‘Go somewhere, do something’. How students responded to the opportunity to complete an unstructured, five-day, wilderness solo in the Cantabrian Mountains, Northern Spain

Abstract

This study explored the response of 28, second year undergraduate students to an innovative approach to a five-day solo. Periods of solitude are more likely to lead to positive outcomes when they are freely chosen than when they are programmed as part of a course. The extent to which a programmed solo can be ‘freely chosen’ by the individual is traditionally perceived as being constrained by logistic, safety and group needs. This study describes a solo, delivered as a required part of a core academic module, in which these perceived limitations were challenged. It describes an attempt to empower students to make their own choices about the nature of their solo experience and risk management. The study evaluates the extent to which individual students felt that they had freedom of choice; the choices they made and the outcomes of their solos. An intrinsic case study approach was used to explore the choices made by all students before, during and immediately after their solo as well as the more considered responses of 14 students eight months later. The data suggest that the pre-solo mindset was the most important factor in determining positive outcomes for participants and that offering students the opportunity to take responsibility for the structure of their own solo increased the likelihood that this would be achieved.

Keywords:

• Pre-Solo Mindset
• Choices
• Facilitation
• Trust
• Empowerment