State Leadership Studiesspurred a variety of theories on leadershipstyles and reseach investigations to test thetheories. The study of leader behaviorsbecame a major focus. Many researchersused various terms to describe a leaderwith high concern for he group's goal, in-cluding task oriented, concerned for pro-ductior goal achieving, work-facilitationand goal emphasizing, production ori-ented and production emphasizing. Theabove terms Oescribe the dimensions ofinitiation of structure as identified in theOhio State Leadership Studies. Similarly,many terms have been used tc describe aleader with a high concern about the groupmember including emphasizing employ-ees, relations-oriented, concerned forgroup maintenance, concerned for people,interaction-oriented, and in need of affili-ation. These it ms described the dimen-sion of conside,:.:Ion, as identified in the

4

Ohio State Leadership Studies (Bass,1981). Leaders differ in their concern forgroup goals and concern about groupmembers, and in the methods they use topursue group goals and attempt to maintainpositive open relations with followers.

The Ohio State Leadership Studies haveisolated two dimensions that describeleader behavior: consideration (person)and initiating of structure (task). Theseterms have become widely used and manystudies have been produced. The behav-ioral dimensions are frequently measuredby one or more of the Ohio State Leader-ship Scales which include the LeadershipBehavior Description Questionnaire(LBDQ), the Leadership DescriptionQuestionnaire -Form XII (LBDQ-XII), theSupervisory Behavior Description Ques-tionnaire (SBDQ), and the LeadershipOpinion Questionnaire (LOQ). The Lead-ership Scales could have potential applica-tion to the measurement of outdoor leader-ship styles. The work of Sergiovanni,Metzcus, and Burden (1969) and the workof Pfeiffer and Jones (1974) are two ex-amples of adaptations of the LeadershipScales for understanding individuals' lead-ership styles in the work place.

A theoretical model of outdoor leader-ship was developed (Bartley, 1987) inorder io investigate the potential relation-ship between gender, gender schema (per-sonality), previous soft skills training,leadership style and course outcome. Theleadership model is presented in Figure 1.There are positive traits from both sexesthat are need in the used of solft skills by anoutdoor leader or instructor. Valued mas-culine traits would include risk taking, ini-tiating, and assertion. Valued femininetraits include, caring, express;ng feelings,empathizing and intuition. What role dosuch traits play in determining soft skills,leadership style and participants' courseoutcomes?

Course Outcome II

Soft Skills Training

Figure 1. A model of outdoor leadership

MethodsVariables in the Model

The Gender variable reflects the in-creased interest of practitioners and re-searchers in how gender interacts withleadership styles and leader effectiveness.Gender is hypothesized to act on courseoutcome indirectly. Personaltiy and train-ing are thought to act on course outcomesdirectly and through leadership style.

The Petionalitt variable reflects the tra-ditional use of personality traits in leader-ship research. The applicaiton of theGender Schema Theory through the use ofthe Bern Sex Role Inventory, a measur-ment of sex-typed and androgynous indi-viduals, has not been researched with ow_door leaders but has implications for lead-ership style, training, and course out-comes.

The Soft Skills Training, variable refersto the previous soft skills training, educa-tion, and experience of the leader. Thiswas measured using a questionnaire devel-oped expec ially for this model. The type oftraining needed for effective leadershipand the relationship of (raining to courseoutcomes is generating great concernamong practitioners and among research-ers.

The LtarigaltUulg variable is theo-rized in this model to be a composite of theabove three variables which have beenisolated for analysis in this study based ontheoretical agruments from researchers

5

and practitioners. Leadership style wasrepresented using the Task and PersonsLeadership Style modification of theLBDQ Initiation of Sturcture and Consid-eration Model. This conceptualization ofleader behavior has a long history in re-search application, with valid and reliabletest instruments based on thit .heory.

The criterion variable Course OutcQnrepresents the interactive effects of the fourabove predictor variables. Course out-come, as perceived and measured by thecourse participants, is the most criticalconsideration of the effect of leadershipand the relationship of leadership in theachievement of a programs' goals. If theparticipants gain in the targeted areas, thenthe programs' goals have been met. Theleadership provided by the program maystrongly influence th,.. reali7aiton of pro-gram goals. Course Outcome was meas-ured with the Outward Bound ImpactStudy Inventories, resulting in six sum-mated subscales.

This study was an exploratory attempt tounderstand the role of gender-related per-sonality traits and soft skills on outdoorleadership style and course outcomes. Themodel was an oversimplificatiot. of leader-ship; however, it is not intended to serve amodel of the complex and dynamic leader-ship situation or process. Instead, it wasdesigned to examine major variables thathave been previously ignored in outdoorleadership efforts, and are variables of

12

practitioners' current concerns.To investigate the relationship of the

variables in the model shown in Figure 1,an exploratory field study was conductedon twenty-nine mountain course instruc-tors at the Colorado Outard BoundSch000l (COBS) during the 1986 sear--The instructors were precourse rested Laithe Outward Bound Impact Study (OBIS)Inventory, the Bem Personality Inventory,the Leadership Behavior Questionnaire,Form XII (LBDQ-X11), and Soft SkillsBackground Questionnaire. Seventy-ninestudents attending the COBS 23-claymountain courses served as the raters ofthe instructor leadership style and as ratersof their own individual perception of theircourse experiences. The students com-pletod the precourse OBIS Inventory, thenthe postcourse OBIS Inventory to assesscourse outcomes, coupled with the LBDQ-XXII on thier instructors. The five super-visors of the instructors also completedpostcourse OBIS and LBDQ on the in-structors. L

ResultsAs general profile, instructors in the

study had a relatively high level of educa-tion, were in their late 20's, had previousexperience as an Outward Bound instruc-tor or assistant and were somewhat similarto the instructors who participated in anearlier OBIS study at the Hurricane IslandOutward Bound School (HIOBS) in 1984through 1985. The student evaluators whoparticipated in the COBS study appearedto be similar to the students who partici-pated in a similar study at HIOBS in 1984

through 1985. Specifically, similaritieswere observed on 12 of the 14 personalityvariables measured by OBIS, and in the ageof the students.

The primary hypothesis was that leader-ship style, as a composite of gender, per-sonality, and soft skills, affects studentcourse outcomes. Multiple regressionanalysis, t-tests, chi-square, and Pearsoncorrelation coefficients were used to ana-lyze statistical relationships among thevariables.

Six different course outcome suu_ ;aleswere med to evaluate the effect of leader-ship sty'- gender, personality, and softskills traming on students' course out-comes. Three of the subscales were foundto be impacted by leader variables otherthan leadership style. The impacted sub-scales were selfdeprecation, sociability,and hopelessness.

The direct effect of leadership style onthe six course outcome subscales were notsupported by the results of the exploratoryfield study. Variables other than leadershipstyle had some effect on students' courseoutcomes. When controlling for the stu-dents' precourse subscale scores whichaccounted for most of the variance, instruc-tor personality and soft skills training hadsmall but significant direct effects oncourse outcomes. The instructor's genderwas found to have some effect on leader-ship style.

Within the limitations of this study, thefollowing findings were indicated. Thegender schema personality traits and previ-ous soft skills training of the instructorswere associated with the students' course

1. The study was part of a multiyear project known as th Outward Bound Impact Study(OBIS).. The goal of the OBIS project was to determine the impact of the standard Out-ward Bound Course. The project director was Dr. G. Christain Jernstedt, Departmentof Psychology, Dartmouth College. Dr. Stephan C. Bacon, Program Research and De-velopmentDirector at the Outward Bound (USA)) national office, Dr. Jernstedt, and theColorado Outward Bound School made it possible for the study to contribute to the on-going Outward Bound Impact Study.

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outcomes. Leadership style was not sig-nificantly associated with the students'course outcomes. The gender schemapersonality traits of the instructors wereassociated with soft skills training. A trendemerged that gender did in fact have someeffect of leadership style. A summary ofthe results are provided in Figure 2, wherea solid line indicates the potential directinfluence of one variable on another. Abroken line indicates the potential indirecteffect, where a variable has an effect on avariable by influencing another variable,which in turn affects leadership or courseoutcome.

DiscussionThe following recommendations are

made based on the field observations ofthis author/instructor, the theoretical bodyof literature, and the analysis of the datafrom the present study.

While the evidence is limited, it ap-pears that Outward Bound schools andexperiential education programs shouldconsider actively pursuing the develop-ment of a soft skills training curriculum for

N.S.

S.

Personality N.S.

N.S.

Gender

N.S.

S. N.S.

instructors. The recent work of Swiderski(1987) has identified components of softskills and conceptual skills that could befocused on during leadership training ses-sions. Bacon (1983) has initiated efforts insoft training skills through nationallyavailable workshops and the publication ofthe book, The Conscious Use of Metaphorin Outward Bound. Bacon's book providesinsight into the soft skills an instructor candevelop in order to enhance the potentialfor the students to experience personalgrowth. While personality and gender playa role in course outcomes, the outdoorleader's soft skills abilities may have agreater influence on course outcomes. Softskills, as an ability, has the potential to belearned, more so than personality and gen-der, or leadership style, and is more modi-fiable than personality and gender.

Additional soft skills assessmentmethods need to be developed and vali-dated. The method could take a number ofdifferent forms. The Soft Skills Back-ground Questionnaire could be furtherdeveloped for accuracy, consistency, andpredictive ability. A subjective, qualitative

411\

Leadership StyleN.S.

N.S.

Soft Skills TraininjV N.S.

N.S.

S.

Course Outcome,

ir/Direct path between two variables

Interacting with each otherNote: S. = Significant; N.S.. Not Significant

Figure 2. Multiple regression andysis results: Summary of the

relationship of leadership variables and course outcomes as

related to hypotheses and test conclusions.

7

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approach, such as the use of participant ob-servers in the field documenting the skillsthe instructors display, could be used.

Content analysis of instructor and/orstudent journals, with a focus on human re-lationship interactions or the use of situa-tional role-playing, with an observer ratingthe skills of the instructor displayed areother possibilities.

The interaction of outdoor leadershipstyle and course outcomes is still in anearly stage of exploration. Further re-search in this direction is still needed. Thetask/person adaptation of the LBDO-XII(Sergiovanni, et al, 1969) should be con-sidered for use in future studies. Modifica-tion and revalidaton of the instrument maybe needed to improve the readability andappropriateness of the inventory to out-door program settings. In addition, con-sideration should be given to the use ofother leadership models and inventories,such as the models identified by Phipps(1938).

The assignment of instructor pairs tocourse should be carefully considered bythe supervisor. Striving for a potentialbalance of instructor gender, personalityschema, leadership styles, and soft skillsability may have a greater impact on stu-dents' course outcomes than having a bal-ance of a male instructor and female in-structor. Assignment of instructor pairsand training can, perhaps, enhance theinstructors' influence on students' courseoutcomes. A unique approach to the as-signment of instructors to students mightbe to first test the students on personalitytraits and personal needs, then on the basisof the results, match the students with theinstructors whose personality traits, softskills abilities, and leadership styles mightbest serve a particular group of students.

In summary, leadership is the criticalcomponent of all outdoor programs. Thereis currently some lack of certainty as to (a)what competencies are needed, (b) what

leader styles are effective, (c) what propor-tion of hard skills and soft skills causedesire course outcomes, (d) what role an-drogyny/gender schema should play inprogram philosophy and leaders' behavior,and (e) what impact gender has on leaders'styles and course outcomes. Hopefully theinfonnaton and insight gained can be usedto further the understanding of outdoorleadership variables.

References

Bacon, S. (1983). The conscious use ofmetaphor in Outward Bound. Denver:Colorado Outward Bound School.

Bartley, N.L. (1987). Relatonship ofleadership style, gender personality andtraining of Outward Bound instructors andtheir course outcomes. Doctoral disserta-tion, University of Utah, Salt Lake City,UT.

Bass, B.M. (1981).. Stogdill's handbookof leadership: A survey of theory andresearch (Rev. ed.). New York: The FreePress.

Bern, S.L. (1947a). Bern Sex Role Inven-tory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psycholo-gists Press.

Bem, S.L. (1974b). The measurement ofpsychological androgyny. Journal ofConsulting and Clinical Psychology,42,155-162.

Bern, S.L. (1981). Gender schema theory:Acognitive account of sex typing. Psycho-logical Review, 88, 354-364.

Buell, L. (1983). Outdoor leadershipcompetency: A manual for self-assessmentand staff-evalulation. Greenfield, MA:Environmental Awareness Pubications.

Easley, A.T. (1986). The personality traitsof wilderness leadership instructors atNOLS: The relationship to perceived in-structor effectiveness and the developmentof self-concept in students. Dissertation

8 1 5

Abstracts International, 46, 2515B. (Uni-versity Microfilms No. 852131G, .

Hendy, C.M. (1976). Outward Bound andpersonality: 16 PF profile of instructorsand IPSATIVE changes in male and fe-male students 16-19 years of age (Doctoraldissertation, University of Oregon, 1975).Diossertation Abstracts International, 36,4353-A.

Jernstedt, G.C. (1986). Procedures, mate-rials, note s for the 0 unvard Boiund ImpactStudy. Hanover, NH: Department of Psy-chology, Dartmouth College.

Knapp, C.E. (1985). Escaping the gendertrap: The ultimate challenge for experien-tial educators. The Journal of ExperientialEducation, 8 (2),16 -19.

Larson, D. (Ed.). (1984). Teaching psy-chological skills: Models for giving psy-chology away. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Long, L. (1978). Listeninglresponding:Human relations training for teachers.Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Marecek, T. (1979). Social change, posi-tive mental health and psychological an-drogyny. Psychology of Women Quar-terly, 3, 241-247.

Pfeiffer, J.W., and Jones, J.R. (Eds.).(1974). A handbook of structured experi-ences for human relations training (Vol.1). San Diego: University Associates, Inc.

Phipps, M. (1988). Experiential Leader-ship Education. The Journal of Experien-tial Education, 11 (1), 22-28.

Sergiovanni, TJ., Metzcus, R., and Bur-den, L. (1969). Toward a particularisticapproach to leadership style: Some finds.American Ed4cational Research Journal,6, 62-69.

Stogdill, R.M. (1963). Manual for theLeadership Behavior Description- FormXII. Columbus, OH: Bureau of BusinessResearch, College of Commerce and Ad-

9

ministration, The Ohio State University.

Swiderski, MJ. (1987). Soft and Concep-tual Skills: The often overlooked compo-ne.its of outd000r leadership. TheBr cdford Papers Annual, 2, 29-36.

T Jdel, J. (1986). Effects of instructorpersonality and teaching styles on studentpersonality in Outward Bound programs.Unpublished paper, Dartmouth College,Handover, NH.

Walsh, V., and Golins, G. (1976). Theexploration of the Outward Bound process.Denver. Colorado Outward BoundSchool.

16

Enhancing Mixed-Gender Program-ming: Considerations for Experien-tial EducatorsCheryl EstesAlan Evert

Experiential education organizations have traditionally conducted their programs withlittle regard to any perceived or real differences due to gender. Gender differences canbe manifested in differences in expectations, communications, motivations, perceptions,and attributions for success. This paper explores these differences and their relation toexperiential and adventure programs. A number of specific programming considerationsare presented which have emerged from recent research done within and outside the fieldof experiential education profession.

KEYWORDS: Experiential education, gender, sex-role stereotyping

As a professional who provides experi-ences for others there an two questionsone should ask: Should providers of expe-riential education be concerned with gen-der issues? If so, how should one provideprograms that can maximize the benefitsfor all participants? The purpose of thispaper is to investigate gender issues froman experiential educator's perspective.Three areas will be addressed: a discus-sion of salient research on gender issuesand sex-role stereotyping; an examinationof research that relates gender and experi-ential activities; and, some suggestedimplications that these findings have forexperiential educators.

Every person who attends an experien-tial program comes with a personal historyincluding different motivations, expecta-

tions and perceptions. Just as these antece-dents to an adventure activity differ, so dothe anticipated outcomes. In designingprograms which maximize individualgrowth, differences between individualsmust be taken into account. Educatorsreadily acknowledge different program-ming ne,Qcls for groups such as high schoolstudents, corporate executives, or adultsover fifty. Experiential educators need tobe able to draw some generalizations aboutthe individuals within a group as well.Criteria that are often considered includeage, physical ability, intelligence, back-ground and gender. While all of thesecriteria are vitally important, gender re-fated issues are often misunderstood andsometimes even avoided in experientialprograms. The issue of mixed-gender

Cheryl Estes MA., is a graduate teaching associate in Adventure Education andSport and Leisure Studies at The Ohio State University. She is currently working on herdoctorate in Physical Education, specializing in Outdoor Adventure Education.

Alan Ewert PhD., is currently Director of Professional Development for PacificCrest Outward Bound. He is also a visiting lecturer at The Ohio State University.

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programming has received increasing at-tention in recent articles and discussions,and continues to be an area open to interestand debate in the field (Henderson & Bi-aleschki, 1987; Knapp, 1985; Yerkes,1985).

Attitudes regarding mixed-gender pro-grams can be placed on a continuum.Those who believe in sex-role stereotypesexist on one end, and those who are veryknowledgeable of and sensitive to genderissues and needs on the other. Reality fmdsmost educators somewhere in the middle:interested and concerned, with someknowledge of gender issues, and unknow-ing of all that could (or should) be knownabout gender issues. People are continu-ally growing, and becoming more aware ofstereotypes and the influence of socializa-tion on lifestyles. This process of changeand growth leaves educators and partici-pants at different points along the contin-uum. In probability, most find it morecomfortable to stay on familiar groundrather than raise such potentially volatileissues when working with a mixed-gendergroup. Yet these may be issues that arequite relevant: a mixed-gender groupimmersed in an experience that increasesawareness and empathy can increaseawareness after the course when individu-als return to their home environment.

Gender Differences and Sex Role Stere-otyping

Men and women differ in some impor-tant ways that require them to be consid-ered both separately (as single gendergroups) and together (as mixed gendergroups). When individual traits are aver-aged, as tend to be the case in much psy-chological research, there are many moresimilarities than differences between menand women (Malin, 1986). Regardless offew existing differences "on the average"it is known that people react differently tomen and women. Beginning from birth

boys and girls are socialized to be different(Marlin, 1986). By the time one reachesadulthood, differences resulting from biol-ogy, socialization and the resulting lifechances/expected roles affect us all (Betz,1987).

Socialization processes have wide rang-ing influence. While some may believethat men and women are genetically des-tined to act in seemingly opposite manners,there are no biological theories that explainthe majority of observed gender differ-emes (McGuinness, 1976). It is the influ-ence of cultural constructs such as sex-rolestereotypes that have a more powerful in-fluence. We all know that "male" traits arethose reflecting competence (such as inde-pendenc?.. self-reliance, and ambition; andthat 'female" traits are those reflectingwarmth and expressiveness (gentleness,soft-spokeness, communicativeness, andawareness of others).

Sex-role StereotypesStereotypes provide us with ways to

categorize others and predict their behav-ior. They also provide barriers that inter-fere with seeing the true nature and poten-tial of individuals (Knapp, 1985). Thesebarriers not only affect the way others lookat us, but also the way we see ourselves.Anxiety may result in a situation where anencounter dictates behaviors that are in-compatible with one's sex-role orientation(Leary, 1983). A traditional man mayexperience doubts when pressed to conveyhis feelings. Similarly, a traditionallyfeminine women may feel apprehensive ina task requiring assertion. An examinationof stereotypical sex differences in the areasof communication, attributions, and per-ceptions provides some insight into howstereotypical behaviors can influence par-ticipants in an experiential program.

Communication. Language and conver-sation patterns show evidence of howdeeply these stereotypes are embedded in

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our lives. The same words used by menand women can carry different meanings.When a woman states a person is herfriend, she is probably referring to some-one with whom she can confide in andshare feelings. Men using the words"friend" more often refer to someone whois their buddy, that is, someone with whomto do things with (Richardson, 1985).Richardson goes on to say that by the timeyoung adulthood is reached, men andwomen actually come to think differentlyand exist in two worlds of different mean-ing. Studies of conversations betweenmen and women show some surprisingresults. Men dominate the conversations,choose topics more often and account forup to 96% of the interruptions. Women onthe other hand ask up to 75% of the ques-tions and are much less successful atchoosing the topic for discussion (Pfieffer,1985). Facilitators of discussions inmixed-gender groups may find that effortspent paying attention to who talks, whatthey say , and how they say it may yieldsome interesting results.

Attributions, Attributions made by menand women for their own performancesshow some distinct differences. Whilemen and women have been found to besimilar in abilities and desires for successmen are more confident than women thatthey will be able to co mplete a task and thatthey will be satisfiec with their perform-ance (Nicholson, 1984). In addition, bothmen and women are more likely to attrib-ute a man's successes to his abilities whilethey are more likely to attribute a woman'ssuccess to special efforts or luck (Deaux,1976). Cripe and Bird (1986) studiedattributions of children in a sport setting.Young children attributed outcomes simi-larly, but by age 13, success in sport forgirls was luck, whereas the same successfor boys was ascribed to effort. This find-ing implies that by adolescence, socializa-tion processes were beginning to dictate

the ways these boys and girls viewed theirsuccesses. Another interesting sport re-lated finding was that when a boy lost toanother boy, he would accept lack of abilityas the cause. But when a boy lost to a girl,he would not accept his lack of ability as thecausesuch a loss goes against the stere-otype that boys are more competent insports than girls (Bird & Cripe, 1986).

