The Effects of THREE-Day Adventure-Based Camping Programmes on the PERCEPTIONS of Primary

THE EFFECTS OF THREE-DAY ADVENTURE-BASED CAMPING PROGRAMMES ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF PRIMARY FIVE SINGAPOREAN PUPILS’ LIFE EFFECTIVENESS

Susanna Ho Choon Mei

National Institute of Education

A dissertation submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Education

2003 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to express my appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor, Assistant

Professor, Mr Harry Tan, who not only gave me invaluable advice and guidance, but also offered me the encouragement when they were most needed. I would also like to thank my friends, especially Jessie Cheang, Lee Kok Sonk and Chua Bee

Leng for their insights and statistical advice, and Karen Teo, Gan Lee Ling, Low

Geok Pin and Chan Jim Kee for their constant encouragement and support during this journey.

Special mention should also be given to James Neill, the originator and developer of the Life Effectiveness Questionnaire, who has so kindly consented to let me use the LEQ and even provided the much needed guidance during the preparation of this dissertation.

I wish to also thank the Principals and the staff of the participating schools for the help rendered, as well as the students for taking part in the study. DECLARATION

This Academic Exercise represents my own work except where otherwise indicated or acknowledged. No part of this Academic Exercise has been or is being concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any other university.

Signed ……………………………….. CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………... ii DECLARATION……...…………………………………………………… iii CONTENTS………………………………………………………………... iv LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………. vii ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………... viii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………... ix

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION…………………………………………….. 1 Operational Definitions.………………………………………. 4 School-based Outdoor Education………..……………………. 4 Adventure Programmes in Singapore schools……………….... 5 MOE Adventure Centres……………………………………… 7 Researcher Background ……………………………………… 7 Rationale for the Study…………………………………….…. 8 Significance of the Study….………………………….………. 9 Delimitations……………………………………………….…. 12 Definitions of Terms………………………………………….. 12

TWO REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE.………………….... 15 Outdoor Education….…………………………………………. 15 Adventure-Based Programmes……………....……….……….. 17  Outcomes of programme 18  Length of programme 20  Age of participants 21  Processing 22 Life Effectiveness……………………………………………... 23  Dimensions of Life Effectiveness 25  Research using the LEQ 31 Summary…...………………………………………………….. 36

THREE METHODOLOGY………………………………………….… 37 Sample of School Camping Participants.….………………….. 38 Instrumentation.……………………………………………….. 38 Procedure……………………………………………………… 39 Research Questions………………………………….………… 41 Assumptions made……………………………….………….… 41 Limitations of the study……………………………………….. 41

FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION………………….…………… 43 Analysis of results………………………………….………….. 44  Comparisons with other programmes 45  The Life Effectiveness Dimensions 47  Use of Control Group 48 Data Analysis…………………...…………………………….. 49 Summary………………………………………………………. 52

FIVE CONCLUSION………………………………………….……... 53 Implications………………………………………….………… 54 Limitations ……………………………………………………. 55 Recommendations………………………………………….….. 56 Conclusions………………………………………….……….... 58

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………... 62 APPENDIX A Typical three-day adventure-based programme for primary 5 pupils.. 72 B Life-Effectiveness Questionnaire-H (LEQ-H)………………………. 73 C LEQ-H items in the Subscales………………………………………. 75 D Administering LEQ-H to programme participants….……………….. 76 E Briefing Staff on How to Administer the LEQ…….………………... 78 F School Consent………………………………………………………. 79 G Parental Consent……………………………………………………... 80 LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1 LEQ Database Participant and Programme Profile ………….……… 32 2 LEQ Database Dimension Effect Size……………………….………. 33 3 LEQ Factor Loadings (FL), Uniqueness, Co-efficient Omega (), 35 Goodness of fit Indices (TLI & RNI), and Sample Size (N)…………

4 8-point Likert-type scale response ………………………….…... 39 5 Research Design……………………………………………………... 40 6 Comparison of the Internal Consistencies for the 8-factor, 24-item model between this study and the study by Neill, Marsh, & Richards (2003)………………………………………………………………… 43 7 LEQ-H results for the Experimental group (N=189)………………... 45 8 Homogeneity test between the Experimental and Control Groups 50 (N=345)……………………………………………………………….

9 Post-tests Mean Scores of participants (N=345)…………………….. 51 ABBREVIATIONS

The following abbreviations are commonly used in this study:

1. CCAB Co-Curricular Activities Branch

2. ECAC Extra-Curricular Activities Centre

3. MOE Ministry of Education 4. LEQ Life Effectiveness Questionnaire 5. ES Effect Sizes 6. CRC Challenge Ropes Course

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine changes in primary five

Singaporean pupils’ life effectiveness based on a typical three-day adventure- based residential outdoor education programme organized by schools. Life effectiveness is a measure of how competent a person perceives himself or herself to be in a variety of areas necessary for success in life (Neill, Marsh & Richards,

2003). Comparison was made between pupils’ life effectiveness prior to the three- day adventure-based programme and their life effectiveness after their participation. In addition, a control group was introduced into the research design to control for any baseline differences in their perceptions based on the LEQ-H.

The participants of this study were 345 primary five students from four primary schools. The majority of the participants did not have similar experiences prior to the three-day adventure-based camping programmes provided for by the schools. 189 (M=75, F=114) of these students, with an average age of 10.6 yrs, participated in a three-day adventure-based school camping programme. The other

156 (M=89, F=67) students with an average age of 10.7 yrs participated in this study as the control group.

The Effect Size (ES) of this study (.21) was found to be similar with the size of changes reported in the findings of previous meta-analytic studies that reported an average ES of .21 (228 effect sizes, Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards,

1997) for outdoor education programmes with school students. Neill (1999) also found that the smallest ESs for school OBA programmes (.26) which was consistent with findings for school-age participants experiencing smaller changes than adults in the Hattie et al., (1997) meta-analysis. However, the inclusion of a control group in this study provided additional insights to the literature of research in LEQ. It was found in this study that there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups of participants in terms of overall LEQ scores. Indeed, the findings of this study have great implications on the claims of previous studies in LEQ did not employ the use of control groups. This study therefore questions the use of LEQ-H as a reliable instrument for measuring the outcomes of education programmes.

The key question of whether the typical three-day adventure-based camping programmes that most Singapore schools organise for their primary five pupils were indeed effective conduits towards enhancing the perceptions of life effectiveness of their pupils remained inconclusive. Implications of the findings in the context of Singapore schools were further discussed and specific areas of future research were recommended in this study. The author advocates the use of control groups in future LEQ studies and to conduct more research into this area so as to develop concurrent valid evidence.