ASSESSMENT IN OUTDOOR EDUCATION by ANNIE CASSON A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Master of Education Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada June, 2009 Copyright © Annie Casson, 2009 ABSTRACT This thesis reports on a qualitative study of the assessment practices in an outdoor education program at an independent school in Ontario. This thesis focuses on the experiences of students with assessment inthe outdoor education context, including the range of assessment practices experienced by the students, the students’ perceptions of assessment, and the impacts of assessment on the students’ experiences in the outdoor education program. This study was conducted from October to December of 2008. Using a case study research design, data werecollected through observations of class activities, interviews with teachers and students, and assessment documents and student journals. The study found that a wide range of assessment practices were used by the teachers in the study, with an emphasis on student-centered assessment practices such as self assessment, peer assessment, group debriefing, and authentic assessment. These assessment practices fostered a culture of assessment that students perceived to be fair and supportive of their learning. The findings of the study indicate that these types of assessments helped to create a community of learners within the classroom, encouraged the development of self-confidence among students, and promoted transfer of learning. The conclusions of the study suggest that the student-centered assessment practices used in this outdoor education program can provide a model for teachers aiming to develop a positive culture of assessment in their classrooms. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the contributions of many other people, and I would like to acknowledge the ways in which others have helped me throughout this process. I would like to thank Riverview College School for allowing me the opportunity to visit the school and observe the outdoor education program. In particular, I would like to thank Mark and Jack, the two teachers who participated in this study, for opening their classrooms to me, and the students who participated, for speaking so honestly with me about their experiences in outdoor education and their views on assessment. My thesis supervisor, Dr. Lynda Colgan, has been a source of guidance and support to me from the beginning of this thesis. She has taught me so much about the research process, assessment, education, and writing, and I have been lucky to learn from her. My thesis committee member, Dr. Azza Sharkawy, has helped me to better understand my research and analysis through her thought-provoking questions. I am especially grateful to her for her guidance in preparing and submitting my ethics application. Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, especially Adam, for all of their support (both direct and indirect) over the past two years. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................iii TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................iv LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................vi LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................1 Context of the Study...........................................................................................................1 Rationale.............................................................................................................................3 Purpose of the Study...........................................................................................................5 Key Terms...........................................................................................................................6 Overview of the Thesis.......................................................................................................7 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK....9 Introduction.........................................................................................................................9 Traditional Assessment.......................................................................................................9 Alternative Assessment.....................................................................................................11 Cognitive view of learning........................................................................................11 Authentic assessment................................................................................................12 Assessment for learning............................................................................................13 Impact of Assessment on Students...................................................................................15 Assessment in Outdoor Education....................................................................................19 Theoretical Framework.....................................................................................................25 Summary...........................................................................................................................28 CHAPTER THREE: METHOD.......................................................................................29 Introduction.......................................................................................................................29 Rationale for Qualitative Approach..................................................................................29 Case Study Research Strategy..........................................................................................30 Data Collection.................................................................................................................31 Case Selection...........................................................................................................31 Participant Selection.................................................................................................36 Data Collection Methods..................................................................................................40 Observations.............................................................................................................40 Interviews..................................................................................................................42 Document Collection................................................................................................43 Data Analysis....................................................................................................................44 CHAPTER FOUR: PRESENTATION OF THE DATA..................................................47 Introduction.......................................................................................................................47 Intended and Enacted Assessment Practices....................................................................47 Goals of outdoor education......................................................................................48 Quizzes......................................................................................................................50 Self assessment..........................................................................................................51 Peer assessment........................................................................................................52 Authentic assessment................................................................................................53 Debriefing.................................................................................................................55 Critical Reflection.....................................................................................................57 iv Testing and Examinations.........................................................................................58 Experienced AssessmentPractices...................................................................................59 Awareness of assessment practices...........................................................................59 Goals of assessment..................................................................................................62 Assessment preferences.............................................................................................63 Impact of Assessment Practices........................................................................................70 Feelings about self....................................................................................................71 Group dynamics........................................................................................................74 Transfer of learning..................................................................................................79 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION.....................................................................................83 Introduction.......................................................................................................................83 Assessment