Perceptions, The way an individualperceives him or herself and the activitiesengaged in may be of more importancethan the nature of the activity itself. Instudying anxiety and self - concept in Out-ward Bound, Koepke (1973) found thatmen and women were more similar thandissimilar in regards to anxiety and self-concept. There was, however, a differencein degrees of idealism between the twosexes. Female Outward Bound partici-pants set higher ideals for themselves thanthe males, but the male's perceptions ofthemselves were likely to be closer to real-ity. Women students in Koepke's study,having higher expectations for themselvesthan they were able to achieve, may havesome influence on their views of their ownsuccess in the Outward Bound program.

Another study of students engaged inphysical education activities found thatwomen tended to view activity as a sourceof health and fitness whereas men viewedthe activity primarily as a thrill experience(Cunningham, 1970). The perception ofrisk involved in an activity is highly subjec-tive. Individuals usually base their percep-tions on prior experiences and personalfeelings about their chances for success.While it has been suggested that men andwomen have similar attitudes regardingrisk, men tend to prefer high risk sportswhile women prefer moderate to low risksports (Neimand, 1978). The topic of howperceptions may influence behavior andoutcomes will be explored further in thenext section.

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Stereotypes, Androgyny, and Experi-ence

Sex-role stereotypes refer to the psycho-logical features that people believe areassociated with men and women (Mat lin,1987). These sex-role stereotypes, to theextent that they are held by others and byself, can form a powerful set of expecta-tions for both men and women. Stere-otypes are most influential when we havelittle information regarding a person's pastperformance and less influential if oppor-tunities eRist to "get to know" the peopleinvolved. Experiential education can beeffective in providing one forum wheremixed gender groups can become moreaware and empathetic of individuals. Inaddition, in the process of becoming moreaware of others and self, participants havethe opportunity to explore the positiveaspects of androgyny.

Androgyny refers to people who arehigh in both masculine and feminine quali-ties. This concept provides an individualwith the option to draw from the positiveaspects of masculine and feminine traits,and to be flexible as to choosing whichcharacteristics best fit the task at hand.Sex-role orientation refers to the degree anindividual associates masculine and/orfeminine traits with him or herself. SandraBem developed a method for measuringsex-role orientation using the "Bem Sex-Role Inventory" (Bem, 1974). Based onseparate and independent scales a femi-nine person is one who scores high on thescale for femininity (i.e. affectionate, shy,compassionate and gentle) and low on themasculine scale. A masculine person isone who scores high on masculine traitssuch as self-reliant, athletic, and dominant,and low on the feminine scale. A personwho is androgynous scores high on bothmasculine and feminine scales and a per-son who scores low on both scales is con-sidered undifferentiated (Mat lin, 1987). Amale or female can receive any of these

four scores, regardless of biological gen-t:2r. Thus, an androgynous man or womenmay be self-reliant, assertive, sensitive tothe needs of others and compassionateasthe situation dictates. Experiential activi-ties provide an opportunity for instructorsto be role models, and participants canpractice applying positive traits to the situ-ation at hand. A more traditional womanmay learn that the group will benefit if theyare more assertive in presenting their solu-tions to a problem. A traditional man maylearn that being more communicative andsensitive creates a positive feeling forhimself and the group.

Gender and Experiential ActivitiesThere has been little research that has

documented gender specific reactions inexperiential education. One study com-pleted by Ewert (1985) on climbing partici-pants at Mount Rainier gives us some infor-mation regarding male and female differ-ences in motivations for climbing. Explo-ration of a model modified from Allen(1987) gives some additional insight as tohow sex-role orientation may influenceantecedents, behaviors and outcomes.Gender and Motivations for Climbing

Ewert's (1985) study on why peoplemountain climb can provide explorationinto a still frequently debated question ofwhy people engage in risk recreation ac-tivities. The intent of the study was todetermine how motivations for climbingvary with respect to gender of the climber.

The study was conducted during the1985 climbing season (June - August) andmountain climbers at Mount Rainer Na-tional Park in Washington State were askedto complete a forty item questionnaire. Theforty item instrument was constructed tomeasure subjects' reported motivations forclimbing mountains. Many of the itemswere selected on the basis of their per-ceived ability to measure leisure motiva-tions previously identified in leisure re-

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search (Crandall, 1980).Ptak

Table 1Motivations for Climbing by Gender'

Females Males

IIIIIIIVVVIVII

Introspection/CreativityPhysical ExerciseSocializationSkill DevelopmentCatharsisControl Over SelfPhysical Setting

Excitement/ChallengeControl Over SelfCatharsisRecognitionPhysical SettingSocializationArousal

a In order of decreasing importance.

Using a principle component factoranalysis with varimax rotation, seven fac-tors with an eigenvalue of 1.0 or greaterwere generated for men and seven factorsfor women (see table 1).

Factor I for women was labeled Intro-spection/Creativity because of the load-ings on the following statements: Getaway and alone (.68) Think about per-sonal values (.67), Spiritual (.60), andCreative (.60). Factor I for men, termedPersonal Testing and Success, loaded onthe following: Excitement (.61), Test Self(.60), Develop Skills (.57) and Accom-plishment (.56). Factor II for women wastermed Physical Exercise which loadedon: Physical Exercise (.73), Accomplish-ment (.67), and Exhilaration (.63) Factor Hfor men, Effectance, loaded on: Opportu-nity to Make Decisions (.67), and TeamEffort (.57). The additional phrases cho-sen for women included: Socialization/Recognition for Factor III, loading on Partof a Group (.78) and Gain Recognition(.52); Factor IV, called Skill Developmentloaded on Use Skills (.70) and DevelopSkills (.68); Factor V, Catharsis loaded onPersonal Relaxation (.73) and RelieveStress (.68); with Eftectance and Arousalas Factors VI and VII respectively. The

other phases chosen for men included:Catharsis for Factor III, loading on MindSlow Down (.68), and Relieve Stress (.67);Recognition for Factor IV, loading on:Gain Recognition (.68) and Show Others ICan (.68); Factor V, Setting, loaded onEnjoy Wilderness (.88), and Scenery (.70),with Socialization and Arousal for factorsVI and VII respectively.

One of the most striking features of thisanalysis is that the two most importantfactors chosen by women, Introspection!Creativity and Physical Exercise, do notappear at all in the list of reasons chosen bymen. Conversely, the primary reasonschosen by men, those that related to Excite-ment/Challenge and Control over Self re-ceive little attention from women. Three ofthe other factors that appeared in bothgenders, but in differing orders of priority,were Catharsis, Socialization, and Setting.Upon comparing items from the question.naire the different motivations for men andwomen climbers were even more evident(see Table 2)). The reasons chosen bywomen reflected their concern with spiri-tual, social, and personal value while menplaced a greater emphasis on challenge andview.

The results for women concur with

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Table 2Significant Comparisons of Item Means by Gender Using the West'

Probability ofI Climb: Female ° Male ° Differences by

Chance

To view the scenery 4.73 4.61 .07For sniritual reasons 3.17 2.92 .10To bring the foini!;,, togther 2.64 2.38 .07For somett ing to d- 3.32 3.03 .04To be close to nature 4.39 4.22 .05For personal testing :1.77 3.99 .07To think about personal values 3.60 3.25 .01

To keep physically fit 4.17 1.:0 .10Because of the risks 2.46 2.91 .00

'Item means were also compared using the Mani, hitney U tett with similar results.°Means with range of strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).

Grace Lichtenstein's (1985) observationsthat female Outward Bound participantswere participating in a wilderness experi-ence based on a desire for spiritual devel-opment. The men in study were moremotivated by the excitement and challengeof the mountain climbing experience. Theresults also correspond withCunningham's findings on risk perception

in physical education that suggested a cor-relation between women perceiving physi-cal activity for fitness while men may per-cn4ve it primarily for the thrill potential(1970).A_UnceptuaLMaricl

Allen's (1987) "Conceptual Model ofRisk Recreation" explores how a variety ofantecedents (including demographics, per-sonality, experiences, aitdes, and self-

Figure 1.Model relating antecedents, behaviors, and outcomes'

Antecedents

Sex-role orientation

Cognitions/Attributic.is/Perceptions

Motivations

Self-efficacy

Behaviors Outcomes

Activity Structure Learning-Cognitive-Affective-Psychomotor

Communication/Language

PerformanceSelf-Actualization

' Modified from Allen's (1987) Conceptual Model of Risk Recreating.

15

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efficacy) affect behavior and conse-quences in risk recreation. Allen's para-digm is adapted here to illustrate ways thatgender-based antecedents may affect be-haviors and outcomes.

A person's sex-role orientation can in-fluence their behavior in activity. Genderstereotypes are perpetuated both by self-arceptance and the acceptance of others.Activities in experiential and adventureeducation include rock climbing, rafting,backpacking, etc., which involve risk tak-ing and athletic ability that are typicallyassociated as masculine traits (Bent,1974). The resulting effects of these stere-otypes for a feminine person may be areduced belief in success, or an elevatedbelief in success for a masculine person.However, group participation in experien-tial activities requires not only willingnessto take risks and athletic ability, but alsocompassion and sensitivity to the needs ofothers. Perhaps educators (and progizmmarketing personnel) would do well toemphasize the value that both masculineand feminine traits bring to an experientialactivity. An example of how the mediapromoted an image Outward Bound as amasculine survival training program isreflected in an early article title "RuggedCamps Turn Boys Into Iron Men" (Berry,1966). In reality, Outward Bound viewsitself as "an educational process dedicatedto the principle that the individual devel-ops self-confidence, concern for othersand self-awareness..." (North CarolinaOutward Bound School, 1982).

Stereotypical views of men and womenaffect other antecedents as well. Womentend to have developed stronger verbalskills whereas men are more mechanicallyoriented (McGuinness, 1976). Men andwomen are more likely to attribute a man'ssuccesses to his abilities even though inreality male and female abilities are usu-ally equal. Neither gender is as likely toview female abilities as highly. The self-

efficacy of men and women is likely to beaffected by these views. Different levels ofself-efficacy are apparent in the degree towhich each gender has demonstrated pref-erence for risk. In general, men tend togravitate towards high risk sports whereaswomen go to moderate and low risk activi-ties. Women who do participate in highrisk sports tend to have a high masculinesex-role orientation (they may be highfeminine as well) (Allen, 1987). Differentmotivations for attending experiential ac-tivities will affect behaviors and outcomes.In adventure activities like climbing, orOutward Bound programs, women arelikely to be seeking spiritual development,whereas men may be looking for the excite-ment and challenge in the same activity.

In a mixed-gender program differentbehaviors may be reflected in the structureof the activity. The sex-role orientation ofthe instructor can influence the goals andobjectives he or she chooses for the groupto accomplish. Communication and lan-guage patterns may show traditional maledominance of the time spent speaking, andthe feminine traits of asking questions ofapproval before presenting a thought.Performances may be different based ontime allotted for practice and the expectedquality of performance. If women are`expected' to have lesser abilities in physi-cal skills, they may also be expected to doless or be given less attention in skill learn-ing situations. if men are `expected' tohave lesser abilities in physical skills, theymay also be expected to do less or be givenless attention in skill learning situations. Ifmen are `expected' to be less communica-tive of feelings, they may not be expectedto develop these aspects as much as femalegroup members.

Learning outcomes will be reflective ofhow an activity was structured to meetindividual needs and gender differences,and whether opportunities to learn andpractice different types of skills were en-

16

23

couraged. If personal growth is a programgoal the degree to which a participant at-tains growth and learning may well dependon how well a program has met his herneeds as a learner. Therefore, in a mixed-gender program the instructor should payclose attention to the needs of !loth the menand women who are participating.

These hypothetical examples of the in-fluences of sex-role orientation, stereotyp-ing and socialization processes in experi-ential programs are only a few of the pos-sibilities. Becoming more aware thatsomething exists, and knowing what itlooks like, are the first steps towardchange. The following implications forprogramming are intended as a startingpoint of ideas for ways experiential educa-tors might constructively approach amixed-gender program.

Implications for ProgrammingThese recommendations are made based

on the overview of literature on gender andthe research specific to experiential activ-ity. Experiential educators can achieve abetter learning environment in mixed-gender groups by considering the follow-ing suggestions.

Recognize that females and malesare different not so much in abilitiesand competencies, but more in moti-vations and perceptions in experien-tial activities.

Encourage realistic and helpful attri-butions for participant's successesand failures. This will require movingbeyond stereotypical views of male/female abilities.

Design program goals and objec-tives to attain a mix by giving equal at-tention to masculine and feminine as-pects. This point is often described asmixing 'hard and soft skills.'

Strive to make instructors and stu-dents aware of how sex-role stere-otypes influence their behavior andmake conscious efforts to down playthese roles. Methods for doing thismight include:

insuring equal time for communi-cation

stress sufficient amounts of learn-ing and practice time

have equal expectations for bothgenders for developing hard andsoft skills.

Provide an affirmative action ap-proach to teaching women mechanicalskills and men communicative skillsby giving extra time and attention tothese areas where needed.

Stay cognizant of students or staffwho "buy into" the sex-role stere-otypes (e.g. that women do not engagein strenuous activity without help, andthat men never ask for help.) Seek toalter these stereotypes through addedlearning, experience, and communica-tion.

Market programs with an approachthat indicates opportunities for spiri-tual development as well as opportuni-ties for thrill and challenge.

Stmotypical behavior is ingrainedthrough the socialization process.Educators need to strive to alter stere-otypical patterns by encouraging menand women to engage in each other's`traditional' activities, e.g. womenbecome expert white-water canoeists,and men become expert cooks.

Employ male and female staff at alllevels of the program and make anattempt to have mixed-gender instruc-

17

tional role models for an experience.

Gender stereotypes will continue to be afactor for experiential educators, yet menand women can still strive to achieve a sortof "gender role transcendence." Thismeans that people will not merely combinemasculine and feminine traits as androg-yny recommendsbut go beyond thesegender roles, because these roles will nolonger be relevant or meaningful (Matlin,1987). .

Experiential education is one forumwhere gender issues, and especially stere-otypes, can be addressed because of theopportunity to get hands-on informationabout self and others. Educators will findthat stereotypical behavior will differ byage, social background, and regional dif-ferences. One mixed- gender group may beandrogynous and function nonstereotypi-cally whereas another group may exhibitstereotypical behaviors. With informa-tion, time, and effort, experiential educa-tors have an effective tool to increaseawareness regarding gender issues by us-ing the direct learning methods common toexperiential education activities.

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Betz, N. (1987). Psychology of women.Course lecture notes, Psychology 543, TheOhio State University, Columbus, OH.Bird, A.M., & Cripe, B.K. (1986). Psy-chology and sport behavior. St. Louis,MO: Times Mirrot/Mosby College Pub-lishing.

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Cunningham, SD. (1970). A comparisonof attitudes toward physical actiV.zy ex-pressed by male and female students in therequired physical education activity pro-gram at North Texas State University. InR.N. Singer & R.A. Weiss (Eds.). (1971).Completed Research in Health PhysicalEducation and Recreation (p. 148).American Association of Health, PhysicalEducation and Recreation.

Deaux, K. (1976). Sex: A perspective onthe attribution process. In J.H. Havey,W.H. Ickres, & R.F. Kidd (Eds.). Newdirections in attribution research (pp. 335-352). Hillsdale, NJ: :Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates.

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Leary, M.R. (1983). Social, personality,and clinical perspectives. (Vol. 153, Sage

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Librstry of Social Research). BeverlyHills, CA: Sage Publications.

Lichtenstein, G. (1985). Getting beyondmachisma. Outward Bound. 74-49.

North Carolina Outward bound School.(1982). The instructor's handbook: northCarolina Outward Bound School (5th ed.).Morganton, NC: Author.

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McGti:nness, D. (1976). Sex differencesin the organization of perception and cog-nition. In B. Lloyd & J. Archer (Eds.).Exploring sex differences. Nnw York:Academic Press.

Nicholson, J. (1984). Men and women:Now different are iliey? Oxford, NY:Oxford University Press.

Neimand, D.A. (1978). Attitudes about,and preferences for, physical risk and ver-tigo risk among participants in selectedsports. Unpubti7hed dissertation, Univer-sity of North an Colorado, Greely, CO.

Pfeiffer, J. (1985). Girl talkBoy talk.Science 85. 6 (1), 58-63.

Richardson, L. (1935, February). Lan-guage, sex and gender. Presentation at themeeting of the Undergraduate Women's\ssociation, The Ohio State University,Columbus, OH.

Yerkes, R. (ed.). (1985). Experientialeducation from the male and female pointof view (Special issue). The Journal ofExperiential Education, 8(2).

2619

Live Simply That Others May Sim-ply LiveAlmut Beringer

Education for a global perspective has been recognized as an important contributiontoward a peaceful co-existence of humans with each other and the envircnment.Voluntary simplicity is a concept and lifestyle based on the increasing awareness thatcultural, political, economic, and ecological phenomena are interrelated on a global scaleThis paper examines the rationale and applicability of voluntary simplicity in aresidential camp setting. Techniques and principles of voluntary simplicity are illus-trated through the example of a backpacking program conducted on the basis of teachingvoluntary simplicity as a means of global education.

KEYWORDS: Global education, cooperative learning, voluntary simplicity, residen-tial camping.

The most important step for survival in atransforming society is the realization thatthings are changing. In the post-industrialworld where many natural resources arelimited, where cultural distances are de-creasing, and where the pie is not largeenough to feed everyone in an unlimitedmanner, we have two ptions: 1.) facingnuclear annihilation, environmental pollu-tion and loss of social cohesion, we candemonstrate a narcisstic "me fuse' atti-tude; 2.) we can choose to strive beyondthe self in the present, acknowledge thecommunion of a human family, and adopta global consciousness which would aim atachieving, renewing and maintaining ahigh quality of life for all inhabitants of thisplanet. In any case, a guiding principle isneeded that will determine the direction totake.

By devoting great energy and time to

children, organized can ping has chosenthe second option: believing in and demon-strating hope in the future. Camping pro-fessionals have accepted the opportunityand share the responsibility of helpingchildren grow under radically changingcircumstances. The custody of other'slives and the welfare of the planet call for areverence of life which includes respect foreach individual and an ecological con-science, as well as a global perspective. Weas social agents must take the premise ofconstructively affecting the character de-velopment of youth seriously-we mustremember camping's great potential ofsocietal impact. We need to re. )ct uponhow we can make practical changes atcamp and in our everyday lives that permitboth .1 high quality of our personal exis-tence and the well-being of the entirehuman family. Camping with a global per-

Almut Beringer is Director of Backpacking at Camp Tamarack, Oregon. At the timeof writing the article she was a graduate intern in Bradford Woods' outdoor andchallenge education programs.

spective means learning to live in harmonywith oneself, humanity, and the earth andmust address ethics and promote lifestylesthat are functional in a "smaller" world ofthe future; a society that has surpassedconspicuous consumption, has recognizedthe triviality of materialism, and whichleans toward an increasing economic,ecological and cultural interrelatedness(World Commission on Environment andDevelopment, 1987).

Global Education in CampingEducation for a global perspective "is

that learning which enhances theindividual's ability to understand his orher condition in the community and theworld and improve" the ability to makeeffective judgements" (International Edu-cation Symposium, 1985, cited in Ball,1987, p.2). Educating for global coopera-tion can be interpreted in two ways: first,to us in the western world, it can meanlearning to live in a more synergistic way,aware of the earth's limits and willing tocut slices off our enlarged piece of pie (forinstance, by reducing the consumption ofmeat and energy). This requires a rethink-ing, revaluating, and maybe restructuringof values and lifestyles of each one of us.Since such an awareness of and commit-ment to the worldly limitations may befairly new to us we might not be far aheadof children withregard to testing and af-firming appropriate ways of living. Sec-ondly, then, cooperative learning in campscan denote mutual learning: staff inspiredby the creativity and resourcefulness ofcampers and campers guided by the expe-riences and rationality of staff.

One of the characteristics of residentialcamping is the simple lifestyle over anextended period of time. Although thissimple way of Me is prevalent in manycamps and is one of the few commonalitiesin the wide variety of settings, the ecologi-cal, peaceful and, spiritually oriented way

of simple living is frequently uncon-sciously experienced by campers.

To neglect making this simplicity aconscious effort is a disservice to campersas well as staff, who, in light of the pressingglobal concerns of overpopulation and itsassociated environmental problems, mustcome to terms with living content withfewer worldly possessions. Consideringthe urgency of many of the earth's andhumankind's problems, simplicity incamps can and should be employed moreexplicitly and overtly as a tool to combatindividual alienation and powerlessness incombination with teaching global con-science. I suggest we capitalize on simplic-ity more deliberately to lead campers into away of living which respects theindividual's quest for fulfillment but whichalso demonstrates a concern for the welfareof others and the planet.

Voluntary SimplicityVoluntary simplicity has emerged as a

guiding principle for many who under-stand the concept of a limited and interre-lated world. A lifestyle of voluntary sim-plicity rests on a set of values that encom-passes three main beliefs:1.) Respect for the future; i.e., living moreconstructively;2.) Respect for the individual; i.e., allow-ing each individual to make choices ac-cording to his/her own convictions;3.) Respect for the earth; i.e., living mod-estly so as not to interfere with the needs ofothers and strain limited resources.1.) Respect for the future

The exploration of ways of living thatlead to a satisfying life within global har-mony is spurred by the awakening ofcompassionthe dawning realization thatthe fate of the individual is intimately andultimately connected with the fate of thewhole earth. It is an awareness that arisesfrom the recognition that individual ac-tions have a tal.,:ible effect on the world,

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that every person takes part in creating thefuture. Moving into the future construc-tively accepts the responsibility for devel-oping meaningful impact on the commu-nity, be it in camps or eventually, the worldat large.2.) Respect for the individual

To allow each person to live accordingto his/her own convictions as long as thisdoes not interfere with the good of thelarger community is a significant tenet ofvoluntary simplicity. To live voluntarilymeans to act in a self-determining manner,to live more deliberately, intentionally,and purposefully (Elgin, 1981). This isbased on contemplating alternatives to thepresent societal conditioning toward mate-rialism. The choice against a life charac-terized by goods and possessions is con-scious and emanates from within. The aimof voluntary simplicity is not to live dog-matically with less, but to demonstrateavailable alternatives, clarify conse-quences and offer choices.

