The nature experience is important for the growth of children. However, the opportunities of children’s nature experience are decreasing today because of a lack of various programs and right outdoor educator. To resolve these issues, providing valuable outdoor educators’ training is important, although there are few studies about outdoor educators in Japan and the influence of outdoor educators’ intervention on participants has not been clarified. In order to consider more effective educators’ learning contents, it is necessary to understand actually how the involvement of the educators influences the growth of the children.
Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to explore the influence of educators’ intervention in outdoor activity programs on children’s growth. Our study included interviews for 12 educators of the Buddy Kids Adventure Challenge Program BKACP. The data obtained through semi struc tured interviews was analyzed using Modified Grounded Theory Approach M GTA. The analysis resulted in the generation of 69 concepts and 31 categories demonstrated. This analysis revealed the influence of outdoor educators’ intervention on participants.
The overall process was confirmed that outdoor educators’ intervention made the participants rely on one’s own feeling, which promoted self growth of participants who had deep experiences. In conclusion, the intervention of skilled outdoor educators who know rules of nature guarantees the children’s independence in a highly flexible program, and furthermore, it is thought that positive emotions known as flow on overcoming adversity promote self growth. It would be attractive for outdoor educators to use flow theory as a learning tool. Experiential activity in Japan was promoted to cultivate a zest for living among the youth, as specified in “About the Way of Education of Japan in 21 Century, First Edition” Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan, 1996 . According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Education, there is a positive relationship between nature experience and the formation of self during childhood.
Because of this, it is important to create social systems that promote nature experiential activities for the youth. However, today’s youth seldom has the opportunity for nature experiences National Institution for Youth Education, 2006, 2010, 2011 . At the Enhancement of Outdoor education for Young People meet Research and Collaborators Meeting and Report on Promotion of Outdoor Education for Young People, 1996 , it was pointed out that “The existence of educators is essential for outdoor education. Also, https://shadepundit.com/best-shade-sail-for-patio/ is needless to say that the quality and quantity of educators influence the success of outdoor educational programs”. According to the report titled “Towards the development of autonomous youth who will be responsible for the next generation” Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan, 2013 , “educational resources such as appropriate educators and activity program are not sufficient”, and “it is necessary to supply high quality experience and skillful educators for youth”.
This means that there is a lack of resources like appropriate leaders, educators, and activity programs, which lead to a lack of essential leadership and high quality experiences for the youth. According to Hijikata 2008, 2013 , there are few studies regarding outdoor educators, even though the teachings and values behind nature experiences of veteran educators are important. Noguchi and Murayama 1995 pointed out that the importance of educators lies not only in their teaching various skills, but also in their handing down of their own ideas and spirit. However, these studies have not focused on the effects of the educators’ influence on the youth. Therefore, the research question of the present study is “What is the best way to provide guidance in terms of the type of educators and program offered?” The aim of this study is to clarify how outdoor educators in the BKACP influence the self growth of children, by using the M GTA.
According to Endo et al. 2015 , the distinctive features of BKACP are activities that are “long term”, “cover a lot of activity types”, and are held in “real nature”. This program nurtures self respect and morality, and facilitates deeply emotional experiences, which are important for a child’s growth. Since outdoor educators are the drivers of these experiences and influence them, it is appropriate to consider them the subjects of this present research. the educators’ influence on the participants”, and the objects of analysis are “the educators”.
Concepts were created in the analysis worksheet, which compared the “analysis theme” to “the educators”. After considering the relationship among the generated concepts, categories were created to summarize their relationship in the analysis results. This analysis was carried out by three researchers; the first researcher made the analysis worksheet title, explain, data example, consideration and in case of the contents which are complicated to analyze, discussed with the second researcher, while the third researcher supervised. Sixty nine concepts and thirty one categories were created by repeatedly encoding and sorting 137 interview transcripts. Note that in this manuscript, brackets i. e.
, indicate categories, while underlined words indicate concepts. Figure 1 shows the effects of outdoor educators’ intervention on the self growth of the participants. There is a stream from to . Participants can owing to , and within and Profound emotional experience, the ideas of and promote . In particular, overcoming allows participants to obtain a Sense of achievement from a Successful experience related to Self confidence, which promotes .
In addition, there is also a , Sense of Achievement while overcoming adversity, and Sense of achievement after giving it your all. The former is similar to the state of mind of , which is the Fun in Concentration. The works as a motivating power to enhance the desire of or intrinsically and continually, and helps promote . The most important aspect within this process is , which contains the concepts Overcoming fear, So fun we forget the fatigue, and Scary but fun, which means participants not only overcame pain or difficulty, but also had fun. This aspect is influenced by the fact that outdoor educators consider the as to not give participants too much stress, as well as the concepts of Sense of achievement isn’t everything, Adversity is not the goal, and There are also failed experiences, which are all included in .
In addition, in order to obtain , it is necessary to have , which is a category that includes the concepts Comfort, The strength of Fellowship, Chance of growth in non in terference, and Being watched warmly. , which includes Mental toughness, Pro social behavior, Leadership, and Assessment of the situation, are . Also, the , which includes Familiarity with nature and Understanding of the Law of nature, as well as the concepts Desire for activities and Leading to quality of Life] contribute to the cultivation of body. Participants cultivate their own body in each program, which relates to the to . It was found that the respondents’ philosophy of outdoor education influences and .
