The Productive Success and Productive Failure Beliefs and Practices of Outdoor Educators

This study investigated the success and failure beliefs, instructional practices, and personal learning preferences of outdoor adventure education (OAE) instructors, and explored factors that influenced these beliefs, practices, and preferences. While statistical analysis did not show significant d...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Riley, Michael Jason
Other Authors: Marx, Ronald
Language:en_US
Published: The University of Arizona. 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10150/612814
http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/612814
Description
Summary:This study investigated the success and failure beliefs, instructional practices, and personal learning preferences of outdoor adventure education (OAE) instructors, and explored factors that influenced these beliefs, practices, and preferences. While statistical analysis did not show significant differences among the various demographic categories on success beliefs, instructional practices, or personal learning preferences, there were significant differences in the magnitude of reported failure beliefs. Results from this study showed that OAE instructors' age, their professional experience, their employer, and the activities they teach affect their failure beliefs. Furthermore, OAE instructors indicated that success instructional techniques, like implementing scaffolding, should be used at the onset of a course or when a new skill is being introduced, while failure techniques should be employed as students gain experience or as a perception check to assess competence. The implications of these findings for OAE instructors is discussed.