Living a balance between self and othersis determined by each individual based onhis/her (perceived) needs and wants.Crucial in voltn.:ary simplicity is the rela-tionship between freedom of individualaction and responsibility toward others,the environment and the future. Often thisrelationship is a delicate balance whichneeds to be carefully guided; it can best beconveyed by a person who him/herself haschosen a lifestyle of voluntary simplicitydue to a deeply rooted ecological con-science and dedication to the human race;who knows about the pains, self-disciplineand joys associated with ii3.) Respect for the earth

Voluntary simplicity enables an individ-ual to establish a more direct, a less dis-tracted, unpretentious, and unencumberedrelationship with all aspects of life (Elgin,1981). A differentiation between needsand wants is the foundation for this sim-plicity of living; respect for the earth is

expressed by using natural and humanresources wisely. In the process of con-firming the earth and nature as a guidingvalue for one's life much is retuned interms of psychological and spiritualgrowth.

A lifestyle of voluntary simplicity, then,is a process which can be divided into a setof teachable elements. Initiating voluntarysimplicity is not limited to, but includes thefollowing components: (a) clarifyingvalues, (b) recognizing choices, (c)empowering the individual ("I can make adifference"), (d) forming values, (e)making decisions, and (f) motivatingtoward positive actions. Although learningto live simply follows this progression,these elements will rarely be experienceddistinctly and fostered independently; aperson engaged in the evolution of simpleliving will encounter all these componentssimultaneously and with differing energy.Important in this evolution are role modelswho provide inspiration toward and incen-tives of internal peace, wisdom and spiri-tual growth.

Teaching Voluntary Simplicity InCampsThe Role of Director and Staff

Working with children in the outdoorsby means of residential camping reflects allthree beliefs on which voluntary simplicityis founded. Thus, it would seem appropri-ate to build on the already prevalent sim-plicity in camps and nurture the associatedway of life as a technique of cooperativelearning on a global scale. Most importantin global education is the atmosphere cre-ated by the director and staff. If the directorwants to encourage voluntary simplicity,then he/she should structure opportunitiesfor staff as well as campers to learn to makechoices and to promote a global con-science. An atmosphere of respect, com-raderie, creativity, dedication, play, andfun will provide a stimulus to enhance theenergy, attention, commitment and skill

22

2Q

development among the staff.Much of the teaching and learning at

camp is subtle and occurs daily as campersfind role models among their counselors.The effort of cooperative learning throughvoluntary simplicity requires careful se-lection, training and supervision of staff.A person who may assist in the delicatemidwifery of revealing to us the practicalexpressions of voluntary simplicity willprobably be someone who

has at least begun to cultivate in him/herself a compassionate conscience for theearth and humanity;

can reveat she complex dynamics of theexisting world situation with a wisdomthat reflects self-respect, integrity, andcommitment;

with penetrating insight and delicateconsistency, challenges traditional as-sumptions and practices in camp and isinfluential enough to overcome the strongresistance to institute the necessarychange.

Voluntary simplicity is a daily chal-lenge, a process of continuous renewal. Aperson committed to voluntary simplicitymust be willing to endure a modicum ofpersonal inconvenience, -elf-restraint, andself-discipline to resist the ever prevalenttemptations (e.g., walking to the corral inpouring rain instead of taking the availabletruck). It will help children to see adultsstruggling too, "falling back" into oldhabits. Not only does this convey a senseof comracterie among campers and coun-selors, but giving in to enticements showschildren that adults are not faultless. Thismight destroy the picture of the ideal coun-selor (thus taking same pressure off thestaff) and may instill in campers confi-dence, knowing that growing up is notsynonymous with having to be perfect.

Once we make a conscious effort toteach voluntary simplicity, we need toassure certain experiences occur. In doingso, we must examine that set of proposi-

dons that has become the ethical frame-work of our behavior and the camp's opera-tion. Applications of the concepts of vol-untary simplicity combined with globalawareness required a critical examinationof current camp practices and will probablyresult in initiating some changes. Let usbegin by looking at the daily program andthen reflect on the camp family:

Does the flag-raising ceremony have aninternational flair? Do meals and programschedules offer campers a choice? Amcampers provided space and time to learnto solve conflict in non-violent ways with-out staff intervening? Do the programschedules and teaching progressions allowfor small successes and a time to buildpersonal competence? Do 'he variousprograms contain elements which helpcampers clarify and acquire values? Arethere opportunities to learn about and cele-brate different cultural customs and events(e.g., through folkdances)? Do the coun-selors have strong values and ethical prin-ciples and demonstrate a consistent phi-losophy of life? Are staff of differentnationality? Are campers from diversesocial and cultural backgrounds? Do wedefine self-discovery and personal growthprimarily in terms of individual achieve-ment and self-esteem or is it nurturedwithin a social context? Many of the stepsand strategies to implement the camp'sconcern for social change occur in thecontext of daily living, which should makethe teaching of voluntary simplicity appli-cable in all types of camps.

While spontaneous learning that relieson the teachable moment is important,some of the transformational power ofvoluntary simplicity must be applied delib-erately, and must be concrete, structuredand planned for. Staff need to lead campersinto value-forming experiences, experi-ences such as ropes courses (i.e., coopera-tion) or outdoor survival techniques (i.e.,simplicity) which allow campers to fully

23

understand values and realize their worth.As Hettinger (1987, p. \ states:

...only then is an informed choiceamong (values) possible. ...Impellirgstudents into situations which theywould never have chosen for them-selves can be justified as a means toenable the student to learn about andexperience the values which emergein that context. Students will oftenfind such experiences so valuable thatthey will subsequently seek them ontheir own. Such practices can be jus-tified because they free up people'svalue system as nothing else can...ltcan open up people's ability to value,and thus their range of options in life.

Debriefing of certain activities and situ-ations will permit learning to be general-ized and will allow campers to apply newconcepts to other environments. The fol-lowing example may demonstrate howvoluntary simplicity can intentionally beincorporated into an ongoing program.

An Example: The Backpacking Pro-gram

Overnight backpacking trips, and to alesser degree day hikes, lend themselveswell to teaching voluntary simplicity. Notonly do campers learn responsibility forthemselves and the group, they are alsoable to make choices based on a differen-tiation between needs and wants. Duringthe pre-trip meeting, necessary equipmentto ensure a safe trip is discussed. Campersare encouraged to think through what theindividual and group might need andwhich items they may want to bring along.Consequences in terms of safety, weight,fatigue, environmental impact, and fun areaccentuated and alternatives suggested.The discussion during this meeting shouldprepare campers to be able to make con-scious choices of needs and wants while

packing their individual gear.When checking individual equipment

and distributing the group gear, the leadingcounselor might discover what in his/hereyes might be unnecessary and irrelevantitems for an overnight trip into an undevel-oped area, such as a r*-ror or a pillow. (Astuffed animal she Always be able tofmd a home in a siG xket of the pack.)The counselor might want to question thecamper if he/she perceives the item asnecessary in terms of survival. If thecamper insists on bringing it along, he/sheshould be allowed to do so in order for mosteffective learning to occur on the trail. Atthis point, however, it might be necessaryfor the leader to make an authoritariandecision on what to leave behind, since it isthe counselor who will eventually end upcarrying one or two campers` packs (inaddition to his/her own). Frequently it willrequire suggestion and persuasion to learnto be satisfied with less, and leading byexample is the most effective way to con-vey that safe and enjoyable trips are pos-sible with the "ten essentials".

Campers frequently carry extra weightof "luxury" equipment, and inevitablysome of them will complain about theirpack within the first mile of the hike. Stopsto re-adjust packs, redistribute gear or thecounselors taking over the campers' groupor personal equipment can and should beused to process the experience, to againemphasize needs and wants and talk aboutconsequences and alternatives, e.g., usingextra clothes as a pillow. Debriefingshould continue throughout the trip when-ever opportunities arise. Returning to basecamp, a post-trip meeting is most valuablefor campers to internalize concepts, gener-alize learning and transfer newly won in-sights to daily life situations.

Campers will find that voluntary sim-plicity is applicable in almost every aspectof the trip, be it with regard to (less fashion-able) clothing, (less sophisticated) equip-

24ni

went, az (less gourmet) meals. Voluntarysimplicity can even be extended to thechoice of the area; not using designatedwilderness areas can convey the leader'sconcern for the environmental impact oflarge groups in protected backcountry(Young, 1985) and can indicate that pleas-ure and satisfation are possible in poten-tially less aesthetic surroundings. Theoutcomes of those teachings might not beapparent to the counselor during or afterthe backpacking trip. However, smallchanges that are seemingly inconsequen-tial when viewed in isolation are of revolu-tionary significance in their cumulativeimpact. Just imagine the counselor's joywhen campers, out of the necessity of thesituation, spontaneously gather rocks andsticks to play tic-tac-toe during a break onthe trail, make fishing rods out of deadbranches and grass, or realize that not anelectric heating system but nothing otherthan the sun is needed to warm up the lakefor a swim.

Realizing that small results are multipli-cative in nature, it can be assumed that theteaching of values will have a positiveeffect on all other program areas. AsDustin and Rentschler (1980, p. 46) haveobserved, the magical outcome of camp isderived from a synergy effect, of thecombined impact of programs working inunison to achieve certain goals amongcampers. Even if voluntary simplicity istaught actively in only one program areaduring the (summer) camp, a support byother program staff is crucial to worktoward the desired outcomes. Awarenessof the synergistic potentials of residentialcamping increases the importance of everycamp program and counselor; recognitionamong staff of what is attempted in eachprogram may result in a greater degree ofrespect for other program areas and en-hance the community and team-spiritamong the counselors.

The Transition HomeA valid area of concern to camp directors

is the impact of the (summer) camp experi-ence in the child's life. An emphasis onvalues education instead of focusing onskill development and "hard" outdoorskills, e.g., in the backpacking program,needs to be discussed among the programspecialist (s) and in tams of accountabilityto the parents. Parents may need to knowthat their child might bring back a newvalue system; that their camper might wantto make adjustments at home which reflectacquired insights concerning voluntarysimplicity. The transition home into asocietal environment of affluence, com-plexity, and overwhelming alternativesprovides so many temptations to return toold habits of immodesty. However, if wehave succeeded in creating an awareness ofnatural, social and cultural interrelationsour newly won consciousness would helpprevent a retreat into our former ignorance.A consciousness of the earth and others,and an application of the ecological prin-ciple of interrelatedness to humanity willhelp prevent behavior which is not consis-tent with that knowledge. Partof this raisedconsciousness is knowing that poorchoices will eventually result in hurtingourselves.

Concluding ThoughtsOverall, and although building on

children's contemplative mode and urge toexplore, we must not forget that a primaryaim in camping is to provide a carefree andjoyful play environment. It is an error toexpect something from a child which he/she can show only in a hypocritical way.Altruism develops after childhood. Wecannot expect from children a consciencewhich has taken our society decades torealize, and which many adults still resistacknowledging. We can only plant theseed and hope it will grow and bloomsometime; the teaching of values is a slow

25 32

and continuous process, the outcomes ofwhich might be invisible to the (summer)staff. However, there are few limitationsin terms of what we may accomplish withour campers if we continually try to excelwithin our own areas of responsibility. Anawareness of such potential may lead to amore conscious balance, a simplicity ofliving that allows for the integration ofpersonal achievements and social commit-ment. This requires mote activists andreformers who take on the challengingmission of advocating for voluntary sim-plicity. Then the primitive simplicity ofthe past will lead into an enlightened sim-plicity of the future.

References

Ball, A. (1987). On the ball. CampingMagazine 60(1), 2.

Dustin, D.L. & Rentschler, GJ. (1980)."Magical" outcomes of organized camp-ing. Journal of Physical Education andRecreation 51(6), 46.

Elgin, D. (1981). Voluntary Simplicity.New York: Bantam.

Hettinger, E.D. (1987). Value formation,alternative lifestyles, and experientialeducation. Journal of Experiential Educa-tion 10 (1), 38-41.

World Commission on Environment andDevelopment (1987). Our common future.Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford UniversityPress.

Young, A. (1985). Leave wildernessalone. Camping Magazine 57 (6), 14-15,35.

263 3

Adventure Education for PeopleWho Have Disabilities: A CriticalReviewDeborah Sugarman

Although adventure education has been in existence for many years, programming forpeople who have disabilities is fairly new.

11-01 purpose of this article is to review the literature in terms of the history, the nature,and the value of adventure education programs for people who have physical, cognitive,and/or psychological disabilities.

The research conducted in each of these areas is reported, with support for the need formore research on the process and outcomes of the adventure experience.

KEYWORDS: Adventure Education, Disabled, Wilderness, Outdoor Recreation, Risk.

Until recently people who have disabili-ties have not had the opportunity to partici-pate in adventure education programsregardless of their interest, need or ex-pressed desire (Peterson, 1978; Rolandand Havens, 1981). For many peopleterms such as mental retardation, physicaldisabilities, and mental illness elicit wordssuch as "protect," "keep safe," "comfort"Reasons given for excluding people withdisabilities from adventure education ac-tivities include "they can't do that, theymight get hurt, it's too hard, they wouldn'thie it anyway" (Dillenschneider, 1983;Raiola, 1983; Roland int Havens, 1981).The paradox of duty of protection and dutyof allovang the dignity of reasonable riskoften denies or protects people with dis-abilities from making their own decisions,from doing difficult things or from beingindependent (Dickinson, 1981; Dillensch-neider, 1983).

Much has been written on advent=education and the apparent positive effects

on attitudes and abilities that such pro-grams have wi.n ablebodied populations(Godfrey, 1974; Lowenstein, 1975; Pol-lock, 1976). The values of adventureeducation are many:

1. The activities tend to be non-competi-tive.

2. Successful completion of a specifi-cally designed sequence of activities re-sults in a sense of accomplishment

3. The activities promote cooperationand trust among participants. The entiregroup must communicate and work to-gether to achieve specific goals.

4. The activities can be implemented atthe level of the participants, which en-hances the opportunity for improvement ofself- concept.

5. The activities can be used as a meta-phor for situations which occur in theparticipant's daily life.

6. Participants have fun while improvingflexibility, strength, coordination, andendurance.

Deborah Sugerman is an Assistant Professor of Outdoor Recreation at Unity Collegein Unity, Maine.

27 34

7. Activities require cooperation withthe elements of nature which leads to agreater respect for and appreciation of thenatural environment (Cousineau, 1978;Dant and Armstrong, 1980; Mordock1978, Roland and Havens, 1981).

Adventure programming with peoplewho have disabilities is relatively new, andthe literature is not as extensive as what iswritten about the "nondisabled" popula-tion. The purpose of this review is tosurvey the literature in terms of the natureand philosophies of programs using ad-venture education with people who havedisabilities and to determine the value ofsuch programs. Research studies con-ducted to validate the value of program-ming with people who have disabilities arealso described.

TerminologyAdventure education has been defined

by many authors. Bagby and Chavarria(1980) describe it as "learning programs inwhich outdoor pursuits that are eitherphysically or psychologically demandingare used within a framework of safety andskills development to present meaningfulchallenges leading to increased satisfac-tion and personal, social and environ-mental awareness" (pg. 1).

Kennedy eta'. (1987) explain it as achallenging experience which allows forphysical expression and personal achieve-ment not tased on complex language skillsor abstract thinking processes, but based inconcrete terms. Wood (1978) sharingmore detail, Explains.

"Adventure education...typicallycovers three stages or areas: one,basic physical conditioning and skilltraining to be able to survive andtravel in the wilderness environment;two, application of skills to expedi-tions into the wilderness and applica-tion of cooperative interpersonal rela-

tionships; three, depending upon thegeographical location and conditionsof a particular adventure program,major activities are canoeing, sailing,backpacking, and mountain climbing.Other problem-solving activities totest individual initiative are also char-acteristic of Adventure Educationprograms. Some of these activitiesmay include &ropes course, individualand group obstacles such as the 12 footwall, various climbing and balancingapparatus, as well as games and activi-ties requiring group cooperation andeffort" (pp. 18-19).

An "impairment" either temporarily orpermanently causes deviation from ex-pected or normal development, structure,or function of the whole person. The term"disability" implies a limitation of functionexperienced by an impaired person whencompared to someone of similar age andsex who displays expected or anticipatedbehaviors. A "handicap" is a disadvantageimposed by the impairment or disability ona person within the context of a specificsituation (Carter, Andel, and Robb, 1985;Kennedy, 1987). When the terms "disabil-ity" or "handicap" are used, or similarlabels are affixed to a person, more oftenthan not, a negative connotation or stigmaemerges. As a result, persons are viewedaccording to what they cannot do, not bywhat they can. By considering the personfirst and the disability secondarily, personsare viewed as people, not disabilities.Labels are appropriate only for clarity ofinformation. In this paper, I used the term"physical disability" to describe any dis-ability relating to physical impairmentsuch as hearing impairment, visual impair-ment, or motor impairment. The term"cognitive disability" describes any dis-ability relating to knowledge gained andperception including mental retardationand learning disabilities. The term "psy-

28 35

chological disability" describes a disabil-ity relating to mental or emotional proc-esses including mental illness, substanceabuse, post- traumatic stress disorder, so-cial deviance, and behavior disorders.

History Of Adventure Education ForPeople With Disabilities

Although adventure education pro-grams vary in format and techniques,many have been adapted from the modelestablished by the Outward Bound pro-gram (Hollenhorst and Ewert, 1985).Outward Bound was developed by the lateKurt Hahn, whose educational philosophystressed the development of anindividual's inner resources throughphysical as well as mental challenges(Roland, 1982). Stitch (1983) Adds moredetail by noting:

"Outward Bound consists of a seriesof prescribed physical and socialtasks, where stress, uncertainty andthe deed for problem solving, commu-nication and inunediate judgment arepresent. The value is that the tasks areconcrete, manageable, and solvablewithin a limited time frame. Initiallythey appear overwhelming, but whenapproached in a systematic manner,they are geared for success. Theirmastery provides participants with asense of accomplishment. The expe-rience builds on positive aspectsrather than negative ones, and thesupportive climate of the instructorsand the peer group allow conflicts,anxieties, and difficulties to be dealtwith openly and examined in astraight forward manner" (p. 24).

In the early 1960's, Outward Boundexpanded their programs to includecourses for "delinquent" youth. The goalof these courses was to provide a success-ful experience for the youths which would

be transferable to their lives in society. In1968, a study by Kelly and Baer of 60delinquent boys showed significant im-provement in social attitudes related tovalue orientation, alienation, aggression,asocialization and social maladjustment(Bagby & Chavarria, 1980; Kelly andBaer, 1968). Since then there has been atremendous increase in the number ofOutward Bound type of programs whichdeal with delinquent youth (Wichmann,1976; Wichmann, 1983).

In 1975 a pilot project for disturbedadolescents conducted at Dartmouth Out-ward Bound and Dartmouth-HitchcockMental Health Center modified the Out-ward F lund methodology for use withpsychiatric patients (Kistler, Bryant andTucker, 1977). Since then, programs suchas this have evolved into ongoing treatmentoptions in many clinical programs (Castleand Eastman, 1985; Chase, 1981;; Kim-ball, 1983; Kistler, Bryant, and Tucker,1977; LaCasse, 1985; Penesack, 1986;Plakun, Tucker, and Harris, 1981; Stich,1983; Stich and Senior, 1984).

By 1975, Minnesota and NorthwestOutward Bound Schools were offeringcourses to individuals with physical dis-abilities, which made the schools pioneer-ing agencies in this aspect of aventureeducation (lessen, 1987; Kaplan, 1981;Miner and Boldr, 1981). Recently there hasbeen an increase in the number of wilder-ness activities enjoyed by individuals withdisabling conditions (Quinsland, Pomeroyand Van Ginkel, 1986; Richardson, 1986).

Physical DisabilitiesAccording to the literature, adventure

education is beneficial for persons withphysical disabilities because the experi-ences can lead to gains in self confidence,self knowledge, outdoor skills, independ-ent living, self reliance, and employability(Saari, 1980; Shurke and Lais, 1982).

The activities take place out of doors and

29.O

give individuals a chance to overcomebarriers that have not been imposed byother human beings. Activities involvesmall group cooperation and trust and giveindividuals, who may have limited experi-ence in cooperative efforts because of theirdisability, the experience of contributingto the group and to a clearly defined group

goal.Adventure education involves challeng-

ing activities that are carefully selected an Isystematically introduced to induce feel-ing of stress. The activities are not sodifficult as to result in failure. The processof overcoming the stress and completingthe activity successfully builds self confi-dence and self esteem (Kennedy, 1987).Adventure education involves activitieswhich are non competitive and people arefive to engage in them within their own ca-pacity. (Peterson, 1978).

