Motivations of school-aged adolescent Singaporeans to Participate in Outdoor Adventure Experiences
The aim of this research is to study 800 (14 to 18 years old) school-aged Singaporean adolescent and find out the main motivational factors that influence participation in outdoor adventure experiences. This study also seeks to find if there are any similarities with other published articles, journals, reports internationally.
Outdoor education contributes to students’ physical, personal and social education (Ofsted,2004). Camping experience and lessons in the outdoors offer some of the most valuable experiences for participants to acquire values and skills through hands-on experience in authentic situations and an environment closely resembling the real world. (Ministry of education, 2005). It is then important to find out the motivation behind participating in it since there are so much that one can gain from participating in outdoor education.
As more and more young people are involved in structured outdoor education programmes, the reasons to participate are no longer confined to those who are intrinsically motivated towards outdoor activities (Deci & Ryan, 1985). There may be other external motives to participate in an outdoor education programme, such as to avoid punishment or to gain rewards. These could be classified as extrinsic motivations. (Boniface, 2000). It is important to understand the different motivations of the participants in order to provide positive experiences for them during the course.
The main reasons as to why I chose this topic would be because of the increasing number of adventure centres being opened and the increasing rate of participation in adventure experiences. As an adolescent myself, I feel that the motivational factors varies according to type of adventure program, atmosphere of adventure program and difficulty level of adventure program. It would be interesting to see if the main motivational themes for school-aged adolescent Singaporeans differ from other global studies that have been done. This could probably prove that
Outdoor education contributes to students’ physical, personal and social education (Ofsted,2004). Camping experience and lessons in the outdoors offer some of the most valuable experiences for participants to acquire values and skills through hands-on experience in authentic situations and an environment closely resembling the real world. (Ministry of education, 2005). It is then important to find out the motivation behind participating in it since there are so much that one can gain from participating in outdoor education.
As more and more young people are involved in structured outdoor education programmes, the reasons to participate are no longer confined to those who are intrinsically motivated towards outdoor activities (Deci & Ryan, 1985). There may be other external motives to participate in an outdoor education programme, such as to avoid punishment or to gain rewards. These could be classified as extrinsic motivations. (Boniface, 2000). It is important to understand the different motivations of the participants in order to provide positive experiences for them during the course.
The main reasons as to why I chose this topic would be because of the increasing number of adventure centres being opened and the increasing rate of participation in adventure experiences. As an adolescent myself, I feel that the motivational factors varies according to type of adventure program, atmosphere of adventure program and difficulty level of adventure program. It would be interesting to see if the main motivational themes for school-aged adolescent Singaporeans differ from other global studies that have been done. This could probably prove that