Challenging activities, supportive relationships, and reflection facilitate transformative learning in outdoor adventure education This article unpacked what it might mean to have a transformative experience in outdoor adventure education. To do so, the authors drew upon a research-based definition of transformative learning to analyze survey and interview data collected from participants in a three-month National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) course in the United States. The aim was to identify which course activities or processes facilitated transformative learning in outdoor adventure education and to explore any characteristics that might predispose people to experience transformative learning.
Their mixed method design first administered a pre-course and post-course survey to 45 participants age 17-31 to identify if they experienced transformative learning more before or during their course. 139 participants completed the post-course survey only. The surveys measured participants’ readiness for change and identified learning activities to which participants attributed any changes in themselves. Then, the researchers conducted semi-structured follow-up interviews with 20 participants to shed more light on the outdoor adventure experiences they identified as personally transformative. Survey results were analyzed quantitatively, and interview data were analyzed qualitatively.
Results were mixed. Of thef 139 participants, 114 reported transformative learning experiences at NOLS while 25 did not. Participants who identified transformative learning experiences primarily attributed change to these parts of the outdoor adventure experience: reflection (personal reflection, deep thought, keeping a journal), challenge (overcoming hardships, instructor challenge), and support (instructor support, student support). At the same time, comparing participants’ reports of transformative learning experiences before and after the course showed a non-significant difference; statistically, surveys did not establish that transformative learning occurred more frequently at NOLS than before NOLS. However, students reported significantly more occurrences of the following stages of transformative learning at NOLS: disorienting dilemmas around actions and social roles, self-examination with feelings of guilt that did not change their beliefs, acquisition of knowledge and skills to implement one’s plans, provisional trying of new roles, and reintegration into one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspective. Other stages of transformative learning theory were not statistically significant. There was also a non-significant, weak, positive relationship between readiness to change and transformative learning.
The study’s overarching finding was that many participants began to experience transformative learning, but they didn’t completely realize the formal definition of transformative learning during the outdoor adventure education program. Rather than being transformed through outdoor adventures and follow up activities, participants reached a clearer, more conscious understanding of themselves—a significant outcome—but mostly did not change their beliefs. Data suggested that the program facilitated transformative learning most when instructors used trusting and supportive relationships to challenge participants, mentally and physically, and when the program structured time for participants to reflect upon these challenges and themselves. The key was for challenge, support, and reflection all to be present in outdoor adventure activities. In many cases, participants were already experiencing personal, occupational, or academic transitions prior to their NOLS course, which complicated any straight-forward account of the program’s transformative processes or outcomes. These findings challenge some widely held assumptions about the transformative nature of outdoor adventure education while pointing to the kinds of experience which begin to facilitate transformative learning for teens and young adults.
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