Many programs have integrated dis-abled and non-disabled persons (Dicken-son, 1981, Goodwin, 1978; Hoyt, 1984;Kaplan, 1981; Lais and Shurke, 1982;Robinson, 1983; Shurke and Lais, 1982;Smith, 1983; Whittaker, 1984). Integra-tion enables each group member to utilizehis or her unique skills and abilities. Groupmembers realize that everyone has a dis-ability; some are more obvious than othersAll members in the group discover thatdisabilities are not as limiting as they hadassumed. Instead of being looked at as aperson with a disability, the abilities that aperson has come to the forefront.

Disabled and non-disabled membersfind that they have much in common,because the experience is based on successthrough total group cooperation. Non-disabled members develop more positiveattitudes toward people with disabilities;not pity but understanding. Stereotypes,discomfort and distance are reduced andoften abandoned (Drager, 1980; Kennedy,1987; Lais and Shurke, 1982; Shurke andLais, 1982).

Research in the area of adventure recrea-tioneducation for people with physicaldisabilities is sparse. Most of the researchhas dealt with affect comparison of thebenefits of a short or long term experience(Austin, 1980), change in attitude towardstudents with disabilities (Apolloni, 1982),and effects on group cohesion (Ashly,1987). A single study dealing with thephysical aspects of adventure educationwas p..ated by Hage (19E4). He de-scribed a report by Greg Lais with partici-pants from Wilderness Inquiry II focusingon the risks of hypothermia ani frostbiteduring the winter for persons with disabili-ties.

Cognitive DisabilitiesAccording to Dillenschneider (1983),

people with cognitive disabilities facemany of the same conditions as personswith physical disabilities: social isolation,low self-esteem and an increag.ed need forleisure skill development. Most moder-ately and severely disabled persons areinvolved in daily educational and rehabili-tation programs that do not necessarilyinclude recreation (Frant, 1982).

Mental retardation is not a static condi-tion. It can be positively affected througha variety of means. Adventure education isone method which can produce benefits inthe affective, cognitive and psychomotordomains (Cassidy, 1982; Dillenschneider,1983; Frant, Roland and Schempp 1982;Gray, 1980). The self concept of a personwho has mental retardation depends moreon social experiences than on cognitive de-velopment (Dillenschneider, 1983). Ad-venture education allows for the develop-ment of social attitudes through group co-operation and support. There is a feeling ofbelonging fostered through shared respon-sibility for the safety and well being of theothers in the group. Success in taking risksfosters positive feelings of accomplish-ment. The nature of the experience encour-

30 37

ages a wide range of emotions and em-braces their expression.

The benefit of the wilderness setting inthe cognitive domain is its multi-sensorynature and the gaminess of the tasks in-volved. Expressive language is encour-aged through debriefings, the sharing ofideas during problem solving activities,and in the context of successfully sharedexperiences. Tasks allow individuals tomake independent decisions and to solveproblems with group support. The newenvironment fosters discovery of previ-ously untapped personal resources. Thesignificance of spatial awareness, fine andgross motor skill abilities, balance andother psychomotor processes can be seenin daily activities within adventure educa-tion. The activities also foster the develop-ment of flexibility, strength, coordinationand endurance. An additional benefit ofadventure education programs is that it al-lows staff to view persons with cognitivedisabilities in a new setting. A positive,supportive environment builds a commonground of respect and success (Dillensct -

neider, 1983; Frant, Roland and Schempp,1982).

According to Witman, Backus, Rolandand Havens (1980) and Roland (1982),adventure education is a medium throughwhich specific educational and/or treat-ment objectives can be realized. Much ofthe literature dealing with adventure edu-cation with persons with cognitive dis-abilities deals specifically with ways inwhich activities can be utilized to facilitateIndividual Education Plans (IEP'S) andTreatment Plan Objectives (TPO'S) (Car-ter, 1983; Havens, 1980; Witman, Backus,Roland, and Havens, 1980).

The amount of literature and researchconcerning adventure education withpeople with cognitive disabilities is againsparse. Studies have been done with per-sons who have mental retardation on theaffective domain (Vidolovits-Moore,

31

1979). on levels of responsibility (Ander-son, 1966), and on the cognitive domain(Albert, 1969). This researcher did notfind any descriptive or experimental re-search in the area of adventure educationwith persons who have learning disabili-ties. According to Albert (1969) andDillenschneider (1983), a concentratedeffort should be made to complete researchin adventure education for persons withcognitive disabilities to validate its value.

Psychological DisabilitiesMuch of the literature concerning adven-

ture education with persons who havepsychological disabilities discusses thetherapeutic value of the experience (Byers,1979). Chase (1981) feels that the naturalenvironment is important because theadapting behaviors it evokes are copingrather than defensive. The individna: re-sponds to stressful stimuli by dealing withthem constructively. The envircrtmentprovides a feedback mechanism that isconcrete, immediate, and unprejudiced.The freedom from artificiality and "harshcoercion" allow for nonrestrictive creativeexperiences (Ferguson, 1983).

The dynamics of the small group areimportant because people are free of cul-tural roles and must interact in ways that arecentered in the here and now. Interdepend-ence of the group is based on the activities,where they learn to communicate, cooper-ate, and trust each other. The activities areconcrete and manageable within a specifictime frame. Successful completion pro-vides a sense of accomplishment Thissuccess can be transferred to theparticipant's life in society (Bagby andChavarria, 1980; Stich, 1983).

Many adventure education programsserve as an adjunct to existing institutionalprograms, intergrating program philoso-phy with that of the sponsoring agency(Castle and Eastman, 1985; Chase, 1981;Kimball, 1983; Kistler, Bryant and Tucker,

33

1977; LaCasse, 1985; Peaeuck, 1986;Rehm, Tucker, and Maris, 1981; Roland,et. aL, 1986; Stich, 1983; Stich and Senior,1984).

Much of the literature supports the ideathat Adventism education is not an end initself. It can be used in psychologicalevaluation (Kimball, 1983), or as a meansof establishing meaningful relationshipswith others, which is the core of treatment( Kisder, Bryant, and Ricker, 1977; Stich,1983). In order for die experience to be of

four elements are necessary: 1) itmust be conducted on the basis of the needsof the participants; 2) the therapist must bequalified; 3) it must be part of a compre-hensive treatment program, and; 4) a goodpardcipant/therapist relationship mustdevelop (Kistler, Bryant, and Tucker,1977; Stich and Senior, rk 984).

Adventure education ha: t....cvn used withjuvenile and adult criminal offenders(Bagby and Chavarria, 1980; Bailey andRay, 1979; Golins, 1978; Kimball, 1983;Kistler, Bryant, and Tucker, 1977; Wright,1983; Nvi..!...-rn, 1983;) emotionally dis-turbed youth and adults (Blakely, 19811;Bureau, 1983; Lappin, 1984; Penesack,1986; Stich and Senior, 1984; Thomas,1981), chemically dependent youth andadults (LaCasse, 1985; Castle and East-man, 1985), rapists, victims of rape, incestsurvivors, and families in crisis (Kimball,1983).

The area of psychological disabilitiescontains the largest amount of research.The majority of the studies conducted usethe Outward Bound model to quantify thepsychological and/or behavioral changescaused by the treatment involving delin-quent youth (Bailey, B. and Ray, P., 1979;Wichmann, 1983; Wright, 1983). Studiesconcerning persons with other disabilitiesin this area are sparse. Polez and Rubitz(1977) studied the negative effects ofadventure education upon patient affectand concluded that such experiences are

powerful interventions which genera:many feelings in patients and that the use ofeffective therapeutic methods to deal withthese feelings is a necessary part of suchactivities.

Adventure education appears to work,but no one really knows why. Studies needto be conducted on the cost effectiveness ofadventure education programs, the rela-tionship of increase in self esteem to in-crease in fitness level, and the replicationof the processes used to achieve programgoals.

ConclusionsThroughout the literature there are con-

stant references to the values of adventureeducation with persons with various dis-abilities. In order for participants to suc-cessfully gain the benefits, effective pro-gramming must take place. Many authorsbrought up issues of programming.

Cassidy (1982) felt that there is a lack ofmaterial available to assist in the designand implementation of adventure educa-tion programs, a lack of current materialwhich addresses the specific needs of thedisabled, and a lack of awareness and train-ing opportunities on the value of adventureeducation for persons with disabilities.

This researcher found many articlesconcerning activity and equipment adapta-tions, as adaptations are sometimes impor-tant in order for persons with disabilities tobe able to participate fully. Adaptations inwinter camping and winter sports (Abelland Orr, 1982; Robinson, 1982), canoeingand kayaking (Galland, 1982; Thompsonand Hitzhusen, 1980), and orienteering(Barham, 1983; Morisback, 1982) are de-scribed in the literature.

Richardson (1986) discussed the pro-gramming difficulty of minimizing riskwithout eliminating the challenge, and thefact that severe modifications remove thevery reasons for participation; risk, adven-ture and challenge. The issue of modifica-

32

0n

tion was also brought up by Quirts land,Pomeroy and Van Ginkel (1986) who feltthat quality programming requires MOIL

than just equipment adaptations, but qual-ity leadership, quality goal setting, andquality communication. The authors feltthat the effects of a [native experiencecould cause damage to individual self-concept and could' iuse a gnaw misun-derstanding between the participants of anintegrate aroup.

The issue of ethics when wodcing withpeople who have disabilities in adventureeducation has been discussed by severalauthors (Havens, 1986; Hunt, 1986). Huntdiscusses the moral issues surrounding theuse of adventure education techniqueswith students who are there against theirwill or why; are there under some sort ofcoersion (such as a youth uric* the powerof the judicial system). It is extremelyimportant that a participant be fully in-formed about the risks and benefits of apotentially dangerous experience, andconsent to participating in the experience.Hunt questions whether a person who isunder the jurisdiction of the law is autono-mous and free and can give truly informedconsent. Havens describes an ethical di-lemma of adventure education with per-sons with cognitive disabilities: the in-structor was not completely confident thatthe participants really understood the in-herent risks involved in the activity. Theinstructor did not want to over-protect thestudents, but wanted to ensure that theywere protected from emotional harm.Both authors feel that the ethical issues ofadventure education with people who havedisabilities needs further consideration.

The need for more research on the proc-ess and outcomes of the adventure expee-ence and important sub-variables such asgroup size, length of program and homo-geneous versus heterogeneous groups wasvoiced by many authors (Apolloni, 1982;Caldwell, 1978; Dillenschneider, 1983;

Roland and Havens, 1981; i:ussell, 1969;Snith, 1983; Wichmann, 1983; Wright,1983).

The theme that was repeated over andover again was the importance of adven-ture education in order for individuals tolive the fullest physical and intellectual lifepossible (Bureau, 1983; Robb, Havens,and Witman, 1983). "Unless we give theright to people with disabilities to partici-pate in such a simple yet meaningful activ-ity, then their other human rights will sel-dom, if ever, be understood and thus ac-knowledged." (Roland and Havens, 1982,p. 38).

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37

4'

Agreement Reached On OutdoorLeadership Certification?Simon Priest

The issue of certification is a topic of continuing debate in the field of outdoorleadership preparation. This study examined the opinions of international expertsregarding this issue. As expected, the descriptive results showed that a majority opinionwas not present among experts and that many were undecided on this critical issue. How-ever, the inferential results clearly demonstrated that experts' preferences for certifica-tion were significantly different among nations. Further analysis provided evidencesupporting the premise that an agreement between certification proponents and oppo-nents might just be possible, if one considers certifying by outdoor leadership component.

KEYWORDS: Certification, outdoor leadership, technical, safety word problemsolving skills.

IntroductionAustralia, Canada, Great Britain, New

Zealand, and the United States of Americaare five nations involved with the issue ofoutdoor leadership certification. The out-door leadership preparation programsfrom some nations, like Canada and NewZealand, have chosen not to certify theiroutdoor leaders. Other programs, likethose from Australia and the USA, havechosen to give restricted or limited certifi-cates. The program from one nation inparticular, Great Britain (the originator ofthe Mountain Leadership CertificateScheme) has chosen to do away with cer-tification entirely (Priest, 1987). Withsuch a discrepancy of attitudes and ap-proaches to outdoor leadership certifica-tion, one is hard pressed to imagine thatexperts from these five nations could actu-ally agree on this moc, controversial topic.However, preliminary research suggeststhey just might!

The issue of whether to certify outdoorleaders has been around for about twodecades in North America. Over this pe-riod of time, the debate has revolvedaround a fulcrum called j udgement. Propo-nents of certification believe that outdoorleaders can be certified on the basis ofdemonstrated competence. They feel thatfrom observation of a series of simulatedexercises, the competence of an outdoorleader may be evaluated. On the otherhand, opponents claim that there is onecomponent of competence, judgement,which cannot be assess& by a certificate.They feel that no assur7 ,es can be madefor past performance Li controlled situ-ations dictating future performance underduress.

Since the outdoor leadership preparationprograms of the five nations listed aboveapproach this issue from different perspec-tives, perhaps a sharing of expert opinionsmight move the field toward resolution of

Simon Priest is an assistant professor at the Outdoor Education Institute, Texas A&MUniversity, College Station, Texas.

38 45

this ubiquitous debate. Therefore, the in-tent of the study was to examine the expertsopinions on certification and to it*.ontifyand key similarities or differences.

MethodologyThe five nations were selected for their

mutual roots in education, law, history,language, and outdoor leadership prepara-tion. All countries have traced the evolu-tion of their current preparation programsto the original Mountain Leadership Cer-tificate Scheme of Great Britain begun in1961. With a common beginning, theunique opinions of the experts from thesefive nations were likely to be the result ofnational characteristics specific to theircountries. Perhaps the experts of all na-tions can learn from the time tested ap-proaches of others.

Subjects were identified for their exper-tise in outdoor leadership preparation.They included authors writing on the topicof outdoor leadership, administrators ofpreparation programs, directors of na-tional level outdoor centers, and universityprofessors or college instructors teachingoutdoor leadership courses. Their exper-tise was established by interview and/orpeer confirmation. Since the topics cov-ered in the study were highly specific tothe field of outdoor leadership preparation,and not to all areas of outdoor adventureprograms, a sample of only the most expertsubjects was desired. Essentially, any bias(imparted by the exclusion of other lessqualified individuals such as average out-

door leaders) was desired in order to main-tain a tcp quality sample.

The survey was created from a list offourteen components of an effective out-door leader and pilot tested twice for con-tent and cultural bias. The fourteen compo-nents were established from a contentanalysis of the outdoor leadership litera-ture from all five nations. Two hundredand fifty experts (fifty from each nation)received the survey and one hundred sixtynine (67.6%) msponded. Returns wereproportionate across nations (see Table 1).Analyses were made seeking differencesand similarities among nations and be-tween proponents and opponents of out-door leadership certification.

Results and DiscussionWhen questioned on their preferences

for overall certification of outdoor leaders,no initial agreement was apparent, withequal numbers supporting and opposingthe concept (see Table 2).

Some experts went even so far as torefuse providing the definitive answer,preferring instead to comment on the prosand cons of the argument without becom-ing committed. Profound differences wereapparent across nations, with only theAustralian and British experts favoringcertification and the experts from othernations opposing it for the most part.

This immediately set up a discrepancy.The Australians answered as expected(65.5% yes). They offered a limited cer-tificate of course completion and hence

TABLE 1: Return rates proportionate across nations.NATION NUMBER RETURNED RETURN RATE

1. et ustralia2. Canada3. Great Britain (U.K.)4. New Zealand5. United States of America

3236333434

394 n

64%72%66%68%68%

TABLE 2: Experts' preferences for outdoor leadership certification consideredoverall and by nation.

Are you in agreement with the certification of outdoor leaders?

PREFERENCE NUMBER PERCENT

Proponent (Yes) 76 45.0%Opponent (No) 71 42.0%Undecided 22 13.0%

PREFERENCE AUST CAN G.B. NZ. U.S.A.BY NATIONProponent (Yes) 65.6% 41.7% 63.6% 23.5% 32.4%Opponent (No) 28.1% 55.6% 21.2% 58.8% 44.1%Undecided 6.3% 2.8% 15.2% 17.6% 23.5%

Respondents were able to answer YES or NO to the question regarding certification.Some chose to remain undecided by stating their opinion as such or by not answering.

favored the concept. On the other side ofthe coin were the New Zealanders, alsoanswering as excected{23.5% yes). Theydid not offer certificates and disfavored theconcept. As usual the Canadians andAmericans were embroiled in somewhatof an argument with almost equal numbersof experts for and against the concept. Inaddition, a large group of American ex-perts (23.5%) remained undecided at the

time of survey (63.6%). Since the Britishhad done away with certification, ques-tions are raised by the large percentage forcertification. Who was involved in deci-sions to eliminate certification? Is theremore discrepancy in the results than meetthe eye?

To address the query, the experts weredivided into two groups on the basis of theirearlier response: proponents and oppo-

TABLE 3: Differences between proponent and opponent experts on the reasonsfor needing outdoor leaders.

The reason for needing competent outdoor leadership is to...?

DIFFERENCES Proponents OpponentsON REASONS Mean Mean t-value prob.BY PREFERENCE

Reduce Accidents 5.11 4.68 2.35 .021Maintain Gond Relations 4.54 3.90 3.59 .000Improve Public Attitude 4.26 3.69 2.92 .004Increase Participants Involvement 3.68 3.04 2.45 .016Decrease SAR Costs 3.58 2.93 2.75 .007

Respondents rated these reasons on a scale from 6 (strongly agree) to 1 (stronglydisagree). These were tested against the null hypotheses that the two groups would notdiffer on their lever of agreement for any of the thirteen reasons. Differences werefound for these five only.

40

nents of overall certification. Then, earlierresponses were then analyzed in mind ofthis new division. The experts' prefer-ences regarding the reasons for needingoutdoor leaders were in line as expected(see Table 3).

Proponents of certification showedstronger levels of agreement than did op-ponents on statements of preparing out-door leaders to reduce search and rescuecosts, to reduce accidents, to increasepublic participation, to improve the publicattitude toward "high risk" activities, andto maintain positive relations with otherusers. The experts who advocate certifica-tion feel that by certifying outdoor leaders,the current concerns of the field will be ef-fectively dealt with. -These responses wereall as expected. Why, then, did national re-

sponses appear to be out of line? Could thediscrepancy have something to do withrespondents' perceptions of the term certi-fication? Did they define it differently ormerely interpret it in varying degrees?

To answer this question, the preferencesof proponents and opponents toward certi-fying by individual component were exam-ined (see Table 4). Significant differenceswere evident for all Components! In seek-ing differences, the following hypothesiswas tested: proponents of overall certifica-tion for outdoor leaders would also be infavor of certification by individual compo-nent, and opponents would be against cer-tification by component.

This was not at all the case! For allfourteen components the hypothesis wasrejected: sufficient numbers of experts

TABLE 4: Differences between proponent and opponent experts en certifyingby individual component.

Which components would you consider granting a certificate for?

DIFFERENCES PROPONENTSON COMPONENTSBY PREFERENCE

OPPONENTSChi Sq. prob.

1. Technical Activity Skills 93.0% 51.4% 23.342. Safety Skills 87.3% 50.0% 21.163. Instructional Skills 78.9% 22.9% 42.054. Environmental Skills 64.3% 25.7% 19.515. Group Management Skills 63.4% 8.6% 43.526. Organizational Skills 62.0% 15.7% 29.797. Problem Solving Skills 47.9% 4.3% 32.418. Judgement based on experience 46.5% 2.9% 33.649. Flexible Leadership Styles 39.4% 1.4% 28.8910. Awareness/Empathy 35.2% 1.4% 24.5411. Philosophy/Interest 31.0% 0.0% 23.4012. Physical Fitness 28.2% 11.4% 5.2013. Personal Traits/Behavior 26.8% 1.4% 16.5614. Healthy Self-concept/Ego 25.4% 1.4% 15.31

Respondents were able to answer YES or NO to each component. Theresponses weretested against the null hypothesis that proponents would answer yeas and apponentswould answer no to all components. The extreme probabilities are due to large numbersof experts providing responses quite different from what was originally expected of them.

41

48

gave responses which deviated from opin-ions which wen' expected on the basis oftheir preferences for certification. Forexample, responses from the experts indi-cate that for technical activity and safetyskills, the proponents prefer certification,and the opponents are equally div. onwhether to certify for those coin' Is.Also, the proponents are equa" . leafor judgemc At and problem sol ills,while opponents are completely a, instcertifying these components. The major-ity of experts were against certifying theremaining attributes.

Therefore, a middle ground is evidentfor several of the components. From therelative percentages indicating affirmativeresponses, the results show that those whooppose ce, Ication are, for the most part,accepting of certification of technical andsafety skills and those who support certifi-cation may not accept an all inclusive cer-tificate. Hence a point of compromiseappears evident certify technical activityand safety skills, but not judgement orproblem solving skills. While, one cannotconclude that complete agreement existsfor all components; one can state that theexperts do not disagree!

Lastly, the experts were asked if theybelieved a certificate assured sound judge-ment. Most experts (88.6%) said no, some(8.4%) said yes, and a few (3.0%) quali-fied their undecided answers on the basisof whether the certificate purported to ac-tually certify leadership in tern., of judge-ment or by some other components. Nosignificant differences across nations orpreferences were found. Overall, and re-gardless of nationality or preference, theexperts agreed by majority that a certifi-cate does not assure sound judgement.

Nonetheless, when asked if they wouldhhe certified outdoor leaders, experts didadmit that they placed some credence inoutdoor leadership certificates. Againdivided responses affirming (46.0%) and

disputing (27.3%) the value of certificatesas they relate to employment were given. Asubstantial group of experts (26.7%) re-plied that they would consider the certifi-cate, yet would hire the outdoor leader onthe basis of other qualities. Many experts(12.4%) mentioned the need to 'Actuallyobserve the applicant in a leadership rolebefore they could make a hiring decision.

