The Impact of Gender on Outdoor Education Experiences - Research Paper Example

1.0 Research Topic: Gender: How does it effect the outdoor education experience? Outdoor education refers to organized learning that takes place outdoors. Outdoor education programs generally involve residential or journey-based experiences where students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges such as hiking, climbing, canoeing, ropes courses, and group games. Outdoor education is based on the philosophy, theory, and practices of experiential education and environmental education. As the literature regarding outdoor education grows, it now becomes important to review emerging trends and discuss its implications for practice. Gender is arguably the most ubiquitous individual difference that is attracting considerable interest in the outdoor education field. In spite of this trend, there is a lack of critical reviews of the anecdotal and research literature. This paper examines the impact of gender on outdoor education experiences in areas which were chosen to be pertaining to staffing ratios, participant ratings of outdoor leaders, group processes and program outcomes. This paper is primarily a review of the research literature on the effect of gender on people’s outdoor education experiences because while a reasonable body of research exists, there is a rarity in reviews of the research literature which draw on insights from the anecdotal literature. Central to the study is the question of how has outdoor education developed to take into account feminist issues. Other important questions posed in this study are the following: Do males and females register different outcomes for the same programs? Are there different psychological, social, or physical processes that can be observed for males and females during outdoor education programs? What is the influence of gender of instructors has on outdoor education experiences for participants? What does research state about single-sex and co-educational outdoor education programs? Although a comprehensive understanding of the impact that gender differences have in outdoor education is not yet developed, the interest in the filed is increasing and answers to such questions are starting to become available. With this research, it is hope that outdoor educators can make adjustments to their programs to account for gender differences. 2.0 Review of Related Literature 2.1Types of Gender Literature in Outdoor Education Preliminary research indicates that there are two types of literature on the influence of gender in outdoor education. The first type comprises articles and books based mostly on accumulated experience and anecdotal evidence of outdoor education practitioners. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the literature pertained mostly about outdoor education for delinquent boys but the 1980’s and the 1990’s registered a shift in emphasis as the works became mostly authored by women who tended to focus on expressing and explaining females’ experiences of the outdoors in single-sex and mixed-sex settings. The second type of gender literature in outdoor education is research studies which use qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies. The majority of these studies does not investigate the role of gender in outdoor education but mentions gender as a variable in studies of the processes and outcomes of outdoor education. While the dichotomy is not clear for many the outdoor education, the two sources of literature are distinct and make surprisingly little use of each other. As an example, in her introduction to a recent book “Women’s Voices in Experiential Education”, Angelou (1996) commented that: “I find it noteworthy that no authors in this volume use quantitative justification as a basis for their essays...the experiences and voices of women are the foundation for hypothesis and analysis for contributors to this text” (p.4). On the other hand, the literature remarkably lacks a critical analysis in its reporting of gender-related outdoor education findings with the results often presented in a couple of sentences while the discussions rarely utilize the rich possibilities for explanation from experience-based literature. 2.2 Gender and Participation in Outdoor Education Richards (1977) was concerned that while all advertising and publicity indicates that the programs are for both genders, the overwhelming number of recruits was men. On the average, if all courses were mixed courses, each primary group of 12 would have approximately 10 men and 2 women. However, the tide of female participation has since turned as reported by Miner and Boldt (1981 as cited in Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, in press) where it was found that 41% of participants in Outward Bound U.S.A. programs were female. More recent statistics indicate that more females are participating in outdoor pursuits more than ever and the projections indicate that these trends are likely to continue in the future. Kelly (1987), for example, projected that by year 2010, more females than males will be backpacking/hiking. In virtually all aspects of outdoor recreation, the percentage of women participating will be increasing faster than men (Henderson, 1992, p.50). 