Adventure therapy programs can promote beneficial experiences and attributes that cultivate positive youth development (PYD). This study explores the impact of an urban, outdoor adventure therapy program for underserved youth. Multiple versions of the Positive Youth Development Inventory were given to participants and a comparison group (N = 161)…

Continuing education programs for educators are designed to advance educators' teaching practices and ultimately advance students' academic success. However, many non-traditional wilderness-based programs lack evidence of proven efficacy. Experiential wilderness-based programs are believed to enhance participants' character traits through…

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…

Using interpretative phenomenological analysis and Robert Kegan's constructive-developmental theory, this study investigated how developmental stage shaped the subjective experiences of 13 adolescents (M[subscript age] = 15.92 years, 54% females) in a developmental coaching and outdoor adventure education program. Participants were drawn from…

This inquiry reports the findings of a systematized review of recent studies concerning the affordances associated with implementing mobile technology in outdoor learning. The emergent employment of mobile technologies in education worldwide adds new layers of complexity to the field that require a better understanding. The review aims to…

Outdoor adventure education (OAE) has been a passion of the author since being a student teacher. Currently, he serves both PETE majors and teaching OAE at a local high school. His dual perspective as a teacher of secondary students and PETE students has given him a unique lens on how PETE programs teach initial physical educators OAE. The…

Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) is traditionally depicted as a hegemonic masculine domain. Thus, fundamental to any dialogue on gender in OAE is whether the outdoor experience reifies or disputes stereotypical gender roles. This study explores the influence of gender on the psychosocial outcomes and descriptions of gender-related influences on…

The goal of the study was to assess the effects of two instructional frameworks (Cooperative Learning/Outdoor Adventure Education hybridization and Direct Instruction) on students' motivation and disruptive behaviours and explore students and teachers' views on hybridization. The participants were 170 high school students randomly distributed into…

Background: Research on the effects of adventure education lessons on social emotional skills (SEL), psychological outcomes, and physical activity (PA) is limited. Purpose: This study assessed the effectiveness of adventure education lessons in improving high school students' SEL competencies, resilience, and PA. Methods: 95 10th grade students…

Background: Continuing education programs for teachers seek to enhance outcomes for participants and their students. Experiential wilderness-based programs offer outdoor-recreational activities and experiential teaching initiatives. Research needs to be conducted to reveal how they influence individual behaviors. Purpose: This research…

This study examined the impacts of long-term exposure of outdoor adventure programming (OAP) for adolescent girls. This qualitative study shares the stories of the 8th grade students at the French Broad River Academy for girls, which is a private middle school that integrates OAP into its curricula located in Asheville, North Carolina, USA.…

Background: A common critique of adventure education research methodology is the overreliance on pre-/post-study designs to measure change. Purpose: This paper compares and contrasts two methods of data analysis on the same adventure education data set to show how these distinct approaches provide starkly different results and interpretation.…

Research in outdoor education and more specifically on wilderness expeditions has almost exclusively focused on short-term benefits (<5yrs) despite their findings suggesting these are "life-changing" experiences. This study examined long-term outcomes (40 years later) of three (month-long) adventurous school expeditions to mainland…

A mountain bike program was designed and adapted for the school setting with middle school-aged students during 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Two mountain bike groups were offered to facilitate training and development of mountain bike knowledge and skills: one group with integrated Adventure Therapy components to facilitate a therapeutic…

Many schools aim to provide social and emotional learning (SEL) opportunities for students. SEL is important for positive youth development. However, it remains unclear how SEL skills might be influenced by adventure education in school settings. This study used a mixed-methods design to explore potential changes in teachers' perceptions of…