No significant differences across nationswere found for this item. The findingindicates that, as far as nationality is con-cerned, the responding experts are not indisagreement with regard to hiring certi-fied outdoor leaders. However, differ-ences were apparent when the expert'spreference for certificatica was consid-ered. More proponents (66.2%), thanopponents (26.9%), would hire certifiedoutdoor leaders.

ConclusionsThe findings are not fully conclusive.

They do indicate that none of the expertsfrom the five nations are totally for oragainst outdoor leadership certification,although the majority of experts felt a cer-tificate did not assure sound judgement onthe part of an outdoor leader. Furthermore,proponents are more likely than opponentsto believe that certification contributes toreducing accidents and dealing with othercurrent concerns in the outdoors and per-haps as a result of this belief, the propo-nents are more likely to hire certified out-door leaders.

Lastly, a compromise on the mostubiquitous issue of outdoor leadershipcertii.:ation seems to be quite possible.Most proponents are in favor of certifyingsome skills deemed important to an out-door leader and so are many opponents.Most opponents disfavor certifying someof the key attributes of an outdoor leaderand so do many proponents. Could thesetwo groups want the same end product, butbe refering to it in different terms? Is the

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debate over outdoor leadership certifica-tion rooted in factual reality or is it merelya matter of semantics?

A solution to this long standing problemseems possible. Since it appears that theexpert proponents and opponents considercertification to be heavily composed ofskills, but prefer to avoid considering theattributes of an effective outdoor leader, byall means let certification occur! How-ever, let the certificate be one of skills andnot one of outdoor leadership. In fact, isthis not already the actual situation inmany of the outdoor leadership curriculaaround the world?

ReferenceFor a more thorough literature review,

please consult:Priest, S. (1987). Outdoor Leadership

Certification: always an issue, but nolonger a tread. In G. Robb (Ed.) BradfordPapers Annual, 2, 37-44.

BibliographyFor further details of the mire study,

please consult:Preparing Effective Outdoor Pursuit

Leaders. Available for $10 from the Insti-tute of Recreation Research and Service,University of Oregon, Eugene, OR.97403.

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43

Outdoor Recreation - The HolisticLeisure PursuitPhyllis Ford

This paper presents arguments that outdoor recreation should be perceived as a holisticactivity with the participants learning to develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes aboutall phases of the natural resources, as well as interest in incorporating all forms ofrecreation into the outdoor setting. The argument follows definitions of outdoorrecreation with a discussion of the ten major forms of recreational activity and examplesof how the outdoor mileau permeates each. The argument for leaders to follow thisconcept includes the changing needs of all people, regardless of ability or age.

KEYWORDS: Outdoor recreation, natural resources, holistic leisure.

Nearly all the recent writings about rec-reation in the outdoors have addressed theconcept that outdoor recreation is com-prised of adventure activities, physicalactivities, acquisition activities (i.e. hunt-ing and fishing), travel activities or naturestudy/environmental activities. This pa-per is a presentation of a position thatoutdoor recreation in its totality is a trulyholistic approach to the leisure experience,encompassing every form of recreationand every human interest and ability inleisure. The rationale will be developedthrough presentations of definitions ofoutdoor recreation, leisure, and holistic,followed by an analysis of the forms rec-reational activities take, and a rationale formaking the approach to outdoor recreatio:ias broad as possible in order to assure tnatit is a truly life long activity.

This position is based on the premisethat outdoor recreation is the vo:ilqaryuse, understanding, and/or appreciation of

natural resources during discretionarytime. For the purpose of this paper, recrea-tion is viewed as an activity undertakenvoluntarily during discretionary time.Leisure, in this case, is viewed as beingdiscretionary tin ie. One might, however,make the case for defending outdoor rec-reation as being within the realm of otlieraccepted definitiors of leisure such as"state of mind." A defense of these defini-tions is not as important as is the under-standing that, using these definitions out-door ft-creation can and does encompassevery form of recreational activity andevery human interest and ability.

The word holistic refers to the inter-rclaionships and inter-dependencies of allfacets of something. In this case, we arereferring to human knowledge, skills, andattitudes. For many years, we have recog-nized that there are three avenues of learn-ing often referred to currently as dcmainsof learning. In the early 1950's writers of

Phyllis Ford Re.D, is Chair of the Department of Park and Recreation Resources atMichigan State University. She has written texts on outdoor /environmental education,leadership of outdoor pursuits, guides for leaders, and articles on the aged and disabled.

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leadership in the outdoors referred to pri-mary, secondary and concomitant skills(Mitchell and Crawford, 1950). Beforethat, educators wrote about knowledges,skills and attitudes (Thonsdike, 1906). Inthe 1960's, (Bloom, 1971) literature con-tained refidences to mental, physical andsocial learning*, and today, pedagogistsrefer to cognitive, psycho-motor, and af-fective learning:. Each of these sets ofthree term: is identical. We have longnoted that farming occurs on these threelevels. If otrt thinks about the writings ofsome who were philosophers rather thanpedagogists,( Gulick, 1920) it will becomeclear that the concepts of mind, body, andspirit are identical to those of knowledge,skill, and attitude or the other trios of inter-relationships.

Further, the definition of outdoor recrea-don given here refers to use, understand-ing, and appreciation of natural resources,actions which are inimicable to the psy-cho-motor, cognitive, and affective do-mains of learning. The order of this triad isdifferent from that of the others with theskill preceding the knowledge; however,that is because recreation is usually firstviewed as an activity with action consid-ered an ieherent part of every recreationalform.

Natural resources here refers to the landand land forms, water, air, plants and ani-mals in their natural conditions. It is recog-nized that the United States government,through the Outdoor Recreation Re-sources Review Commission, includedsuch activities as spectator sports, golf,indoor swimming and travel in the defini-tion of outdoor recreation used in the1960's report on activities of Americans.It is also recognized that there is no way tostate definitely that golf, or bicycling, orbowling on the green, or sitting in theblizzard watching the Green Bay Packersis or is not part of use, understanding and/or apprecia. 'n of natural resources. It

becomes part of the state of mind definitionof leisure and is apart of the possibility thatthese outdoor activities can be viewedholistically. Those who recognize freshair, scenery, plant species; grass growthand a myriad of items associated with theoutdoor experience may well be said to beparticipating in outdoor recreation by thedefinition given here more than the golferwho views the spat only as a challenge tomanipulate a tool to move a sphere fromone place to another. Here it is a matter ofdegree. The same might be said of cyclists,swimmers, those who attend footballgames in the blizzard and even those whostart out voluntarily to climb a mountain forenjoyment and who return after beingturned back by a driving blizzard, ava-lanche conditions, upset stomachs and blis-ters. To be recreation, the activity mustinvolve a degree of voluntary motivationfor enjoyment, satisfaction or positiveness.

The point is, we are not making a case forwhat is or is not outdoor recreation. If theactivity depends primarily en use, under-standing, and/or appreciation of naturalresources to be a success, than we canaccept that activity as part of outdoor rec-reation. The thesis to be developed here isthat use, understanding and/or apprecia-tion of natural resources as recreationalpursuit can be viewed holistically as en-compassing all forms of recreation and allhuman interests and abilities. The re-sources to which we refer consist of air,water, land and land forms, Plants, andanimals in their natural forms or in formsthat allow us to participate for the sake ofthe resources rather than for the sake of aknowledge, skill or attitude which is notdependent upon them.

The important thing in this presentationis that the reader understand the scope andextent of forms of recreation and how eachform relates to the outdoor recreation expe-rience. It has been recognized that there aresix ageless and universal forms of activity

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participated in by the human being andsome forms of recreational activity that areneither ageless nor universal. Everyknown human society has participated inarts and crafts, dance, drama, story telling,music, and sports and games (Mitchell andMason, 1934). Early societies participatedin these forms of activity for reasons ofreligious ritual, or for the preparation forhunting and to train for survival. Evidenceof these forms of activity are found inevery known society, regardless of historictime. Today, each of these forms of activ-ity has been preserved and mutated intoforms of recreational activity. The storytelling of the past persists mainly in theform of written material; however, withthe advent of radio and television, a formof story telling has been reintroduced. Wegenerally refer to what was once storytelling as literature, and mass media(newspapers, magazines, news broad-casts). Original legends were acceptableexplanations for natural phenomena and,while they seem like fiction tfiday, werethe forerunners of scientific expbnation.

New forms of recreation participated inby societies with a leisure culture of ethicinclude social activities such as parties,eating out and having company to dinner;service activities such as volunteer work;hobbies such as collecting baseball cards;and educational activities such as taking acourse on fly casting or attending a lecturean travel to Switzerland. Each of theseforms of recreational activity can inv-iveuse, understanding and/or appreciation ofnatural resources, explained as follows.

Arts and Crafts.Outdoor recreation involving arts and

crafts includes such things as flower ar-ranging; landscape painting; or the use ofnatural materials such as rushes, wood,pine cone scales, and agates to make chairseats, table tops, wreaths, and paperweights. If the motivation is to make

something because of the grain and beautyof the wood rather than to make somethingfor utilitarian value, then the use of naturalwoods in craft projects can be consideredoutdoor recreation. To carry this to itspeak, if one understands what the wood is,where it grew, bow it grew, the conditionsneeded for producing its grain, its density,and color, and holds an appreciation for itsqualities, one can defend using, under-standing, and appreciating the natural re-source in this recreation activity. Thedepth of quality of the recreational experi-ence here may depend more on the amountof knowledge and appreciation related towood than to the skill needed to create theobject in mind. For some craftspeople, thebeauty of the object is directly related to theway in which the natural qualities of the re-source are displayed rather than to thedegree of precision, shape, size or evenstrength of the object. Witness the currentinterest in spalted wood for the turning ofbowls, the use of which is far more visualthan utilitarian.

Dance.While most dance does not involve use,

understanding or appreciation of naturalresources, there are some forms of danceswhich depend upon these things. Ex-amples are the native American dancesconcerned with the sun, rain, birds, rep-tiles, and other natural objects. CertainEuropean ethnic dances portray prancinghorses, or the wind; and Polynesian dancesdepict forms of nature in each movement.In order to understand and perform thesedances, the performer must have an excel.lent knowledge of the resources uponwhich the dances are developed. Further, itis important for some of these dances to beperformed in the outdoor setting. Whilesome of the dances performed may notentail a natural resource focus, the settingsfor many performing arts groups is theoutdoors. In many locales, sites set in

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natural settings of woods or hillsides en-hance the beauty of the performances.

Drama.Most dramatic productions do not in-

volve natural resources as pan of the plot;however, there are many allusions to natu-ral resources metaphorically throughoutdrama historically. Shakespeare, particu-larly used natural resource metaphors inhis historical plays as well as in his come-dies and tragedies. Further, many playslike dance are held in outdoor settings inorder to enhance the program. The numberof natural and man-made outdoor theatersin the United States emphasizes the per-ception that audiences have of the en-hancement of the productions through themedia of natural settings.

Literature.Originally story telling, literature can be

divided into several categories such asessays, fiction, fact, poetry, definitive(how to do it and hew to recognize it), andprobably should include the coffee table-sized photographic essays. Probably in noother form of recreation is the outdoorsrepresented so heavily as in the area of thewritten word. Perhaps it is safe to say thatany reader who has participated in anyform of outdoor recreation has also readsomething abut the activity. Further,those who have not participated in otherforms of outdoor recreation have proba-bly, at some time during their lives, readsomething voluntarily that was related toan outdoor recreation activity.

Essays.It is difficult to know which outdoor

related essays to cite as examples, for thereare so many from which to choose. Au-thors from Isaac Walton to Edward Abbeyhave interested millions of readers sincethe 1600's. We might also list as signifi-cant the works of Walton and Coleridge in

the 1600's; Byrd and Banram in the1700's; Thoreau, Muir, ',flush, Emerson,and Burroughs in the 11100's and Olson,Leopold, Teak, Abbey, and PrOftle in the1900's. In doing so, we miss literallyhundreds of others who are probably just asimportant and popular One can not entera book store today without finding a largeselection of essays about the natural worldon display. Some of these are ateobio-graphical, some are provocative, some areargumentative and pn:voke controversy,and some are purely informative.

Fiction.Fiction that tells a story based on the use,

understanding and appreciation of naturalresources includes Jack London's To Lighta Fire; the film, Jerimiah Jchnson; ErnestThomp4a Seton's Wild Animals I haveKnown; Alan Eckert's Wild Stream, andmany, many mote.

Definitive.The list of how to do it books is endless.

There isn't an outdoor activity that doesn'thave its accompanying book on skills,buying and making equipment, where to goand how to get there, and statist: :s on howmany, how often, how big and so forth aswell as magazine articles telling us more.

The increasing number of field books,field guides and other identification booksfound in todays' homes is evidence of thevast number of people interested in readingabout and learning to identify flowers,ferns, birds, rocks, reptiles, trees, stars, andvirtually anything that makes up the uni-verse.

Poetry.For those who wish to write, the haiku is

probably the epitome of nature poetry, forthe rules of haiku are: three lines, fivesyllables in the first and third lines andseven syllables in the second line, it doesnot rhyme and. it rr st be about nature.

4754

More easily written are the cinquain anddiamentes, both taught to youth and adultsfrequently in outdoor /environmental edu-cation programs. Notable outdoor poemsinclude William Cullen Bryant's "Ode to aRobin" significantprobably because it wasBryant who initiated the concept of Cen-tral Pick and gave the idea to its planners.Certainly no list would be complete with-out recognizing the works of America'spoet laureate, Robert Frost.

Musk.The use of natural resources in recrea-

tional music may take the form of instru-ments made from specific natural materi-als that cause the sound to be clear andresonant. Those who compose or listen tocompositions understand the sounds ofnature in Ferde Grofe's "Grand CanyonSuite", Respighi's "Pines of Rome",Copeland's "Appalachian Spring," andthe storm in Rimsky-Korsakoff's"Scheherazade". One of the most clearlyexpressed sounds of nature is found inSmetana's "The Moldau" wherein one cantrace the course of the river Moldau from atiny bubbling stream at its source in themountains to the slowly moving ponder-ous body of water that passes the largeindustrialized city of Budapest. The lis-tener can hear how the stream moves andgrows throughout the ton: poem. Thecomposers cf these pieces used theirknowledge of natural resources an the lis-tener can appreciate them in these ex-amples.

Sports and Games.Natural resource oriented sports, of

course, include hunting, archery, fishing,and shooting sports and travel sports likeboating, hiking, and skiing. Games, whichare differentiated from sports by beingcompetitive with individuals or groupsrather than nature, include orienteering,racing (ski, sail, etc.) and others.

Service Activities.Outdoor recreation activities that have a

service orientation are identified as leadingscouts on a backpacking trip, taking seniorcitizens on a tour to see fall colors or springflowers, and teaching others how to fish.

Social Activities.One of most popular social recreation

activities in America is picnicing. A defi-nition of social recreation is any recrea-tional activity the primary motivation forwhich is the social experience. Certainlypicmcing is motivated by the desire to havefun in a group setting in the outdoors.

Hobbies.A hobby is defined as an interest outside

one's occupation in which one spendsmuch time for pleasure. As such we willnever know how many people enjoy natu-ral resource hobbies. Gardening, collect-ing butterflies, trips to national parks,birding, classifying plants, raising prizeorchids, and even training hunting dogs canbe viewed as outdoor recreational hobbies.

Education.The act of learning in the informal, non-

school setting is extremely popular amongpeople with discretionary time and themotivation to learn. Among educationalrecreation may be found lectures on plantsand animals, Audubon Society and Na-tional Wildlife Association camps andworkshops, natural history tours, courseson raising plants, and television programson the myriad interesting facets of the natu-ral world.

Regardless of where a person lives, theage, ability, or economic status, it is pos-sible to participaet in some form of outdo.,.activity. indoor gardening, looking atslides of national parks, reading about themarvels of the monarch butterfly, viewinga televised program on the Amazon rainforest, and hundreds of activities that re-

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quk no physical prowess can involve use,underbtmding and/or appreciation of natu-ral resources.

For those who are physically active inoutdoor pursuits such as climbers, canoe-ists, back packers and hunters, the qualityof the experience is directly related to thequantity of knowledge and depth of appre-ciation about the resource. The personwho fishes is most successful with knowl-edge of eating habits of the fish as well aswater quality, temperature, and move-ment The cross country skier is moresuccessful, probably has a more enjoyabletime, and is certainly acting in a safer=ruler with a knowledge of the crystalform of the snow, weather cooditions andtheir changes, and the terrain and plantsthrough which he travels.

The aging and retiring climber or back-packer can transpose earlier physical ac-tivities into later ones involving moreemphasis on appreciating and understand-ing the natural environment. Those whoaspire to teach outdoor adventure pursuitsto the young, the disabled, and, in fact,everyone, will do a greater service if, in-cluded in those physical activities are in-troduction to knowledge and appreciationof the natural resources so that the partici-pant can maintain the interest in the out-doors throughout life. Perhaps we areseeking the Renaissance person who isfamiliar with a multiplicity of fields. Yet,to teach skills without knowledge or atti-tudes; to teach knowledge without skills orattitudes; or to teach attitudes withoutknowledge or skills is to cheat the learnerof one-third of the potPniiit: joy of theactivity. To teach outdoor recreation as aholistic activity involving opportunity forcomplete immersion into all forms of rec-reation will provide for a safer, more rewardi:ig experience with the potential formaintaining a lifelong interest in the out-doors. As Aldo Leopold stated, "Recrea-tion, however, is not the outdoors, but our

reaction to it." (1949), p. 173). Hopefullyour reaction to the outdoors will be a holis-tic one.

ReferencesBloom, B. S., Hastings, J. T., and Ma-

daus, G. F. (1971). Handbook on formativeand summative evaluation of studentlearnings. New York: McGraw-HilL

Chubb, M. and Chubb, H. R. (1981).One third of our time? An introduction torecreation behavior and resources. NewYork: John Wiley and Sons, Publishers.

Gulick, L. H. (1920). A philosophy ofplay. New York: Association Press.

Leopold, A. (1949). A sand county al-manac. New York: Oxford UniversityPress.

Mitchell, A. V. and Crawford, L B.(1950). Camp counseling. New York: W.B. Saunders Company.

Mitchell, E. D. and Mason, B. S. (1934).The theory of play. New York: A. S.Barnes and Company, Inc.

Thomdike, E. L (1906). Principles ofTeaching. New York: A. G. Seiler Co.

Weiskopf, D. C. (1982). Recreation andLeisure Improving the quality of life. (2nded.) Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

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r0 0

Ethics For Adventure Programming:Four Points Of Departure

Thomas E. Smith

The author outlines the problem of developing an ethics for adventure programmingas twofold. There must be attention to the individual practitioners ethics, and to devel-opment of a code of ethics for the field of adventure and challenge programming. Tomove forward on this major task, the author suggests four potential strategies. There isbrief review of the question of ethical theorizing, a look at categorizations to improvethinking, and synopsis of the basic ethical theory of four prominent theorists (Dewey,Moore., Stevenson, and Blandshard). There is short review of the questions of ethics asfaced by clinical psychologists, and finally a suggested procedure for action towards thegoal of developing ethical awareness in the practice of adventure/challenge program-ming.

KEYWORDS: Ethics, ethical theory. philosphical thought, adventure challenge,professional ethics.

Many textbooks on ethics start with a re-view of Socrates death, and his courageousadherence to the notion that "the unexam-ined life is not worth living." This exami-nation of life, for which Socrates lived anddied, is the pursuit philosophers haveconsidered as Ethics. Related definitionsin contemporary philosophy have consid-ered ethics as "the science of conduct,""the study of moral behavior," and " thatdiscipline dealing with what is good andbad and with moral duty or obligation"(Webster). Ethics can be distinguishedfrom the social sciences by noting that thelatter are concerned with normative behav-ior, i.e., the way people are; while theethical scholar focuses on the questions ofmoral behavior, i.e., the way people oughtto be.

In the past tew years there has beenembryonic attention to the issue of ethicsfor practicing adventure/challenge leaders.The questions have been raised in terms ofthe need for a system of conduct standardsfor the practice of challenge education andadventure sequences (Havens, 1986;Havens & Fain, 1986), and in terms of theneed for individual practitioners to payattention to ethical issues (Hunt, 1986;Smith, Robb, Roland, & Havers, 1988), Ithas been argued that development of asystem of professional ethics is necessaryif the practices of adventure programmingare to achieve professional status, and thata sound code of conduct would providefield practitioners with guidelines for theirprogramming. Others would advocate thatthe priority need is for individual adventure

Thomas E. Smith, Ph. D. recently retired from the Clearwater Youth Center inWheeling, Illinois, where he was an Adventure guide. He is now the founder and Presi-dent of Racoon Institute located in Cazenovia, Wisconsin

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leaders to examine the ethical dilemmasand value orientations they daily face, andthat such attention to the questions of eth-ics by individuals will lead to the unfoldingof a code of ethics for the profession. Ineither case, the issue could be stated as "theunexamined practice is not worth practic-ing."

The purpose of this paper is to voicesupport for arguments that the field ofchallenge/adventure programming, focusattention on ethic al issues, and to offer fourpoints of departure. The adventure profes-sional might hind value in the following:

(1) seeking to understandsome of the basic language, distinc-tions, and issues of ethical theory, andclarifying personal viewpoints withinthose parameters

(2) attending to the writings ofprominent ethical theorists, or at leastreviewing and comparing the ideas ofthe past as presented in contemporarywritings

(3) becoming familiar with theprocedures of other professions fordeveloping ethical standards, andwith the nature of their codes of con-duct.

