Effects of Integrating Psychological Empowerment Into an Outdoor Adventure Education Curriculum for College Students
Author: Ru-Syuan Hsiao (Department of Civic Education and Leadership, National Taiwan Normal University), Chung-Chi Wu (Department of Civic Education and Leadership, National Taiwan Normal University)
Vol.&No.：Vol. 69, No. 4
Date：December 2024
Pages：63-101
DOI：https://doi.org/10.6209/JORIES.202412_69(4).0003
Abstract：
Background
The university stage of education is a crucial period of stable and mature physical and mental growth that influences students’ career development. During this stage, students gain autonomy with respect to personal emotion management, living conditions, education, learning, and career planning. In university, students start to think independently, take responsibility for their actions, maintain and expand interpersonal relationships, and participate in public affairs, and therefore, this is a crucial phase of development in terms of cultivating independence and responsibility. For university students to develop self-control, decision-making skills, and responsibility for their learning, they must be provided with an experiential learning environment in which teachers can focus on the learner and empower them to engage in inquiry and reflection. Outdoor adventure education (OAE) is a form of experiential learning designed to promote positive individual and team development by enhancing an individual’s sense of control, encouraging active participation, and encouraging decision-making, all of which are core aspects of empowerment.
Literature Review
Shellman (2009), Welsh et al. (2020), Down et al. (2023), and Bryce et al. (2023) have demonstrated that OAE programs enhance and sustain the sense of empowerment among participants of such programs and increase their sense of community. Shellman (2009) employed an unequal pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design, recruiting 86 participants (aged 14-30 years) to complete a 10-30 day outreach training program in the summer of 2007 and 69 junior psychology students from Indiana University to form a control group. Data were collected and analyzed using a qualitative mixed-methods approach with a modified version of Spreitzer’s (1995) Psychological Empowerment Scale to determine differences in psychological empowerment after participation in Outward Bound training programs. For this scale, generalized and task-specific assessments are used to measure an individual’s overall feelings about life and generalized beliefs about empowerment. Initially developed for workplace settings, this scale has yet to be tested in the context of OAE. Notably, the findings of the aforementioned study support Zimmerman’s (1995) view that developing a universal measure of psychological empowerment is not feasible because the definition of “empowerment” varies across fields. Thus, OAE programs should align with a definition of psychological empowerment specific to their learning context.
A reliable and valid scale for undergraduate students is required to measure the influence of OAE programs on undergraduate students’ psychological empowerment. Studies on OAE programs related to empowerment have primarily examined programs operated by the National Outdoor Leadership School and Outward Bound, which typically span 10 to 94 days (Shellman, 2009; Sibthorp et al., 2007; Sibthorp et al., 2008). However, in Taiwan, few institutions offer programs with such extended durations and sufficient participants for research. Nonetheless, scholars have identified the following key elements for designing semester-long, credit-bearing courses in a higher education context: student ownership, skill development, participant responsibility, group support, guided reflection, and a sense of accomplishment. These elements can be used to empirically assess the effects of OAE on college students’ psychological empowerment.
Methods
The present study, guided by principles of psychological empowerment, designed an OAE program for higher education. The program ran from September to December 2022, with team cycling as the main activity. The program comprised the following components: course norms and selection, theoretical knowledge and design, grouping, experience sharing by seniors, feedback review, six group training sessions, a 60-km midterm cycling test, bicycle maintenance training, risk management meetings, a final 3-day challenge, reflections, and personal insights. On the basis of literature findings, this study designed a program with a focus on creating an environment that fosters participation and support, promotes challenge and competence, nurtures autonomy and responsibility, and facilitates transformation and the development of a sense of meaning. A nonequivalent control group quasi-experimental design was employed, and a mixed-methods model was used to measure the effects and sustained outcomes of psychological empowerment among 75 college students (50 in the experimental group and 25 in the control group). The present study developed a 38-item scale adapted for college students by incorporating the Learner Empowerment Scale, which was developed by Frymier et al. (1996) and assesses the dimensions of impact, competence, and meaningfulness, and the “self-determination” dimension of Spreitzer’s (1995) Psychological Empowerment Scale. After expert validity testing and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted, 20 items were retained for assessing four dimensions: impact, competence, meaningfulness, and self-determination. The data were analyzed using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance and one-way analysis of covariance. Semi-structured interviews, the questions of which were validated by experts and based on Shellman’s (2009) outline, were conducted to evaluate the program’s intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral effects on the participants’ psychological empowerment, specifically the intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral dimensions. Interviews, reflections, and team training journals were analyzed for formative evaluation and to assess the effectiveness of the program. To validate the effects of this experimental program on the psychological empowerment of university students, Miller and Crabtree’s (1992) Quasi-Statistical Analysis was employed to categorize and rank the collected qualitative data and identify changes in the participants’ psychological empowerment. To address the continuity of psychological empowerment effects among the participants of this experimental program, Miller and Crabtree’s (1992) Template Analysis Style was applied.
Results
Quantitative analysis revealed that the experimental group’s scores for psychological empowerment and its dimensions (impact, competence, meaningfulness, and self-determination) were significantly higher at posttest than at pretest. Compared with the control group, the experimental group obtained significantly higher scores on the overall psychological empowerment scale and the dimensions of impact and meaningfulness after pretest scores were controlled for. A qualitative analysis based on a quasi-statistical approach was conducted to categorize interview responses on the basis of group exercises, reflections, and interview content. Template analysis was employed to explore themes such as the cross-domain application of empowerment, learning transfer, and concept extension, with the findings complementing the quantitative findings. The results indicated that the participants in the experimental group exhibited sustained psychological empowerment, self-control, positive interpersonal relationships, and improved learning paradigms at posttest.
Discussion and Suggestions
The OAE experimental program effectively increased the participants’ psychological empowerment with sustainable results. In contrast to previous studies, the present study discovered that a sense of accomplishment functions as a form of positive psychological feedback resulting from psychological empowerment instead of as a moderating effect. This suggests that a sense of accomplishment is not a prerequisite for empowerment. Although the quantitative results of this study were significant, further improvements in experimental design and participant selection can be made in future research to address the limitations of the present study. These limitations include its small effect sizes and insufficient statistical power. In addition, this study’s limitations related to the sample size could be addressed in future quasi-experimental studies. The results of the qualitative analysis of the present study indicated that several variables influenced the participants’ perception and performance with respect to psychological empowerment, including the influence of teachers and the physical and psychological pressures experienced during the program. An unexpected and noteworthy finding was the recurrent mention of gratitude and thankfulness, with 30 statements by the interviewees expressing these sentiments. This suggests that gratitude and thankfulness are linked to psychological empowerment and should be explored in future studies.
Keywords：
non-equivalent control group quasi-experimental research, psychological empowerment, outdoor adventure education program, mixed-methods research design