‘What a bad idea to camp next to a train station’ – student-reported outcomes and evaluations of the outdoor adventure project ‘challenges’

ABSTRACT

In a hope to foster their students' autonomy, capability of decision-making and problem-solving, and thus better equipping them for facing real-world challenges in later life, an increasing number of German schools have implemented so-called ‘challenges’. In these novel de-schooling projects, students get the chance to spend a longer period of time, usually two weeks, on a task of their own choice—most often trips by foot or bike over large distances and with limited money. This study explores students’ reports of their learning experience and benefits of participation, and the effects of various programme features. 763 students from 13 secondary schools took part in this first cross-sectional exploration of this new phenomenon. Voluntariness and the team aspect of the challenges showed to be the most central factors for students feeling they benefited from the experience. The results suggest that such extracurricular activities may benefit from less regulation by the school.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenge
• adventure education
• de-schooling
• school learning

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Carolin Herrmann and Fabian Dudda for their help with the data collection and screening.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kerstin Helker

Dr. Kerstin Helker is a postdoctoral researcher and senior lecturer at Human Technology Centre and Institute of Education at RWTH Aachen university. Her research interests predominantly lie in the field of school education and motivation. Kerstin is interested in how student experiences outside school affect school learning, studying, among others, students’ future time perspectives and responsibility for learning. Teaching courses for undergraduate students of teacher education and educational research courses, Kerstin also emphasizes high quality university teaching and students’ hands-on experiences with research. In 2017, Kerstin and Matthias Rürup founded the research network HeRiS to study ‘Challenges’ as school-based adventure education projects across Germany.

Matthias Rürup

Dr. Matthias Rürup is a researcher and senior lecturer at the School of Education at the University of Wuppertal. After having focused his research on educational governance for many years, Matthias turned to studying innovative school projects specifically focusing on how progressive educational projects are implemented and passed on between schools.