(4) developing a methodologyfor exploration of ethical issues thatcan guide indi idual practitioners andthe encompassing profession towardclarification of conduct principles

It would be nice if the process of attend-ing to the ethics of challenge programmingwas simply one of attending to the writingsand debates that have gone before, orspending a day atop the mountain in medi-tative search for conduct principles, orcopying down the code of conduct of oth-ers. Such efforts may give starting points,

or enable us to begin the journey a bitfurther along the road, but there is no sub-stitute for that long and evolutional trekthat must unfold. While it may be a newjourney for most adventure leaders andchallenge educators (we have been verybusy doing, and not always thinking verymuch about what we were doing), it can beas exciting as any new adventure.

Most ethical theorists would advocatecontrolled intellectual analysis of the ques-tions at hand. Jasper Hunt (1986) warns ofthe dangers of emotional and subjectiveethical conflicts leading to violence. Heconsiders the emotional approach as dan-gerous because, "If I cannot sway you withreason, then I am left to outbursts of emo-tion. If my emotions do not sway you, thenI will simply back up my emotions with myfist or other violent instrument."

It might be predicted that the diversity ofprofessionals in the adventure educationfield, and the multiplicity of programmingapplications of challenge theory, will resultin considerable and intense submersioninto the world of subjectivity and emotion-alism as ethical questions are tackled.Furthermore, the preponderence of thesubjective ethical theories through thetwentieth century (perhaps in relationshipto breakdown of traditional values becauseof the great wars and the depression),would suggest that a great number of indi-viduals would claim a personalized ethicaloverview. Although there has been someindication that many seek a return to themore traditional objectified value orienta-tions, the basic ethical position of manywill be subjective/emotive (P.H. Nowell-Smith, 1954).

Still, it would appear that the fears ofHunt's emotive confrontations about ethi-cal issues will lead to violence are ill-founded. One of the more common values

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held by people in the field of challengeeducation is that of non-violence. Cer-tainly, discussion and debate about ethicalquestions will get heated, and may involveheadon confrontation of values, but mostwill make effort to avoid violence. Ingeneral, adventure facilitators recognizethat it is via careful listening, non-judge-mental acceptance, and attempting to fullyunderstand me other, that change, growth,and consensus can be re-ached. In any case,the challenge ahead will call for exchangeof ideas and energy; there are no experts. Itmay even be that the development of anethics for the practice of adventure/chal-lenge programming is the greatest teamstask we have yet undertaken.

Of Terms and CategorizationsWhen one puts on the hat of , 3 ethical

theorist, it is very easy to become over-whelmed by the many definitions, distinc-tions, classifications, schemas, and postu-lates. One starts with the simple questionof doing the "right" and "good" and"moral" behaviors. There are elaboratediscussions of the differences between"values," "beliefs," and "attitudes," andbetween the statements of "should" andthose of "ought". It is beyond the scope ofthis paper to present even simple overviewto these complex discussions; after all,most are offered by individual authorspreparatory to efforts to unravel ethicalissues and present ethical theory. Typi-early, one needs to understand the defini-tions and distinctions of a given philoso-pher to understand the theory that unfolds,but the same distinctions and definitionsmight confuse one in looking over the nextauthors writings. There does seem to beneed for an understanding of the distinc-tion between "subjective" and "objective,"which is most typically that between indi-

vidual perceptions and interpretations ofreality as opposed to things that are exter-nal from the mind.

For the purposes herein, there is no needto distinguish between most of the terms athand. This does not imply that we need notmake clear what we mean by "right,""good," and "moral" as we move towardresolving our ethical dilemas, for we willcertainly need to do so. This paper offers acouple of overview schemes that have beenfound to be valuable through the years.They are presenter' as examples of the typeof categorizations which the ethical thea-rist might fmd valuable as he approachesthe task of seeking clarification of personaland professional ethics.

First, there is the "existentialtrichotomy", as it evolves out of the writ-ings of European existentialists of philoso-phy (May, Angel, and Ellenberger, 1958).In attempt to clarify the problems of philo-sophical thought brought about by toorigid interpretations of the mind-body di-chotomy, they suggest viewing man asexisting simultaneously and interactinglyin three "modes" or "realms." The Germanwords are Umwelt, Mitwelt, andEigenwelt, and they translat^ roughly asthe "world around," the "world with," andthe "own world."

In oversimplified summation, the argu-ment would be that man exists in thesethree modes which are always interrelatedand always conditional to each other. Manis, of course, a biological creature in abiophysical world; he is pile of cells. Westudy man and his world of the umweltfrom the perspectives of the biological andphysical sciences, and via traditional scien-tific methodology. At the same time, it isobvious that man exists as a social creaturein a social world; put two people togetherin the same proximity and you have some-

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thing happening that does not happen ifyou put two rocks together in the sameproximity. We study this world of interre-lationships through the social sciences;and while we can adopt the methodologyof the physical sciences to some extent, weneed special strategies to fully research theproblems. There is yet another dimensionto man, recognizable by the observationthat even if we put only one man in aproximity and one rock in another proxim-ity there is something extra in the former.The man is aware of his existence at thattime and in that place; he can contemplatehis existence. This is the realm of "ego,""psyche," "self," and "identity aware-ness." This is the mode of existence thatallows postulation of the phenomena of"soul" or"spirit." This dimension of exis-tence is least understood in modem psy-chology, for methods of the natural sci-ences and the social sciences are not suffi-cient to the task.

Existence in the eigenweltian modecannot be denied because our scientificmethodology falls short. The ethical theo-rist should be aware that narrow scientificviewpoint stretches its to the limit to recog-nize psychology and sociology as mean-ingful pursuits, and quite often has littletolerance for concepts such as "soul."Many psychologists of American behav-ioristic tradition have raised question as tothe necessity of positing any concept of"self" in the field. In ethical theory, ti,every influential logical positivists wantedto consider ethical theorizing as illegiti-mate function, since most of the statementsare in the realm of emotive/subjective/eigenweltian existence.

Ethical theorizing can be better under-stood if cne has an inclusive overview tothe existence of man. The existential tri-cotomy may help the novice clarify

thoughts as he moves to the role of ethicaltheorist.

The second categorical overview thathas been of 'Wile, a/ d herein offered asanother example of schemes that can be ofvalue in ethical theorizing, concerns typesof statements and their relationship to truth.This is a fourfold categorization, and it canalso be seen as stretching across any objec-tive-subjective continuum. Those whohave been enamored by scientific method-ology might tend to see the categories of"truth" as unfolding from the best to theworst. This is erroneous, and would bebased on the assumption that scientific/objective truth if of higher order./ Thefollowing four patterns of statement andverification should not be viewed by thereader in any rank order.

First, there are those statements that aremathematically or logically true, and areself-validating. Examples would includethe mathematical equation "2 + 2=4," andthe logical conaucie of: "All angels aregood. John is an angel. Therefore, John isgnod." Statements that fall in this domainare verifiable by deduction. If we take **and add " more, then we have "". Noother conclusion is possible, and it does notmatter what anyone (or everyone) believes.In the case of the logical statement, anyargument must be over the axioms, for ifthey are accepted, then the conclusion isfirm. For many, the mathematical/logicalstatements are the best, and the ethicalobjectivi:A attempts to reason in such ter-minology, and thus determine good andbad outside of anyone (or everyone).

Secondly, there are those statements thatare verifiable by empirical quantificationand measurement. An example might bethe statement: "It is 1000 miles from Chi-cago to New York." Once there is agree-ment as to the distance constituting one

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mile, and a manner measurement of thatdistance, then the valitaty of the statementcan be tested by anyone (or everyone) andthe results should be the same. Most ofnatural science operates in the realm ofthese empirical statements and truths, andthe whole histc'ry of scientific methodol-ogy is that of trying to get knowledge intothis domain. These statements are also"objective," as the results should standthrough time and are not influenced byindividual values or perceptions. In ethics,empirical validity would also demonstrategoodness as outside the perceptions of anyindividual

A third krouping of statements are thoseconsidered as of "consensual validity" orof some social normative base. These arestatements about man and the world, orabout what is right and wrong, which fallshort of objectivity but have support fromnumbers. The very basic statement,"There is a God," m ty never attain any sat-isfactory objective/empirical/logical vali-dation (although St. Thomas attemptedsame in his famous -proofs"). Still, be-cause one can gather support of the masses,perhaps even a consensus, the statementhas validity. Of course, it one exists in acolony of atheists, there would be nosocial validation. Consensual statementsvalidity may vary from group to group, andfrom time to tir .2; and this makes a subjec-tive/social ethical overview popular. Thistype o: truth or postulate can account for"cultura', relativism" of values, and en-ables the supporters to reformulate ethicaloverviews as time and knowledge unfolds.

Finally, there are those tr.:ally subjectiveand personalized statements of attitudeand value. If I made the statement, "I likepeanut butter and pickle sandwiches,"meaning that PB&P's are "good," theremight be very little social support. Still, if

you follow me about you will be able toverify the truth of statement by the observa-tion that I periodically eat some PB&P.Such a statement is, therefore, true for me,even though it may not be true for anyoneelse. The ethical theorist may find thatmany of the statements made in ethical dis-cussion are of this sort, but we must beaware that they do have behavioral impact.

To summarize, we harp those statementsthat are self-verifmg, those that are empiri-cally verifiable, those which can attain alevel of social or consensual validation andthose of the very subjective personalizeddomain. If one insists on deeming thiscontinuum from a higher to lower leveltruth, then it may be valuable to makedistinction between "truth" and "reality ?'Yes, it may be more true that 2 + 2=4, thanthat "there is a God;" but in reality my lifeis mech more affected by the latter than theformer. One may even be more ready togive up on the truth of the logical or empiri-cal statement than on the truth of a social orimportant personalized value. If, follow-ing this fourfold categorization, one wereto clustx.:r ethical theories from the "abso-lute ethic," to the "empirical ethic," to the"consensual ethic," and to the "subjectiveethic," and recognized that there are differ-ent patterns of validation or verification,some of our differences might seem moreclear.

The Muddy Waters of PhilosophicalThought

For the past decade this author has trav-eled south to New Orleans one week everyyear. Perceptions and appreciation of thegreat Mississippi river have changed con-siderably through time. Early on, I notedthe silt from the north, and the dirt from theGreat Plains that progressively clouded thewater, and as one travels from north to

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south the waters turn a muddy brown. PastNew Orleans it can be observed that thedarkness is so deep as to color theocean farout into the gulf. Through time I h2vefound a beauty in that rich brown flowing,as opposed to those earlier perceptions ofmuddy water.

Looking at the ;low of historical ethicalthought is like that. Many would pointoutthat the philosophical overview toman andthe world was quite clear early on. AlfredNorth Whitehead claimed that the entirehistory of modern philosophy is but a"series of footnotes to Plato.'' When I stud-ied philosophy it seemed that the sequenceof historical thought progressivelyclouded my mind. Just when I had par-tially digested the Stoics devotion to self-discipline, I was exposed to SaintAugustine's fervent love of God. Thenthere was Nietzsche's God-defying super-man, and the complexity of Kant's duty-bound individual. By the time we traveledthrough the Utilitarians, and Descarte's"cogito ergo sum," and arrived at the prag-matism of John Dewey, I was befuddled,and quite ready for Jean Paul Satre's"nausea." The flow of philosophicalthought seemed to progressively confuseand prevent and consolidation of thought.

It was some time before I sensed that theapparent colulicts and diverse mix of ide-ologies that have preceeded produce a richblend indeed. I would certainly advocateto all ethical theorists concerned withimproved ethical standards for themselvesand their profession that they can findvalue in reading the works of those historicphilosophers, or, at least, in reading con-temporary reviews and analyses of them.Understanding some of the ideas, issues,and interpretations of the many who havegone before may help one in their ethicaltheorizing, and will certainly give stimula-

don for the tack ahead. Let me give fourexamples of ethical thought, hoping thatthey may stimulate our ethical theorizing.

(1) John Dewey. Dewey's ethical theoryis based on the tenants of pragmatism, ofwhich the key elements are scientific meth-odology and a conception of the universe asevolutionary. Man is the supreme problemsolving organism, constantly making ad-justments to the ever changing conditionsof the world about him. In his book onclarification of philosophical thoughtDewey (1920) argues against two extremesin ethical tradition. First, he finds that thereshould be no absolute or eternal valuesposited in ethical theory, for definitions ofwhat is good and right should be undergo-ing perpetual modification in response torelevant increases in scientific knowledge,the conditions of the world about, and ourreflective thinking. On the other hand,Dewey argues that we must reject the ethicsof those claiming the basis of moralitybeing in subjective experience, especiallysimple pleasures and displeasures. Hisethical theory is tantamount to a recom-mendation for making an active use ofintelligence and the facts of experience insolving those problems where ethics isinvolved. He would argue that seeking ofmoral ideals is an ongoing process, andwould tend to advocate that the properprocess is to bring our intellect and appre-ciation for scientific methodology to studyvalues. Interestingly, in the textbook onEthics (rewey and Tufts, 1920) there wasa list of basic values for ;iving, but theauthor s make claim that they are to be con-sidered as "for our time."

Possibly many adventure leaders couldfind some agreements with John Dewey,and it should be noted that his whole philo-sophical syi tem is often viewed as a basisfor experiential educational practices. His

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insistence on seeking ethical standards bydealing with pm:deal problems as op-posed to abstract ideological ,xchanges isnoteworthy, although I would tend to feelthat emotive/subjective inp,it would bevaluable since deeply effects our pro-gramming behavior There is value in rec-ognizing any posited set of ethical stan-dards as "for our time," as it may enable usto move forward towards a temporary codeof conduct for adventure programmingwhich would modify through time. It mayeven be that some values would, "stand thetest of time," and this would imply thatthere are some absolute and eternal values.

(2) G.E. Moore. Moore's PrincipiaEthic (1903) and his Ethics (1912) effectedsome significant re-orientation in ethicaltheorizing, as he approached the problemvia linguistic analysis. Basically, he ar-gued that the proper question is not "whatis intrinsiczny good?, " which the tradi-tionalists asked, but "how is good to bedefined?." His analysis leads to conclu-sion that "good" cannot be defined, andany attempt to do so is to be considered asthe "naturalistic fallicy." One of the detri-mental effects of the naturalistic fallicy isthat is closes inquiry by defining in ad-vance what things will be recognized asgood. Moore develops an 'atuitional ap-proach, claiming that good is a simple,indefinable, recognizable quality. Heargues that is best to start our ethical theo-rizing without definitions, and thatthrough interactional dialogue and situa-tional observation we will come to see theright or the good. For Moore, goodnessexists independent of human conscious-ness, apart from the pains and pleasures,the likes and dislikes, and personalizedvalues of human beings.

If we accept Moore's argument, then weshall begin our ethical theorizing without a

definition, and we shall be more apt tofocus on the situations before we adopt anyethical principles. We will discover manydifferent and variable things and actions tobe "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong."Moore's argument that we approach theproblem with open mind, and recognitionthat neither our rational intellectual proc-ess nor our emotional awarenesses will beable to completely uncover the morality ofa situation, offers a method for ethicalstudy which starts at the bottom. As withDewey, we tackle specific cases and situ-ations, bringing all of our humanbeingnessto bear, recognizing that the "good" and the"right" will become intuitively evident.Still, as with Dewey, Moore tends to placean emphasis on 'cognitive processes withminimization of subjective -Ines andemotional choices; we must seek %k ays toincorporate those dimensions of our exis-tence into ethical theory.

(3) Charles L. Stevenson. Like G.E.Moore, Stevenson approaches the prob-lems of ethics from the perspective of logi-cal positivism, which advocates philoso-phy as logical or linguistic analysis of sci-entific statements. Most of the earlierpositivists had made the claim that becauseethical statements are essentially subjec-tive/emotive they are quite meaningless,and the study of ethics is not even a legiti-mate endeavor. One positivist did makeargument that since emotive statementsand value orientations do have such impacton behavior they are worthy of some analy-sis and consideration (Ayer, 1946).

Stevenson (1945): made argumentssimilar to Ayer, but extended concern toinclude the analysis of ethical situations,and particularly to ethical disagreements.As such, he became the most comprehen-sive of the ethica:"emotivists," bringing tothe whole field all of those previously ta-

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boo feelings, beliefs, values, and emotionsof individuals. He argues in opposition toDewey, claiming that ethical discourse isnot, and cannot be, grounded in empiricalknowledge. He seems to recognize whatall of us have experienced in ethical dis-agreements; namely, that all the logic andempirical fact in our command may notalter beliefs and values of others very eas-ily, and sometimes not at all. It is interest-ing to note that Stevenson comes to recog-nize the importance, and thus the necessityof inclusion, of emotive statements be-cause he begins at the point that bothDewey and Moore advocate, in the realmof discourse about ethical situations andethical disagreements.

Even though one starts in the area ofethical dilermas, it is quite easy to getinvolved hat Stevenson calls a"B abelof Tongues." Language analysis, there-fore, becomes very important; we mustseek to carefully understand what the otheris saying and what it means. He advocatescertain distinctions as helpful in our under-standing of ethical disagreements. Forexample, he makes note of "disagreementsin belief' when one person believes in x,and another believes in not-x, or some-thing incompatible with x, and neV'er iscontent to let the belief of the other gounchallen,,td. "Disagreements in atti-tude," on the other hand, reflect the situ-ation where one person wants to do x, orclaims to like x, and another wants to do Y,or does not want to do x. After a consider-able discussion of these differences, Ste-venson draws the conclusion that it is re-ally our "differences in attitude" whichcreate ethical disagreements.

The novice ethical theorist might findvalue in the works of Stevenson, for itexemplifies the patterns of careful atten-tion to the language of discourse and dis-

agreeient, which must be sought by all ofus. He advocates that our disagreementswill follow from our attitudinal differ-ences, which are reflective of our emo-tional and very personalized values. Thiswould seem to suggest value in our assess-ing and comparing attitudes as we seek to acode of conduct for the profession of ad-venture leadership. It is quite probable thatmany of our apparent impasses will be theresult of personalized preferences fordoing things a particular way. In any case,we cannot get about the task before us withpurely cognitive and empirical strategies;we must recognize that we are operating inthe realm of emotions and attitudes.

(4) Brand Blanshard Blanshard (1961)is a contemporary in American philosophywho has attempted to unravel some of theprior ethical theorizing, and to re-establishsome pattern of objective and pervasiveethical standards. He recognizes the mainquestion of twentieth century ethics as thatof whether moral judgements expressknowledge or feeling. He challenges theemotivists, arguing that there are somemoral principles which hold regardless ofhow people feel individually or socially.As to the empirical instrumentalism ofDewey, Blanshard argues that moral re-flection need not be prompted by practicalproblems, and that fixation on situationsmay actually keep us from recognizing themore prevailing ethical standards.

Blanshard's persona! theory unfolds asan ethic of selfactualization (ala Aristotle),recognizing both rational and emotiveprocesses at work. He would even acceptMoore's notion that higher order ethicalvalues can become "self-evident." Heargues that goodness is achieved in thebalance of all that man is and does, and thatthe good life involves an evolutional un-folding toward that ultimate goal.

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Blandshard's ethics would parallel thepsychological theories of Rogers (1961),Maslow (1968), and Jourard (1974).

A strength of Blanshard's ethical phi-losophy recognizes that man cannot bedicotomized into a rational or an emotionalexistence, but operates with interactingcomplexity in both those modes. WouldBlanshard accept the existential tricotomynoting that Dewey is advocating for man asbiological creature and subject to the rulesof empirical science therein and notingthat Stevenson, as linguist, is operating inthe realm of social existence, where ouremotions are foremost, and thus seeingethics as more of an adjunct to the socialsciences approach to the study of man?Then, of course, Blanshard's system couldbe seen as dealing with man's self-realiza-tion or mode of existence in theeigenweltian realm.

In any case, Blanshard, or commentarieson Blanshard (Reck, 1964; Rome, 1964),makes good beginning reading for theethical theorist. His analysis of ethicaltheory to date is quite significant, anc, thedevelopment of his own theory has parallelto those psychologists of "self" whom areoften embraced by adventure leaders andchallenge facilitators. It might even be thata good share of the ethical problems facedby adventure leaders center 'round theissue of how to do the "right" in assuringpersonal growth and well being of theclient.

In conclusion, I would simply suggestthat our cursory review of the ideas ofsome prominent ethical theorists providesa rich blend of thought to draw from.Whether one fords agreement, disagree-ment, clarification, or confusion in sam-pling on such a small scale, there shouldalso be a stimulation of curiosity and inter-est in probing deeper into the ethical theo-

rizing of others.

The Ethics of Other ProfessionsAll other professional groups have faced

the questions of ethics, and most havedeveloped some code for proper conduct.From the earliest days of the HippocraticOath amongst physicians, to the debatesbetween scientists about their social re-sponsibility following the atomic bombingof World War II, there has been attention toprofessional ethics. It should be noted thatthis attention to ethical issues by a profes-sional group is a never ending process, withongoing debate as contemporary issuescome to the fore. In spite of that Hippo-cratic Oath, and the hundreds of years ofdeveloping profess icnal standards, there isno definitive resolution to the issues ofabortion or euthanasia. Also, many yearsafter that initial deuate on the question ofscientist's moral responsibility for Hiro-shima and Nagasaki, there is no basicagreement on the moral issues of nuclearscience. Whatever the product (any set ofethical standards for professional stan-dards for a professional group), one mustrecognize the need for ongoing process (asystem for the members of that professionto deal with ethical issues).

