How are Adventure Education Program Outcomes Achieved?: A review of the literature

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the existing literature on how program outcomes are achieved. It is divided into categories of program characteristics that the literature suggests contribute to program outcomes, including: the physical environment, activities, processing, the group, instructors, and the participant. Outcomes referred to throughout the article are those generally associated with adventure education programs, such as increases in participants’ self-concepts and interpersonal skills. The reviewed literature indicates that the current understanding of how adventure education program outcomes are achieved is based largely on theory, rather than on empirical research. Further research could provide adventure educators with a better understanding of why programs work and enable them to tailor programs to increase their effectiveness. Before quantitative methods can become useful in an examination of how outcomes are achieved, it seems necessary to use qualitative methods to inductively discover all the program characteristics that are possibly affecting the outcomes experienced by participants.