![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This paper aims to contribute to on-going discussion about the teaching and learning strategies used in effective outdoor education programmes. A naturalistic inquiry was conducted with two schools that participated in 28-day outdoor education programmes facilitated by the same outdoor provider in Australia. Data were collected through five semi-structured interviews with the school teachers and programme leaders and five focus groups conducted with the students. The Life Effectiveness Questionnaire was also administered to 261 students pre- and post-programme and results confirmed that the outdoor education programmes were producing desired improvements in the students’ perceptions of their general life skills. The findings of the qualitative analysis confirmed the importance of carefully sequenced activities, a facilitative teaching style, and active engagement as teaching and learning strategies. More research is needed to confirm the teaching and learning strategies that should be prioritised in the education of future outdoor education leaders.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my colleagues at the University of the Sunshine Coast (Deb Heck, Meg Marshman and Brendon Munge) and the reviewers for their feedback, which helped to improve this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Glyn J Thomas
Glyn J Thomas is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia and co-ordinates two programmes: one for pre-service physical education teachers; and one for future outdoor education leaders. His teaching and research interests focus on the facilitation of experiential education, facilitator education and outdoor/environmental fieldwork pedagogies.