2.3 Gender Literature in Education, Research, and Outdoor Education Neill and Richards (1996) conducted a search using the Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC) database to determine the occurrences of males and females in the literature concerning outdoor education with the major findings as follows: Figure 1. Frequency of “Outdoor Education” ERIC citations containing males and females. Between 1966 and 1981, there were 50% more “outdoor education” ERIC articles mentioning males (24) than females (16). In the period between 1982 and 1996, this was reversed dramatically, with 133% more “outdoor education” articles that are predominantly discuss females (35) than males (15). There is clearly there a strong and increasing trend for females to be featured in educational and research/evaluation literature more than males. Early outdoor education literature was focused more on men but this reversed in educational literature published since 1982. A brief review of research on the influence of gender on participation rates, outdoor leaders, outdoor education processes, single-sex and mixed-sex programs and program outcomes are provided in the following sections. 2.4 Gender in Outdoor Education Staffing Gender Ratio of Outdoor Education Leaders Traditionally, males have dominated the role of a leader in outdoor education but this has begun to change but more so in some areas of outdoor education than other areas. At the 4th National Outdoor Education Conference in Australia in 1983, it was observed that there were four times more men attending than women (Dawes, 1984). It has been suggested that reason for the small percent of female role models in this profession can be traced to the traditional gender-stereotypes influencing career choices of individuals either consciously or unconsciously. Another possible reason for the male-dominated leader roles is the over-emphasis on the teaching of technical or hard skills and the under-emphasis on human relation or people skills in outdoor leadership training programs which calls for men rather than women(Friedrich & Priest, 1993, p.12). This second explanation for gender differences in outdoor education staffing is supported by Jordan (1996) who was able to establish that technical skills were more highly valued until relatively recently when it has been recognised that both interpersonal and technical skills are important for outdoor leaders. This shift in emphasis encouraged more females as outdoor educators. Evidence for a more equal representation of females as outdoor leaders is prominent in the contemporary setting but has actually occurred in the not so distant past. During an Outward Bound UK staff recruitment campaign in early 1996, 531 inquiries were received of which 56% from males and 44% from females. One hundred and seventy applications were received wherein 54% from males and 46% from females. Ultimately, five females and four males were selected to be trained as instructors (Warner, 1996). However, organizations placing less emphasis on interpersonal skills ma be unable to show such an even representation. A recent study of nine elite US private school outdoor education programs reported a discrepancy wherein nineteen male and eight female outdoor education staff teaching approximately equal numbers of male and female students (Huxley, 1995). It is also important to determine the relative advancement of males and females through outdoor education hierarchies. Available statistics indicate such as that of Ball (1986) indicate that in Western societies, most outdoor organizations still have much progress to be made towards equal gender representation. 2.5 Gender Perceptions of Outdoor Education Leaders Are there significant differences between the characteristics of male and female outdoor instructors? Hendy (1975) employed Cattell’s well-known Sixteen Personality Factor profiles with twenty-five instructors in a school setting and found out that there are more similarities in personality characteristics of male and female instructors than he found differences. The differences that were identified were that female instructors were more reserved, introverted, serious, and self-directed than the males. Jordan (1989) surveyed participants enrolled in Colorado Outward Bound School courses about their perceptions of outdoor leaders. The participants noted that they preferred having a male leader. Male respondents were more stereotypical about their perceptions of male and female leaders while female respondents focused more on the competence of the leader and less on the leader’s gender. Field testing of gender differences in the perception of outdoor education leaders was conducted by Neill and Richards (1996). They evaluated a database of 3664 instructor evaluations collected over a 10 year period on management programs. The instructor evaluations are summarized using the following eight scales: a) Course Organization, b) Course Value, c) Course Effect on Personal Development, d) Instructor as an Educational Exemplar, e)Instructor/Participant Rapport, f) Instructor Abilities and Skills, g) Group Cooperation and Productivity and h) Group Relationships. The findings indicate that pre-course preferences for male leaders reported by Jordan (1996) were not evident at the end of Outward Bound programs. The differences between participant’s evaluations of male and female instructors were insiginificant. The tendency was for higher ratings for female instructors in the areas of Course Value and Instructor/Participant Rapport. This finding is in contrast to the findings of Jordan (1996) but is consistent with Powell and Butterfield’s (1982) review of research on gender and leader evaluations which observed that female leaders are not evaluated or perceived differently from male leaders when engaging in the same behavior, differences in ratings of male and female leaders tend to diminish as raters learn more about the leaders and that female raters evaluated leaders more highly than male raters. 