A review of the involvement of otherprofessional groups with the issues of eth-ics can offer two sorts of information forthe adventure professional. First, there canbe learnings from the content of the ethicalcodes as developed, and the substance ofthe discussions about that code. This canbe seen as an analysis of the product, witheffort to determine relevance to the prac-tice of adventure programming. Second,there can be learning from an inspection ofthe proct. Ares and methodologies em-ployed by other groups in development ofethical code, and in the ongoing review and

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modification of that code. This can be seenas an analysis of the process, with effort todetermine relevance of procedures to thetask before adventure professionals.

Mark Havens (1986), conducted a studyof both the process and the product of otherprofessions (psychologists, physicians,special educators, educators, recreationalleaders), and concluded that adventureprofessionals could gain the most be in-spection of the process and product ofpsychologists. Psychologists have had anoperational code of ethics for over threedecades, with increased focus on ethicalissues beginning about fifty years agowhen there was considerable movement ofpsychologists into the field (school psy-chologists, clinical psychologist, indus-trial psychologists). Prior to World War IIthere was limited field application of theprinciples of the science of psychology,which was itself only a half century old.The war brought need for more profession-als to deal with the behavioral and emo-tional problems of servicemen, and thatreally gave birth to the profession of "cl ini-cal psychology." As soon as the Universi-ties and the Veterans Administration Hos-pital System began to train new profes-sionals, and these practitioners set aboutworking with people, there was great in-crease in the attention to etlf _al issues.

Actually, psychologists faced some is-sues that may not seem as apparent in thefield of adventure programming. Therewas the issue of psychology as scienceand/or profession; as there was no cleardelination of role as in the case of thePhysicist and the Engineer. Like the issueof responsibility for appropriate (or inap-propriate) application of the knowledge ofatom splitting, the questions arose aboutpsychologists using the knowledge of thescience in the field. Interestingly, for the

Psychologist/Scientist, the argument wasoften similar to that of Scientists in general;namely, that "science is ethically neutral."This brings to focus an ethical issue facedby some adventure leaders. To what extentare we responsible for the misuse andimproper application of our methodologiesafter we have trained others in their usage?We can, as those scientists have, claim aneutrality, arguing that we are but techni-cians, teaching technical skills or buildingropes courses for others to use and we haveno responsibility regarding proper applica-tion and usage.

Clinical Psychologists also facedstruggle/debate with the medical specialityof Psychiatry, which fought against certifi-cation and professional licensure for psy-chologists. Many thus advocated adoptionof the medical model for clinical psychol-ogy, which would most likely have meantquicker resolution of the differences withPsychiatry, and also simplified the searchfor professional ethics (there could havebeen modification of the already existentmedical ethics); but that would have beenan inappropriate alliance. In general, phy-sicians have followed Cartesian tradition,and their concern for ethical principle tendsto focus on the nature of the doctor-patientrelationship, and the interaction betweendoctors. As Nicholas Hobbs noted, " Inmedicine, ethics are not ,ventral to the heal-ing process. In clinical psychology, ethicsare not just a guide to conduct but are thevery essence of the treatment process."(Hobbs, 1965).

The clinical psychologists who wereseeking professional status after WorldWar II recognized the need to deal compre-hensively with ethics. Under the auspicesof their professional organization, theAmerican Psychological Association(APA), some committees began working

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in 1948. It was almost ten years later thatthere was the first publication of EthicalStandards for Psychlogists (1957). Therehave been periodic revisions of the stan-dards since that time. Essentially, theprocess from inception was one of seekinga valid set of standards by rational discus-sion, review of cases of ethical dilemma,and consensual decision making.

Shortly after the first APA publicationof standards, Thomas Szasz (1961) arguedfor rejection of the medical model for treat-ment of psychological disorders. He ar-gued, "The concept of illness, whetherbodily of mental, implies some deviationfrom some clearly defined norm, whichmust be stated in terms of psychological,ethical, and legal concepts." Other person-ality theorists had recognized the need tocast the clinical problem in ethical or moralterms, and have fourd it useful to talk tothose problems in terms of "sin." (c.f.,Hobbs, 1965; Murray, 1962; Kelly, 1955).Psychologists, with exception of thosewho operate from extreme cognitive orbehavioral approaches, tend to admit thattheir work with clients is continuously inthe realm of values, social conduct, andquestions of "what should I do." Thepsychologist's work with clients is in therealm of moral choices and ethical dilemasmuch of the time. As such, the psycholo-gist is plunged into the issues of ethics.(Buhler, 1962; London, 1964).

I would argue that adventure leaders arephilosophically and programatically facedwith questions very similar to those of theclinical psychologist. Again, if we adoptvery technocratic and impersonal ork..ta-tion, with claim that our sole purpose is theteaching of adventure and/or recreationalskills, then we might reduce the need toattend to ethical issues. However, if weconsider our programming as impacting

on the psychological, social, and spiritualdevelopment of the client, then we aredealing in the realm of ethics. If we setprogram goals for "enhancing self con-cept," "improving social relationships," oreven "developing problem solving anddecision making skill," 'hen we are work -

in2 in the world of the client's values andethical standards. In this sense, adventureleaders must become ethical theorists.

This leads adventure leaders to the samepoint that it led psychologists, a confronta-tion with the issue of free will vs. determin-ism. Even though, as scientist, a psycholo-gist must assume that behavior is orderly,lawful, and empirically predictable (deter-minism), as a clinical practitioner he dealswith the client who talks of anxiety, guilt,conflict, choice, and social/interpersonalresponsibility (free will). Just as Stevensonfound that examination of ethical situ-ations made it impossible to exclude sub-jective/emotive language from a study ofethics, so the psychologist must admit freewill. Adventure leaders who are concernedwith facilitating their clients examinationof personal choices, personal strengths,and interpersonal behaviors, are dealingwith those clients as having freedom ofchoice. Some adventure programs evenstate as a goal that they seek to enhance theclient's capability for choice. There is nodoubt, adventure programmers muststruggle with this whole issue; and it istherefore important that they clarify theirown personal values. It can even be arguedthat leaders in the field have obligation tohelp students and workers in the field in thisconsiderable ethical task.

Things would have been easier for psy-chologists, and would now be easier foradventure leaders, if there were easily per-ceived and adoptable ethical absolutes.This would have set the problem in terms of

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the tradition, of naturalistic ethics. How-ever, the impact of William James andJohn Dewey on psychology in generalmade their pragmatic approach more ac-ceptable to those seeking to develop ethi-cal standards. Therefore, committees dis-cussed ethical situations and field prob-lems, and there was search for consensusand then approval of evolving code by themembership at large. It might be arguedthat attention to the real problems of thefield begs the question of seeking thosehigher order absolute values, or even thatsuch attention tends to undermine the un-covering of more permanent principles ofmoral behavior (Blanshard, 1962). Therehave also been arguments :tout the tenu-ous assumption that a group of decent menand women can develop a decent code forprofessional conduct, and there are paral-lels to the whole judicial systems relianceon the "jury of peers."

In any case, the consensual decision-making process, with committees dealingwith field situations, resulted in a set ofstandards for the profession of psychol-ogy. The functional effectiveness of thosestandards has been attributed to the factthat they were derrived from the bottom upand not from setting down some abstractabsJlutes for ethical behavior. Havens(1987) has outlined the arguments for sig-nificant learning from examination of ethi-cal dilemmas. Certainly, this procedureoffers adventure leaders a potential start-ing point in their search for standards ofprofessionals conduct.

Psychologists have recognized the prob-lems of dealing with such a diversity offield practitioners, and with the diversityof opinion about what really constitutes anethical problem are not only of diversepersonality, motivation, value orientation,and programming methodology, but rep-

resent a diverse number of professionalgroups (psychology, education, therapeu-tic recreation, outdoor education, experi-ential education, special education, medi-cal rehabilitation, youth ministries, correc-tional workers, management consultants,etc.). There is, at present, no encompassingorganization such as the APA for psy-chologists, and this makes the talk of deter-mining ethical diemmas and critical situ-ations very difficult. I d, not forsee anyeasy way for attention to critical issues tofilter upward from the field to the develop-ment of an appropriate professional code ofconduct. It may be that we will have to besatisfied with the development of a meth-odology for field focus on ethical issues.

Methodologies for !,thical ExplorationThe task before the professionals of

adventure programming is twofold. Wemust seek to stimulate individual ethicaltheorizing, and to understand the ethicaldilemmas and ethical decisions that facethe individual practitioners; and we mustseek to develop an ethic for the profes-sional practice of adventure and challengeeducation.

The first of these challenging tasks canbe seen as contributing to three differentproblems:

(a) It will stimulate the individualtoward improvement and refinementof personal ethical code, and assist thatindividual in dealing with day-to-dayethical problems faced on the adven-ture trails.

(b) It will help the individual prac-titioner to better understand the ques-tions and problems of morality and be-havior that the participating clientsstruggle with.

(c) It will contribute to the evolu-tional unfolding of system of ethics or

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"code of conduct" for professionalswho work with the adventure method-ologies.The second challenge, that of develop-

ing a professional ethic, can make contri-bution to three different problems:

(a) It will lead to the establishmentof a professional code of ethicsagainst which the individual practitio-ner can judge choices and patterns ofbehavior.

(b) It will assist the professionals ofadventure programming in their ef-forts toward a common professionalidentity. In this regard, it should berecognized that we can characterizethe adventure field as a methodologyavailable to people of many differentprofessions and still seek a multi-dis-ciplinary identity or reference groupthat overviews the field.

(c) It can provide guidelines forstimulation of the individuals practi-tioner to get about the task of ethicaltheorizing.

The above breakdown of the task beforeus shows the interrelatedness of the wholeproblem. Whether we emphasiv a start atthe bottom, with individual ethical theoriz-ing,o7 a start at the bottom, or a start at thetop, with professional ethical theorizing,there is parallel contribution. However westart, and whatever our motivation, therewill be contribution to many dimensions ofthe problem. It may be important, how-ever, for eac",i of us to recognize our basicmotivat: on:

There are many ways to start. Obvi-ously, one could approach the problem viatraditional intellectual study, takingcourses and reading textbooks on ethics.There are even some "guidebooks" forself development that will stimulate think-

ing about proper human behavior andachievement of higher quality lifestate.(e.g., Keyes, 1972; Fowler, Keen, andBerryman, 1978; Houston, 1982). Onecould pursue the problem by seeking outworkshops, seminars, and ongoing groupinvolvements that are offered as "personalgrowth" experiences. One could take sometime now and again for a special solo jour-ney to the wilderness beyond, for it doesindeed stimulate our journey to the wilder-ness within. We might al3o give attentionto personal journaling.

In an earlier paper Smith (1984) arguedfor increasing both our theorical efforts andour empirical research. It would be valu-able to include researching of our values,attitudes, and ethical dilemas in our effortsto clarify the practice of challenge pro-gramming. Mark Havens (1986) has madean excellent step in that direction. Thereare also historic attitude scales such as theAllport-Vernon-Lindzey Study of Values(1951), and all of the literature cluttered as"value carification" (e.g., Raths, Harmin,and Simon, 1966; Simon and Howe, 1972;Hawley and Hawley, 1975), which wouldseem to warrant our attention.

The balance of this paper will present avery skeletal overview to a system of smallgroup discussion and problem solvingwhich I think has peat potential for ourstudy of ethical issues. I shall consider thisas the Critical Incident Methodology(CIM).

CIM would involve the following se-quence:

(1) Development of an informa-tional survey form which would pro-vide field practitioners with opportu-nity to give overview to the goals andpractices of their programming, and toidentify some of their personal issueswith regard to ethics in their practice.

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The survey fonn would also requestfield practitioners to outline some ac-tual crisis situations and the ethicalproblems involved.

(2) From this survey. a set of actualfield problems involving real ethicaldilemas would be developed, proba-bly the task of a summarizing commit-tee.

(3) Presentation of this set of "criti-cal incidents" and the parallel ethicalproblems in workshop format to ad-venture professionals. The taskwould be for small group discussionof problem, alternatives, potent:aloutcomes, and choices.

(4) The problem solving groupswould also be pr-,vided with a sum-marization worksheet, again devel-oped by some summarizing commit-tee. The worksheet would attempt tobring some sort of summarization tothe ex: hange of ideas, and would for-mat data for cross group comparison.

(5) Reworking of the initial set ofcritical incident field problems, withpossible addition of some of the alter-natives and impressions from themany small group discussions. Thiswould lead to the development of aformat for usage in subsequent work-shops.

(6) At some point, leaders in theprofession of adventure programmingwould attempt mmarization of theresults of the field discussions, in ef-fort to develop an initial overview toconduct standards.

This procedure is quite similar to thatemployed by psychologists in the develop-ment of their ethical standards. It shouldbe noted that adventure programmers donot have the umbrella organization of the

psychologists, and this makes the task verydifficult. Who will initiate the CIM proc-ess? Where will the summarization occur?

The CIM sequence should be recognizedas a dynamic, ever changing process andcompilation of data. There is no acceptableset of values behind the system, as it is self-developing. The open-endedness of themethod should be maintained, as there isemphasis on stimulation of ethical dis-course through the process itself. Were afinal product or code of conduct to becomefixed, then usage of the CIM would be-come that of simply determining whether achoice fits the code or does not; the smallgroups would become as juries, judging therightness and wrongness of action againstthat absolute standard. No doubt, as theprocess unfolii,, individuals will be con-fronted by plenty of "that's right" and"that's wrong" from peers, and even fromself-evaluations. It is importar t to remem-ber that both the problems and even themore consensually agreed upon standardsshould be considered as Dewey's "for ourtime.'

Perhaps a higher order, more absolutestandard for practice will evolve in time.Whether via Moore's intuitive, self-evi-dent awareness, or from some consensualacceptance of a value such as Blanshard's"self-realization," there may come someethical orientation for all time. however,for the present, the openness and flexibilityof the system is important.

There have been some more structuredattempts to stimulate and develop the ethi-cal standards of others, typically involvingthe passing of a particular moral posturedown from the top rather than developingstandards up form the field.

John Mann (1972) has summarized threeexamples:

The first involved starting with the ideals

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and standards of America's founding fa-thers, and encouraging students to applysame to their lies. (Trevitt, 1964). Thesecond was a project in value educationthrough San Franciso's YMCA, which didinvolve small group methodology, butwith the expected Christian orientation.(Sorenson and Dimock, 1955). Finally,Mann summarizes the Character ResearchProject, which also started with goal ofdissemination of basic Christian values.(Ligon, 1956) It should be noted that mostreligions groups, and many national serv-ice organizations (Scouts, 4-H Clubs, etc.)have programs for incucating certain val-ues into their memberships. There may bethose who advocate that there is a defini-tive value orientation and ethical conductstandard for adventure programming, butthat the diversity of programming and ofprofessional workers precludes that. Wemust begin with assessment of the practi-cal problems faced by practicing profes-sionals, and develop our ethics from there.

Earlier in this paper it was suggested thatthe task of ethical exploration for our-selves and our profession will not be easy..For those involved with the day-to-dayproblems of clients, the never ending ques-tions of budget, and the logistics of the nextadventure program, exploration of ethicalissues may seem to be of low priority.However, the challenge is for all to give afew moments of contemplation to Socratesnotion that "the unexamined life is notworth living," and to the issue before us aswas stated earlier in this paper, "the unex-amined practice is not worth practicing."

ReferencesAlbert, E.M., Denise, T. C. & Peterfreund,S. P. (1953). Great Traditions in Ethics,New York, American Book Company.

Allport, G. W., Vernon, P. E. & Lindzey,G. (1951). Study of values: manual ofdirections, Boston; Houghton Mifflin.

Ayer, A.J. (1946) Language, truth andlogic, New York; Dover Publications Inc.

Blanshard, B. (1961). Reason and good-ness, London; Allen and Unwin.

Buhler, C. (1962). Values in psycho:her-apy, New York; Macmillan: Free Press ofGlencoe.

Dewey, J. (1920). Reconstruction in phi-losophy, New York: Henry Holt and Com-pany.

Dewey, J. & Tuf's, W. (1920). Ethics,Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ethical standards of psychologists (1957).Washington: American Psychological As-sociation.

Fowler, J., Keen, S. & Berryman, J. (1978).Life maps, Waco, Texas: Word Books, Inc.

Havens, M. (1986). Professional ethics ir.outdoor adventure education, Unpb. Doc-toral Dissertation, Boston University.

Havens, M. & Fain, G.S. (1986). Ethicaland moral issues in experiential education.Seminar, Association for ExperientialEducation, Annual Conference, Moodus,Connecticut.

Havens, M. (1987). "Learning from ethicaldilemmas, " Journal of Experiential Edu-cation, Spring, 1987.

Hawely, R.C. & Hawley, I.L. (1975).Human values in the classroom, NewYork: Hart Publishing Co.

Hobbs, N. 1965). "Ethics in Clinicalr-..y^,hr.1',gy," in Handbook of clinical psy-cho, ,B.B. Wolman, Editor, New York:McGraw-Hill.

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Houston, J. (1982). The possible human,

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Los Angeles; J.P. Tarcher, Inc. &Houghton Mifflin.

Hunt. J.S. (1986). Ethical issues in expe-riential education, Boulder, Colorado; As-sociation for Experiential Education.

Jourard, S.M. (1974). Healthy personal-ity, New York: Macmillan PublishingCo., Inc.

Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of per-sonal constructs, New York: Norton.

1,L.yes, K. (1972). Handbook to higherconsciousness, Berkley, Calif: LivingLove Center.

Ligon, E.M. (1956). Dimensions of char-acter. New York: Macmillan.

London, P. (1964). The modes and moralsof psychotherapy, New York: Holt,Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Mann, J. (1972). Learning to be, NewYork; Macmillan/Free Press.

Maslow, A. (1968). Toward a psychologyof being, New York: Van Nostrand.

May, R., Angel, E. & Ellenberger, H.F.(1958). Existence, New York: BasicBooks, Inc.

Moore, G.E. (19C3). Principia ethira,England: Cambridge U. Press.

Moore, G.E. (1912). Ethics, New York:Home University Library, Holt.

Murray, H. A. (1962). The personality andcareer of satan. J. Sa.. Issues, 18, (4), 36-54.

Nowell-Smith, P. H. (1954). Ethics, Lon-don: Penguin Books.

Reck, A. J. (1964). Recent american phi-losophy, New York: Deil/Delta.

Reck, A. J. (1968).. The new americanphilosophers, New York: Dell/Delta.

Rogers, C.R. (1961). On becoming a per-son, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Rome, S. & Rome. B. (1964). Philosophi-cal interrogations, New York: Holt,Rinehart and Winston.

Ruths, L. E., Harmin, M. & Simon, S. B.(1966). Values and teaching: workingwith values in the classroom, Columbus,Ohio: Charles Merrill.

Simon E., Howe, L.W. & Kirschenbaum,H. (1972) Values clarification: a hand-book of practical strategies, New York,Hart Press.

Smith, T. (1981). Wildernessbeyond....wilderness within, McHenry Illi-nois: McHenry Press.

Smith, T. (1984). Outdoor therapy: dan-gling ropes and solid femdations, In G.Robb (Ed.), The Bradford Papers, 5,Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

Smith, T., Robb, G., Roland, C., and Ha-vens, M. (1988). Professional ethics andoutdoor programming institute at midwestsymposium on therapeutic recreation,April 18-20. 1988.

Sorenson, R. & Dimock, H.S. (1955).Designing education in values, New York:Association Press.

Stevenson, C. L. (1944). Ethics and lan-guage, New Haven: Yale University.

Szasz, T. (1961). The myth of mentalillness, New York, Harper and Row.

Trevitt, V. (1964). The american heritage-design for national character, Chicago;Rand-McNally.

65 7

Experiential Challenge ProgramDevelopment In The Mental HealthSettingChristopher C. RolandThomas KeeneMichael DuboisJoseph Lentini

This paper offers a specifi program development model based on a one year's effortat Nashua Brookside Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire. The model presentedsynthesizes all three approaches described above. The authors explain not only theprogram development process but some related issues and controversies that can effectany challenge program in the mental health setting.

KEYW'ORKDS: Mental health, adventure challenge, professional development model

A major movement today is the develop-ment and implementation of "adventure"and "challenge" programs in mental healthsettings. Program titles and descriptionsvary from agency to agency and prcgamto program, creating a somewhat confus-ing lexicon. Terms include TherapeuticAdventure Program (TAP) (Kidder,1987), Adventure Therapy (Stitch & Sen-ior, 1984), Challenge Therapy (Castle &Eastman, 1985), Camping erapyWollingwood, 1972; Polez & Rubitz,1977), Wilderness Therapy (Kimball,1983, Ber .,tein, 1972), Outdoor Therapy(Smith, 1980; Smith, 1982), Experiential

Therapy (Stitch, 1983) and ExperientialChallenge Program (ECP) (Roland, Sum-mers, Friedman, Barton & McCarthy,1987). Challenge/adventure programshave been developed in a wide-range ofmental health settings, including commu-nity mental health agencies, specialschools and private psychiatric hospitals.Within these settings, there appear to bethree approaches to program development:(1) creating programs on-site, whereagency personnel are trained to lead thedifferent program activities (Roland, et al.,1987, Witman, 1987), (2) offering pro-grams off-site, led by agency personnel

Christopher C- Roland, Ed. D. is Founder and President of Roland & Associates, Inc.,Keene, New Hampshire.

Thomas Keene, M. Ed. is Director of Activity Therapy, Nashua Brookside Hospital,Nashua, New Hampshire.

