Exploring students’ emotional experiences on a 7-day outdoor personal development course: investigating emotional dynamics across different programme elements

ABSTRACT

Emotions influence the process of personal development and are an important factor in learning. Reflecting on and understanding one’s emotions within an experiential personal development course can contribute to self-knowledge and future professional growth as leisure educators. This study maps the emotions experienced by the participants on a 7-day residential outdoor course conducted in the Czech Republic. The research group was composed of 18 students aged 19–22 years. Participants documented a wide range of emotions though self-reflective recording sheets, with joy, peace, and ecstasy being the predominant ones. Positive emotions were prevalent in the respondents’ accounts. The intensity of the experience was noted as strong to very strong in nearly half of the programme elements. The study tracks the progression of emotional intensity throughout the course and identifies the programme elements in which participants experienced emotions most profoundly. The significance of self-reflection on emotions during the course is discussed, along with suggested recommendations for effectively engaging with emotions in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• emotions
• personal development
• outdoor education
• experiential education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adéla Růžičková

Adéla Růžičková is a postgraduate student and teacher at the Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacký University Olomouc. In research, teaching and practice, she focuses on holistic education in nature. Her research expertise is in the role of emotions in the personality development of participants on experiential courses.

Dana Štěrbová

Dana Štěrbová is a clinical psychologist, supervisor, university teacher and marriage and family counsellor. At the Faculty of Physical Culture (Palacký University Olomouc) she lectures on clinical psychology and pathopsychology, sexuality of persons with disabilities and topics of foster family care. She works as a lecturer of certified courses and events in organizations providing education for helping professions.

David Másilka

David Másilka is researcher and teacher at the Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacký University Olomouc. He is an expert in the Czech approach within holistic education and in qualitative research—methodology, research design, in-depth interviews, focus groups, discussions, experiential workshops, qualitative content analysis, grounded theory. He worked as research and business consultant, facilitator and lecturer.

Michal Vičar

Michal Vičar is researcher and teacher at the Faculty of Physical Culture, Palacký University Olomouc. His fields of interests are sports talent, psychological characteristics of developing excellence, psychometrics, psychodiagnostics and experiential education.