3.0 Methods to be used 3.1 Outline of the theoretical study The background to the theoretical study would examine the concept of outdoor education and how women’s education in this field has developed. Particular emphasis would be paid to determining the degree of participation of women educators over the years that will be determined by examination of available literature. The points to be substantiated here would be whether the role of women educators and female student education has actually developed. If so, then how? If the answer is yes, there is a need to conduct an investigation on the factors why this is the case and if the answer is no, there is still the need to determine why it has not. This investigation would be entirely based on available literature. 3.2 Methods to be used The research would undergo the following process: 1. Examination of the concept of outdoor education and the state of the female experience with the system. This process would entail a review and discussion of the characteristics of education. The main topics to be discussed involve the disparity in gender experience with education and improvements if there are any. 2. Primary and secondary data collection relating to information on the role of gender on outdoor education experiences The sources will include peer-reviewed journals, magazines, other scholarly materials and information from web sources. Efforts will be made so that the research uses mainly peer-reviewed journals as other materials may tend to be biased and therefore unsuitable for scientific inquiry. On the whole, literature will be examined and analyzed regardless of their country of origin but classified according to the year published. 3.3 Provisional outline of dissertation Chapter 1 Introduction Background to study area Problem statement Objective of study Chapter 2 Methodology Approach to study Delimitation to study Data collection Chapter 3 Literature Review Definition and exploration of the concept of education. Discussion of feminist perspectives on education Chapter 4 Case Study, Data Collection and Findings Collection of data pertaining to the outdoor education and classification of whether it involves women or not. Determination of usable information regarding gender references Chapter 5 Analysis Establishing level of correlation between relevant literature and data collected/findings Matching findings of previous research Chapter 6 Conclusion and Recommendations Making judgments on the state of development of outdoor education with regards to gender concepts assimilation. Advice on what appropriate steps must be taken to improve outdoor education so that it will be more gender friendly. Chapter 7 References Compilation of relevant work consulted for the literature review 3.4 Provisional Schedule for Project Completion Chapter one can be completed within a span of three weeks. The first week would be to develop the background to the study area and the second week would be to identify the problems, deduce a problem statement. The third week would be to read previous work and other publications to define the general and specific objectives of the research paper. Chapter two can be completed in two weeks, and would be as follows: the first week would be to device the methods to be used in the research; whether exploratory or explanatory. The second week would be to map out the methods of data collection; both primary and secondary. And then the drawing up of a questionnaire would be made with respect to the sources from which data would be collected. Chapter three would be the most important chapter as it forms the foundation of the research argument. This would take about four weeks as it would entail a detail study of the concepts related to education, feminism and women’s education. Chapter four would take about three weeks and would involve collecting data through interviews, questionnaires, as well as through available primary and secondary sources. Chapter five would take about three weeks. This would to analyse the findings made in chapter four, in a bid to link theory to practical. The last chapter would take two weeks to draw relevant conclusions for the paper. Initial List of References Angelou, M. (1996). The quilt of women’s voices. In K. Warren (Ed.) Women’s voices in experiential education (pp. 1-5). Dubuque, IA: Kendhall/Hunt. Ball, D. (1986). The outdoors and gender. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership, 3(2), 28-29. Burrus-Bammel, L., & Bammel, G. (1986). Gender test differences during an environmental camp [CD-ROM]. Journal of Environmental Education, 17(3), 8-11. Abstract from: SilverPlatter File: ERIC Item: EJ344420. Dawes, S. (1984, May). Women and girls in outdoor education. 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Outdoor education in Australia in relation to the Norman conquest, a Greek olive grove and the external perspective of a horse’s mouth. Paper presented to the 5th National Outdoor Education Conference, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Sveen, R. (1995). Adolescent participants in a wilderness-based challenge. Master’s thesis, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia. Swim, J.K. (1994). Perceived versus meta-analytic effect sizes: An assessment of the accuracy of gender stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66(1), 21-36. Van Gelder, J., Richards, G.E., & Neill, J.T. (1993). Changes in trait anxiety on an Outward Bound Standard Course. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia: Outward Bound Australia. Warner, R. (1996). Statistical report and analysis - June 1996 staff selection. Unpublished report. Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia: Outward Bound Australia. Young, A.B., & Ewert, A. (1992, January). Fear in outdoor education: The influence of gender and program [CD-ROM]. In Henderson, K. (Ed.) Coalition for Education in the Outdoors. Research Symposium Proceedings, Bradford Woods, IN. Abstract from: SilverPlatter File: ERIC Item: ED252231. Read More