Research and Development is an important part of Outward Bound Australia's work. Over its fifty year history, Outward Bound has contributed widely to developments in the outdoor education and personal development fields. This section of our site provides a portal into some of our past research activities and current projects. Partnering with researchers and education institutions is integral to our approach. If you are interested in partnering with Outward Bound Australia to conduct research, please contact us.
In 2008, Outward Bound Australia launched a new Research and Evaluation project that sought to measure the impact of Outward Bound programs on the communities represented by our participants. The National Aspiring Leaders Summit was selected as the program through which to develop new evaluation tools and trial the methodology. This program and associated research is funded by the Westpac Foundation. The evaluation trials will be conducted over three years from 2008 to 2010.
Evaluation of long-term program impacts
Outward Bound engaged heavily in research throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. Work conducted by James Neill and Garry Richards, especially the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire, has become one of the leading evaluation tools for the outdoor industry both in Australia and throughout the world. This tool has been effective in measuring the impact of a program on student self-perception from the beginning to the end of the program.
Outward Bound Australia has more recently turned its attention to understanding the long-term impact of the Outward Bound experience on individuals and communities over time. We began with a literature review exploring elements of citizen engagement in community. We became interested in five dimensions that we believed our programs could have an impact: human capital, self-efficacy, motivation, community participation, and community support.
Human Capital - Cognitive skills, knowledge, training and other personal skills and resources of people in the community.
Self-efficacy - Individual’s belief that they can succeed at something they want to do.
Motivation - Incentive for taking action.
Perceived level of support - Individual’s perceptions of the level of support provided by the community for projects.
Community Participation - Citizen involvement in the community.
The National Aspiring Leaders Summit
Outward Bound began to deliver its Aspiring Leaders program in 2002 with positive responses from the communities we engaged with. In 2007, we scaled this program to a national level bringing twenty-eight young Australians from around the country to our National Centre in Tharwa, ACT. Over the past two years we have implemented this program design with positive feedback from our participants. We piloted this new evaluation methodology for the first time in 2008. The evaluation included both surveys allowing us to draw quantitative data, and phone interviews to gather feedback from the participants and their supporters.
The results of the pilot recommended a variety of things for us to consider including how we can improve the program, the evaluation methodology and the kinds of supports that we can provide the young people on their return to their community. The evaluation process will be run again throughout 2009 and 2010.
At this stage of the pilot, it is difficult to draw any strong quantitative conclusions about the impact of the program on participant communities. The Community Action Projects varied in scale and came under one of four main banners:
Environmental and conservation projects
Health and well-being project
Youth empowerment and community participation projects
Global or cultural projects
The most popular area was creating projects associated with mental health. Some were conducted individually, while other participants formed teams to conduct larger projects. Some were very local (i.e. school or church-based) while others were more global in their outlook. Interviews were conducted with 23 of the 28 participants, six-months into their project completion. At this time, 19 (82%) were still working on their original projects. Three participants had identified alternative projects to work on when they returned home. Five had identified a second project that they were working on in addition to their original project.
One of the most remarkable aspects is how the participants have maintained their motivation and commitment to their project, despite not having regular ongoing contact with their fellow participants. I recently received a call from one participant who one-year on is still working on his project – to organise a concert raising awareness of violence against young people in his community. Tim is now 18 years old and lives in a regional city which is over 1000 kilometers away from his nearest peer. Tim has so far managed to gain the support of his City Council, a local youth organisation, a local funder and a major Australian band. When I asked when he expected to complete the overall project, he quoted April 2010, two years beyond the completion of the Summit. Tim has also gone onto study Social Work, which he was inspired to do through participating in the Summit.
Future research and evaluation on Community Impact
Outward Bound Australia will conduct this same evaluation over three years between 2008 and 2010. In early 2011 we plan to examine the results of this evaluation
Evaluation Tools
Click here to download the Planning and Evaluation Tools that we used.
The marketing, the stories, the instructors and the theories all give the impression that Outward Bound works. From one small idea in the 1940's there are now over 40 schools and thousands of people doing Outward Bound programs around the world every day. This remarkable growth of an 'alternative', non-for-profit approach to education and training is testimony to the success of Outward Bound programs.
For many people this sort of evidence speaks for itself......the renewed sparkle in someone's eyes, the excitement when people realise that their potential is more than they'd previously dreamt, the close sense of community experienced by people who were once strangers......and so the list goes on.
For many people, what can be seen, heard, felt, and the stories that are told, is what Outward Bound is really about.For other people more tangible evidence is necessary.
The Life Effectiveness Questionnaire was developed by James Neill and Garry Richards of Outward Bound Australia in the 1980's. Since that time, it has become one of the leading tools to measure growth and outcomes in outdoor adventure education programs. Outward Bound Australia uses LEQ to measure the growth in student self-perceptions on its programs. A number of versions of this tool exist and are adapted to specific client groups.
Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts (SMSA) is a member-based association that was founded in 1833 for the intellectual improvement of its members and the cultivation of literature, science and art. It is the oldest school of Arts in Australia and is a Centre for Social Change that aims to make a difference through learning.
SMSA has provided ongoing support to Outward Bound Australia through the donation of our Sydney office, providing scholarship positions for our Navigator courses and sponsoring our Sydney Information Night in May 2008.