Michael Dubois is an Activity Therapist and Experiential Challenge Program Facili-tator at Nashua Brookside Hospital, Nashua, New Hampshire.

Joseph Lentini is the Director of tig',, Eastern Mountain Sports Climbing School, NorthConway, New Hampshire.

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(Ferguson, 1983; Hauser, 1987) and (3)offering programs off -site, led by outdoorchallenge consultants/specialists (Chase,1981; De Santis, 1988; Kimball, 1983;Stitch & Senior, 1984).

With such a range of program titles,there is a corresponding range of programdevelopment processes. Differences in-clude whether activities are sequenced -aPd if so, what sec; uences are used. Other'sinclude activity length, activity sites, stafftraining programs, indoor vs. outdoor ac-tivities and use of debriefing and process-ing techniques.

Nashua Brookside HospitalNashua Brookside Hospital (NBH) is a

private, free standing community orientedhospital owned and operated by Psychiat-ric Institutes of America. The hospitaloffers comprehensive care and profes-sional treatment to individuals and fami-lies throughout New England. Currentlyboth adolescents and adults are served onan in-patient basis. Out-patient servicesare offered on a limited basis and plan to beextended in the near future.

In the fall of 1986, the Director of theActivity Therapy Department began toresew-It the options for the developmentof a challenge program. Although thedirector had participated in numerous

challenge education workshops and semi-nars, she was uncertain of the specifics ofcreating a challenge program in the clinicalsetting in a semi-urban environment (mini-mal land with no trees). Consequently sheand her staff research&, via the local andnational therapeutic recreation network,realistic and affordable program develop-ment options.

Staff members agreed that the Brooksidepro; -am, initially referred to as "Adven-ture Therapy", would include the follow-ing components-

1. A sequential model, as outlined byRoland, et al., (1987), would be fol-lowed. This model is shown in Figure1. Activities are divided into five pro-gressive levers: (a) Goal-setting (e.g.,Contract Writing), (b) Awareness(e.g., Stretching Exercises), (c) Trust(e.g., Blind Trust Walk), (d) GroupProblem Solving (e.g., the 12' wall),and (d) Individual Problem Solving(e.g., low challenge course events).2. Staff would be trained on-site aswell as at recognized regional trainingprograms.3. The program would be interdisci-plinary: activity therapists, psycholo-gists, occupational therapists, andmrmtal health workers would all havea" opportunity to be trained as pro-

Figure 1

6774

gram leaders.4. An advisory board would be cre-ated to help with program develop-ment, implementation and evaluation.Board members would representother psychiatric hospitals, ndepend-e n t consulting firms and local col-leges and universities.5. A low challenge course utilizingfree-standing platforms and tele-phone poles would be constructed onthe hospital grounds.

Program Development ProcessOnce the hospital's administration gave

full approval for the proposed program,confusion became apparent regarding ter-minology. "Adventure Therapy", 'Thera-peutic Adventure", and "ExperientialTherapy" were some 'If the terms that wereused simultaneously throughout the hospi-tal. One of the first program developmentsteps was to agree on one term that mostsuccinctly described the program. Sincethe progam was being based on the modelin Figure 1, it made sense to use the sameterm, "Experiential Challenge Program"or "ECP". The new program was initiallyintroduced via an in-house newsletter, TheBrookside Report, sent to every depart-ment in the hospital. One purpose of thenewsletter was to educate staff members,for example, that the ECP would be anactual part of patients' overall therapeuticprograms, and not simply a series of diver-sionary activities.

Administrative ChallengesWhen NBH decided to integrate chal-

lenge programming, the administrationneeded to carefully research and thenmonitor the services. In much the sameway sequencing was emphasized in theprocess of Experiential Challenge, it was

emphasized in the evolution of the ECP atNashua Brookside Hospital.

When NBH initially explored the pros-pect of a challenge program in a p ivatepsychiatric/chemical dependency hospital,two questions required answers: (a) Whatlenal liability issues needed to be ad-d. ,sed? and (b) What type of "challenge"pr&gramming was the most appropriate forthe population served by the hospital?

By working in conjunction with thehospital's parent organization and thecompany's insurance representative, thenecessary documents related to confidenti-aLy and liability were developed. Thefollowing is a partial list of these materials:

1. Program description (for patientsand parents)2. Release for Participation (for pa-tients and parents)3. Consent to be V:deotaped WhileParticipating in the ECP4. Consent to Participate in Research

There was considerable discussion as tothe direction of the challenge program.The Hospital Administrator and MedicalDirector had had experience with this typeof programming and their concern was thatthe evolution of the NBH program be con-servative. Therefore, the decision wasmade to develop and implement low levelchallenge activities, including a low out-door challenge cow e and inhouse 6.tambuilding equipment.

The discussion regarding the directionand rate of implementation became crucialto the survival of the concept within amutidisciplinary program. The treatmentgoals of the patients combined with theneed to maLiraize available resources be-came the determining factors in decidingupon the direction of the program. Staffingfor the ECP would be interdisciplinary;

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75

thus, the program became a part of thetreatment in those participating ClinicalPrograms. The Director of Activity Ther-apy became the responsible person foradministering the ECP services. Clinicalissues were channeled to the Program Di-rector for exh of the Clinical Programswhich is consistent with the Matrix modelof management adopted by the hospital.By integrating staff members from otherdisciplines, the therapeutic value of theservice was maximized. Clinicians whowork with the patients daily were trained tobe leaders and co-leaders in ECP groups.This was esp. 'ially effective in develop-ing a therapeutic continuum in which thegoals and objectives of a patient's treat-ment as well as patient and miliu issuesbeing addressed in treatment are broughtinto and taken away from ECP groups.

As the ECP sequencing evolved, a set ofPolicies and Procedures was establishedfor consistency in service delivery and aspart of the program monitoring system.Included were patient criteria, goals andobjectives of the program, safety proce-dures, referral procedures, instructions forthe use of challenge equipment, and docu-mentation standards.

Staff Training.Once the Policies and Procedures were

developed, the need for staff training wasaddressed Initiall:., three Activity Ther-apy staff members participated in a threeday training program offered by an estab-lished challenge education training firm.The three staff members had not beenexposed to challenge programming priorto the training and returned with mixedreactions. Their comments ranged frombeing a great personal growth experienceto concern about being ably to apply theexperience in a therapeutic group in an

inpatient setting. The one common com-ment was that the experience was ex-tremely powerful yet had an equally dan-gerous potential.

The critical element was a staff trained inthe theory aild practice of the ECP com-bined with advanced clinical skills espe-cially in the area of group therapy. Twocategories of qualified staff were estab-lished. The first was a leader who wasrequired to have completed an intensiveresidential training program in leading theECP. The co-leaders were hospital staffmembers who were interested in assistingwith the ECP. They were required to attenda one day training program in the theoryand application of the ECP at NashuaBrookside Hospital. The co-leaders couldnot run ECP groups without a qualifiedleade Both leaders -rid co-leaders alsoreceived further on-site supervision andtraining from an outside consultant peri-odically throughout the year.

An Activity Process ModelAfter the first six months of program-

ming, NBH staff members felt the need toexpand upon the original ECP model.They felt this model helped set the stage forinitial program development by categoriz-ing the numerous challenge activities,especially regarding the order of difficulty.However, facilitators realized that everychallenge activity in fact had componentsof all five levels. For example, a trust circlerequired individual and group initiative(e.g., use of spotters), and individual intia-tive (e.g., the "faller"). Thus an "ActivityProcess Model" was developed as sh&wnin Figure 2.

In addition, facilitators began to use theECP as a diagnostic/prescriptive tool forutilization in treatment. Facilitators firstidentified issues that were the result of a

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7

Debriefing

GroupProblemSolving

Figure 2

group's participation in previous low levelchallenge activities. Facilitators then pre-scribed a sequence of activities that pro-moted the awareness and discussion ofthese issues. For example, one commontreatment issue was a group's inability tofunction as a unit. This was rapidly seen ininitial awareness activities: patients rarelyhelped one another and often refused tocooperate. Thus, a series of activities thatfocused on trust, cooperation and groupinitiative were chosen and implemented.This process was critical in order to makethe ECP a therapeutic experience.

Debriefing becomes the outer ring ofthe Activity Pr.ocess Model. Debriefing isa form of group processing where the treat-

ment focus of the ECP is formulated.Facilitators are expected to interpet andapply the performance of the group to theoverall treatment program. Observations,interpretations and interventions need to beprecise and reflect the goals of the ECP aswell as each patient's program. Facilitatorsoften guided groups by the use of metaphor(Bacon, 1985)- in other words, on howpatients' behaviors demonstrated/re-flected the treatment issues being ad-dressed. Additionally, a cognitive hierar-chy in formulating probing questions(Quinsland & Van Ginkel, 1984) was oftenfollowed. This is where the clinical skillsof the facilitators were put to the test.Patients were quite manipulative in these

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7

instances by denying or avoiding issuesrelating to themselves. The more facilita-tors knew about their patients and theirtreatment program, the better equippedthey were to recognize when this manipu-lation was occuring and how to make theappropriate interventions.

High Challenge ActivitiesThroughout the program development

stages, staff members continued to discusswhetei a high ropes course and/or a highvertical climbing wall should also be con-structed on hospital grounds. Some activ-ity therapists had significant experiencewith these types of high challenge pursuits.They felt that these components wouldenhance the overall program, especiallywith the development of self-esteem ofpatients. Yet the hospital administrationwas concerned with the expense of n ateri-als, staff training, and whether the patientswould indeed gain from the experiences.Since many hospitals may encounter thissame issue in the program developmentprocess, a closer look is in order.

The perceived need for high adventureactivities has been well documented. Thevast majority of adventure and challengeprograms include some type of high ad-venture activity whether it be rockclim-bing, white water canoeing, kayaking andrafting, rappelling or "high ropes cours-ing". The need for individual risk-taking isoften the major goal for such programs. Inaddition, the need for "risk-exercise",especially for adolescents is often cited.Rosenthal (1980) noted,

Risk Exercise (RE) on a wen-calcu-lated basis invigorates one physicallyand mentally and produces a state ofwell-being at 1 elation, often timesbordering on euphoria. All this adds

up to a sense of joy and happiness, arenewing of one's courage and vigor,a peace of mind. (p. 37)

Program descriptions of organizationsthat offer high adventure experiences oftenportray numerous benefits to paiticipatingIndividuals. One of the ;none recognizedorganizations, Outward Bound, Inc. gavethe following ;cription in one particularbrochure:

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...Outward Bc and is a unique educa-tional experience which leads to a newunderstanding of yourself, and the factthat most of your limits are self-im-posed. Through Outward Bound,people give themselves a chance tostep out of their old routines and ordi-nary surroundings - if only for a weekor two or threz and some amazingthings happen. Fearful pc:,.ple findinner strengths. Loners discover thejoy of working with others. Peoplewho've always said, "I can't, " find outto say, "I can!" Outward Bound yieldsjoy after hardship, builds confidencethrough experience, brings high ad-venture from hard work, provideschallenging opportunities for you tofi Id out who you really are....(p. 1)

Conversely, there is increasing agree-ment in the field that outdoor practitionersare often faced with difficult decisionswhich may have undesirable outcomes(Havens, 1987; Havens & Fain, 1986).Ewert (1987) explained that some outdoorpursuits in a given situation at a particulartime may affect a partic pant's self - con-cept in a negative way. As an example henoted, "Little is known as to what happensto an individual if he /she fails to completea course component such as rockclimbing"

7 8

(p. 21).Literature cites the need for proper pro-

gram sequencing (Havens, 1985; Roland& Havens, 1983; Smith, 1985). Programsbeing operated today include the "immer-sion" experience where a participant fmdshim/herself on a mountain peak, rapellingplatform or zipwire in the early stages ofthe program. For many individuals, thisapproach is valid - they can, and some-times do, learn a great deal about them-selves and others. But for other individu-als, this immersion approach can be detri-mental. The Roland Report (1985) gavethe following case study of a high schoolstudent participating in an adventure pro-gram as part of a physical education pro-gram:

a sophomore class was in-structed to solve a problem: to safelynegotiate, as a team, an undergrounddrainage pipe-about three feet in di-ameter. The group needed to crawlapproxi 4tely 30 yards from one endof f le pipe to the other - all in totaldarimess.

1 tie group began without anykulty...Halfway through the ex-

perience one girl became very emo-tional. She began screaming and wasapparently out of control. She alsobegan to hit her head on the concretepipe. After much chaos... the groupmade it to the other end.

The next day the teacher talked withthe girl. He discovered that when shewas four or five years old, her uncle, asa joke, locked her in a suitcase for afew seconds. She said it was terrify-ing experience but had forgottenabout it - that is, until that pipe. (p. 5)Thus, depending upon a participant's

background, including skill level, emo-

tional stability, etc., there is always thepossibility that one may perceive a "low"challenge activity (as seen by an instructor)as a very "high" challenge activity. Leroy(1983) noted,

[A Challenge Education student]begat my interest in the iature of ad-venture by teaching me a valuablelesson. Back on the glaz.ler, what Iperceived as a simple stroll, Priscillaperceived as a high adventure, full ofdanger, difficulty and the unknown.Priscilla taught me that when we try tounderstand "adventure", the physicalmagnitude of the peak, pole, lake, ortrial is no more important than theemotional response the task elicits. (p.18)

After much analysis by reviewing theabove advantages and disadvantages ofhigh adventure programming, and afterlengthy discussion with the advisoryboard, the Brookside staff decided to take acareful, middle-ground approach. Insteadof constructing a high challenge zourse orverticle indoor climbing wall, an "Adven-ture Experience" would be offered. Thisexperience would be held off-site and in-clude low level rockclimbing and rappe-ling. The Adventure Experience was de-veloped and led by a consultant who has anextensive background with the practiceand teaching of rockclimbing.

The L.troductory rockclimbing programincluded and integrated all of the elementsfound in the ECP model. These includedsuch elements as individual and groupgoal-setting (e.g., some patients may planto only touch the rock), awareness (e.g.,becuning comfortable with a differentoutdoor environment), trust (e.g., of leader,peers, equipment), group problem-solving

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(e.g., deciding which route to select), andindividual problem-solving (e.g., the ac-tual individual climb).

The teaching of basic rockclimbingbegan indoors at the hospital. First, the useof technical equipment (e.g., ropes, carab-iners, chockstones, seat harnesses) wasreviewed. For example, patients learnedthe technical strengths of each piece ofequipment as well as how to fit a harness.Next, usually on the day of the actual expe-rience, patients organized the technicalgear, extra clothing, and food. This in-volves all the members of the group havingto work together, dividing the communityequipment and sharing the effort. Back-packs were filled and traded within thegroup. Once the group was transported tothe climbing site, the instructor then con-stantly demonstrated the correct use andholding abilities of the equipment.Whereas the exact strengths were notgenerally retained, the overall effect was toincrease trust in the equipment.

To expand on the gear, the correct andaccepted methods of belaying were taught,demonstrated, and reinforced. This addsthe person as an active part of the safetysystem. Only mechanical methods of be-laying, e.g., sticht plates, Munter hitches,were utilized in order to allow any memberof the group (under the instructor's super-vision) to belay one another. The actualknots to attach the rope to the climber weretaught, practiced, and fmally inspectedeach time by the instructor.

The program moves to the teaching ofthe actual techniques of movement on therock. Climbing, properly executed, doesnot use just physical force to ascend, butmore importantly, cognitive thought, bodymovement, and balance. A selection ofappropriate climbs were necessary -climbs that were challengin: yet within the

climber's ability. A selection of easy tomoderate climbs no more than seventy-five feet in height was chosen for eachexperience. With group support, place-ment of the appropriate safety systems andthe necessary technical training, the patientthen ascended. The instructor i.ade surethat each patient understood that the onlyexpectation was to try. Once again, not ev-eryone in the group climbed. Climbingbrings out very real fears that must beaddressed. Many sessions may be neededbefore one is comfortable enough to eventry. Just tying into the :eat harness, attach-ing the rope and then touching the rock wasa real gratifying success for some patients.

Group support was vital to a successfulexperience. Being quiet and respectfulenabled the instructor to give feedback,directions, and support while the patientwas on the rock. Group understanding of agood effort by a fellow patient that does notclimb or reach the top was also essential.Prior to the return trip to the hospital, athorough group debriefing was held. Themajor focus was how the rockclimbingexperience can be associated with patients'therapeutic goals and objectives. Meta-phors were constantly used in helping thepatient, for example, make the link be-tween taking the risk to climb the rock andtaking the risk to stay drug-free once backin the community.

With the addition of this program, anexpanded version of the Activity ProcessModel evolved, as shown in Figure 3.

It was apparent that the Adventure Expe-rience did not constitute a new segment,but an actual perimeter; its activities were"all-level incisive ", i.e., every activityhad elements of goal-setting, awareness,trust, group problem solving and individ-ual problem solving. The key concept wasthat the "inner core" had been initially

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Figure 3

tk.veloped (appropriate for both adoles-cents and adults) while the "outer core"-the adventure experience - was developed

secondly. This perimeter was thus de-pendent on the core but the core was not de-

pendent on the perimeter.

Implications for PractitionersDeveloping and implementing a

challenge program in the hospital setting isobviously a complex task, requiring thecooperation of numerous professionals.The following are additional guidelinesand suggestions to help wish the develop-ment of future programs or the enhance-ment of existing programs:

74

Staff Training1. Key staff members need to attend

a three to four day residential trainingprogram. This program needs to focuson professional growth rather thaninterpersonal growth and be directlyapplicable to the patient populationsbeing served.

2. All staff members who may be in-volved with the ECP need periodic(e.g., Once per month) training withone-on-one feedback sessions (1-3hours); and

3. Proficiency standards need to beestablished and staff periodicallyevaluated based up- n these standards.

Program Development1. An in-house marketing strategy

should be developed. Included shouldbe a "sales packet" containing pro-gram philosophy, the selected pro-gram model, published articles aboutsimilar programs, a "quote sheet" -quotes from patients of other pro-grams relating their experiences in theECP.

2. Low level activities should beemphasized with specific examples ofindoor activities. For those staffmembers who are not outdoor-ori-ented, they may become more quicklyinvolved (or at least interested) byfirst observing/leading indoor activi-ties.

3. Although we recommend onlyconstructing a low challenge courseuntil the program is solid and candevelop a true need for a high course,some hospitals nevertheless have bothlow and high courses constructed. Ifthis is the case, and a "tour" of theprogram's equipment is given to in-terested staff members, focus theirattention on the low course. Team-work, individual initiative, group ini-tiative, problem solving are oftenmore apparent on the low than thehigh. Also, the low course seems"safer" to the causal observer andobservents may be more open to be-coming involved with the program(even th IIgh statistically more acci-dents actually occur on low courses).

4. An effective marketing tech-nique, especially aimed at the mana-gerial level, is to offer an experientialmanagement training program. t incesimilar activities and briefing tech-niques are used, management person-nel may glean a better understanding

of the experiential process. Evalu-ation data of this type of managerialprogram have indicated specific in-stances of transfer to the workplace(King & Harmon, 1981; Roland,1982).

ConclusionThrough the combined efforts of Nashua

Brookside Hospital staff members andoutside resources, two models in challengeprogramming have evolved. Thoughnumerous mental health programs in theUr.ited States and Canada utilize some orall of the components in these models, theentire process has not been heretofore con-ceptualized. The what's, why's and how'sof a specific program development processare now better defined. Since many profes-sionals are undoubtedly struggling withsome of those issues that were faced atNBH, perhaps this program developmentsynopsis will help. Program title, activitysequence, low and high challenge courses,on-Ate/off-site activities, etc. are all sub-ject that need to addressed before any chal-lenge program can materialize.

The goal of any Experiential ChallengeProgram should not be to change an exist-ing treatment program on a particular hos-pital unit, but to offer the treatment pro-gram a specific tool to compliment whatalready exists. This is a critical and mostdelicate key to the potential success of theECP. Though one needs to exhibit highlevels of enthusiasm towards the ECP,there is also the need to be careful not tosuggest that this particular treatment mo-dality is of greater value than other, per-haps more traditional, modalities. Facilita-tors need to careful,, plan the activitysequence- not only for patients but for otherstaff members. Initially engaging patientsindoors with basic problem solving activi-

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ties tend to be more effective in selling theprogram than higher level, outdoor chal-lenges. Once the program becomes anaccepted treatment modality, having accu-mulated an impeccable safety record, thennumerous on-site and off-site adventureexperiences can be offered. If the initialprogram development phases are not takenslowly and are high adventure oriented,there is a good chance that the entire pro-gram will be viewed as diversionary andnot therapeutic.

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Bacon, S. (1983). The conscious use ofmetaphor in ut> d Bound. Denver,CO: Colon,' ..:utward Bound School.

Bernstein, A. (1972). Wilderness as atherapeutic behavior setting. Therapeutic

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Castle, M. & Eastman, J. (1985). Chal-lenge therapy: An innovative treatmentfor adplescent alcoholics in a redentialsetting. In M. Gass (ed.), Exploring Hori-zons: The Implications of ExperientialLearning Sourcebook. FRIC ED 261 829.

Chase, N. (1981). Outward Bound as anadjunct to therapy. ERIC ED 241 204.

Collingwood, T. R. (1972). Survivalcamping: A therapeutic mode for rehabili-tating problem youth. Technical report.Little Kock: Arkansas Rehabilitation andResearch Training Center.

DeSantis, R. & Manley, J. (1988). Sus-pended Adolescence. Dublin, N.H.:Beech Hill Publishing Co.

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