Dimensions Underlying an Outdoor Leadership Curriculum

Authors

  • Dene Berman Wright State University
  • Jennifer Davis-Berman University of Dayton

Keywords:

outdoor education, leadership, multidimensional scaling, wilderness curriculum

Abstract

The dimensions underlying an outdoor education curriculum were investigated.

The Wilderness Education Association (WEA) curriculum

contains 1 overarching point (judgment) and 18 other items. Twenty

four instructors rated the extent of similarity between pairs of curriculum

points, resulting in 171 ratings for each instructor. These

paired ratings were subjected to multidimensional scaling, a statistical

technique aimed at uncovering underlying dimensions of subjective

judgments of similarity. The resulting analysis yielded five dimensions

with stress (goodness of fit) = .147 and RSQ (correlation

squared) = .58. Graphical presentations of these dimensions are

shown. The results indicate dimensions of time, travel, risk, reactivity,

and a deliberation/intuition dimension. The authors suggested that

a reorganization and simplification of the curriculum was in order.

Implications of this reorganization were presented.

Issue

Section

Regular Papers