What is important is the Degree of freedom in the program. Habata and Suzuki 2010 pointed out the importance of “free play”. Free play is important because during this time, it is possible for one to adjust the challenge level in which one can demonstrate their abilities. Onno 2012 states that it is important to not simply look at everything as dangerous, but to allow children to face challenges in order to play freely in nature. Onno also points out that the presence of professional lifeguards is indispensable, and the biggest factor, in the safe practice of these programs. The outdoor educators of this study were qualified and experienced; therefore, we believe that , in which appropriate risk management and Degree of freedom go together, was realized.
Power of nature means that it is possible to greatly impact the participants by feeling the energy of nature in all of one’s sensory organs. Basic camping means that the essence of living will be visible by living outdoors, with the minimum necessary tools. The reason the outdoor educators of this research can explain a way to draw concrete is because their own experiences are rich. includes the concepts of Sense of achievement is not everything, Adversity is not the goal, and There are also failed experiences. Camping and activities in nature can result in many instances of inconvenience and bad luck. Adventure education is one of the educational practices that actively utilize such hardships i.
e. , adversity. In an adventure education program, a successful experience obtained by overcoming the mental stress felt in a maladaptive state brings about improvement of self Okamura et al. , 2005; Ihara et al. , 2011; Imura, 1982 . However, it was revealed that outdoor educators in this study think that is necessary to protect participants from mental damage.
This is because they believe that the adversity that participants confront in the natural world might drive them to a very difficult situation to continue activities. For example, mental damage could be the feeling of pain, boring, fear, compulsion, etc. In recent times, many adventure education programs are being developed and practiced by bringing adventurous elements into a classroom and familiar places to avoid risk of direct experience in nature. Regarding this point, Iwanaga et al. 2007 and Konishi 2005 point out that packaged adventure education, which adopts recent experience learning methods, cannot result in the expected educational effect, because elements of adventure get diluted, since packaged adventure education programs are designed to avoid physical dangers. The outdoor educators in this study also believe that it would not be possible to experience nature dynamically through tasks that have been intentionally set by educators aiming to enhance the learning effect.
According to the National Myoko Youth Outdoor Learning Center 2006 , a program design where participants feel a sense of accomplishment on completing a program is important in adventure education. Regarding the sense of accomplishment, the outdoor educators in this study believe that if the adversity experience ends with pain only, the participants may get a sense of accomplishment as the release from pain, but they would not get more pleasure. Regarding the experience of success, the outdoor educators think that it is possible to learn a lot from experiencing failure as well as success in intentionally set tasks. The teaching methods used in experiential learning are being introduced as teaching methods for outdoor education. Although the effect of introducing experiential learning theory in outdoor educational guidance is expected, as Hayashi and Iida 2002 pointed out, consideration should be given to taking advantage of the characteristics of outdoor education experience; for example, a program that enhances sensitivity. The outdoor educators of this study avoided setting artificial issues in in order to directly experience nature as it is.
Outdoor educators in this program have been making efforts to realize direct experiences in . In addition, it was shown that the efforts influence the participants’ . In the category of , the concepts of control one’s own senses and pro active place, and the category are included. means not moving with someone else when danger is approaching, but being able to sense and respond to danger using one’s own senses and judgment. For that, it is important to control one’s own senses.
By getting more experience, will be enhanced. If becomes better, it would be possible to go deeper into nature more often. If so, the place would become pro active place and the possibilities for the participants’ experiences would be expanded further, and . According to Okamura et al. 2005 , in outdoor educational situations, it is important not only to help participants overcome difficult challenges in a short period of time, but also to make them choose and participate subjectively in the long term to improve motivation. The results of the present study suggested that and their accumulated experience urge participants to .
Self growth is the confidence one gains after overcoming difficult situations and confronting unpleasant emotions. For this, it is essential to have the motivation to accomplish and make the effort to overcome Kajita, 1998; Tanii et al. , 2001; Hayami, 2008 . From this fact, the effectiveness of the process―that Sense of achievement from a successful experience of overcoming becomes Self confidence, and is achieved―was supported. On the other hand, Sense of achievement while overcoming adversity influences Fun and Concentration; furthermore, this should be the driving force to move and .
The results of the study also suggested the possibility of promoting . Csikszentmihalyi proposed the Flow Theory as a new model of endogenous motivation in 1975, and defined “flow” as “a comprehensive sense that people perceive when fully immersed in one act entirely” Csikszentmihalyi, 1979 . It is said that the Flow has a “cushioning role against adversity” Imamura and Asakawa, 2003 . The results of the present study categorize the positive emotions of Overcoming fear, So fun we forget the fatigue, Scary but fun under the category of “Adversity”. In addition, the participants gained a Sense of achievement while overcoming adversity.
The Results also show that the psychological state at that time is . This suggests that participants experience when they are overcoming . The limitations of this research are as follows. Although we could study only a small sample in detail, it is impossible to generalize the results, because the outdoor educators’ tendencies and actions in outdoor activities cannot be generalized. In addition, this research was conducted from the viewpoint of outdoor educators, which is multi faceted, and it has not yet been comprehensively studied.
Further, the structure of the Flow Model is limited, in that, the challenge and skill levels are dependent on the actors Sako, 1998 . In order for outdoor educators to be able to effectively utilize the Flow Theory as a teaching tool, it is necessary to consider such limitations. The influence of outdoor educators on participants at BKACP was assessed to answer our research question. We discovered that skilled outdoor educators who know the rules of nature well and let participants rely on their senses and experience adversity prompt self growth among the participants. It is especially important that there is freedom within the program and that adversity is defined for the participants to get a sense of achievement on overcoming the adversity. This is known as the Flow Theory, and is what ultimately promotes self growth.
We then explored the possibility of using Flow Theory, and discovered that in order to take advantage of Flow and realize the full value and potential of the program, the intervention of outdoor educators is essential.