Culture...........................................................................................................83 Diversity of assessment tools....................................................................................84 Student-centered assessment.....................................................................................87 Students’ Experiences with Assessment...........................................................................91 Self assessment..........................................................................................................91 Peer assessment........................................................................................................93 Authentic assessment................................................................................................94 Impacts of Assessment on Students..................................................................................96 Community of learners..............................................................................................97 Self-confidence and self-efficacy.............................................................................100 Transfer of learning................................................................................................104 CHAPTER SIX: IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS..........................................107 Introduction.....................................................................................................................107 What is the range of assessment practices experienced by students?....................107 Which types of assessments do students identify as meaningful and why?.............108 In what ways does assessment impact the overall OE experience?........................109 Implications of the Study................................................................................................110 Implications for practice.........................................................................................110 Implications for research........................................................................................113 Significance....................................................................................................................114 Limitations......................................................................................................................116 Conclusions.....................................................................................................................117 REFERENCES...............................................................................................................118 APPENDIX A: RECRUITMENT LETTER..................................................................124 APPENDIX B: LETTER OF INFORMATION (TEACHERS).....................................125 APPENDIX C: LETTER OF INFORMATION (PARENTS)........................................127 APPENDIX D: LETTER OF INFORMATION (STUDENTS).....................................129 APPENDIX E: CONSENT FORM (TEACHERS)........................................................131 APPENDIX F: CONSENT FORM (STUDENTS).........................................................132 APPENDIX G: GRADE 9 STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS............................134 APPENDIX H: SENIOR STUDENT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS...............................135 APPENDIX I: TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS...............................................136 APPENDIX J: SELF ASSESSMENT RUBRIC – GRADE 9........................................137 APPENDIX K: THREE YEAR OE SKILLS AND ACTIVITIES PLAN.....................138 APPENDIX L: GENERAL RESEARCH ETHICS BOARD APPROVAL..................139 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Types of assessment.............................................................................................7 Table 2: Field log of observations and interviews............................................................41 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Taxonomy of Affective Learning. Adapted from Krathwohl et al. (1964).......26 vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Context of the Study Lessons from the land are not so much about the journey itself, although that is where real education begins, but about reflecting, revisiting, and rediscovering patterns by gradually sifting and sorting the experience. Such is the case with all meaningful learning. (Raffan, 2001, pp. 104-105) James Raffan, in his reflections on wilderness, describes how learning in the outdoors is not only a product of the experience itself, but of the reflection and introspection that occurs afterwards. His description resonates with me, because what I have learned through my outdoor experiences has profoundly affected me as a person, even though the meanings of my experiences were not always clear at the time. My journey in outdoor education began on canoe trips in provincial parks with my family. My memories of these trips are vague and fuzzy, and I think that most have been blocked from my mind. Of those moments I do recall, many are of arguing with my siblings, struggling through muddy portages with the promise of s’mores1 as a bribe, and endless hours of half-heartedly singing show tunes to pass the time paddling. In retrospect, I am able to admire my parents for the enthusiasm and determination that must have been required to equip five young children for the outdoors and keep them entertained and relatively happy throughout rain, mosquitoes and the other challenges associated with the Canadian wilderness. While I may not have liked those trips at the time, they nonetheless played an integral part in my relationship with the outdoors. Canoe tripping was something that one did, every year, without fail. It was simply a part of life, as inevitable as the beginning of the school year or the arrival of a birthday. 1Roasted marshmallows and chocolate squeezed between two graham crackers –a classic campfire treat. 1 As I grew up, those trips withmy family were replaced by experiences at YMCA summer camps, first as a camper and later as a counselor. Just as trips with my family shaped my understanding of the outdoors, so too did working at a summer camp. The outdoors became a place where I couldlearn more about myself, and challenge myself to be a better person. It also presented a unique opportunity to interact with other people in a closed environment that necessitated cooperation. My experience at summer camp was the catalyst for my research into the environmental concerns associated with residential camping for my undergraduate thesis at McMaster University. This topic allowed me to travel to different residential camps and speak to counselors about their experiences in camping and how those experiences impacted their understanding of nature and the outdoors. By examining outdoor experiences through a new lens, I found myself looking beyond my own personal experience to try to understand how diverse and significant the impacts were for others. After graduating from university I took what, for many camp counselors, has become the next logical step: I enrolled in a Bachelor of Education program. The suite of courses I completed at Lakehead University introduced me to new geography, new people, and new ideas about outdoor education. My new teaching degree opened the door to a job with a particular school board program that offered school credits to students for participation in canoe trips. My experiences in the outdoors have been diverse, but there has been a common thread running throughout of personal challenge and discovery. This has been both internally motivated and externally imposed, through my own personal drive as well as the expectations of the programs in which I have participated. One of the reasons that I have continued to pursue outdoor education is the degree to which I have felt successful 2 in my endeavours in the past. Facing a challenge and overcoming it, whether physical, emotional or interpersonal, provides me with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. I derive much of my self-efficacy from my experiences in the outdoors. As I began to investigate outdoor education from an academic perspective as a part of my Masters in Education program, I began to question how I arrived at this sense of self-efficacy. What was it about my outdoor experiences that left me feeling proud of myself? This question in turn made me reflect on the students I have taught over the years in outdoor education, and question how my actions and practices might have impacted their sense of self. Working in a credit-based program through the school board, I was introduced to the extent to which assessment is integrated into the practice of outdoor education. Through my academic courses and personal reading, I began to realize that many ‘seamless’ practices of assessment that are commonplace in outdoor education contexts reflect the current trends in assessment research and are strongly supported by empirical literature on assessment. It became important to me to investigate this idea further, by examining how assessment practices are integrated into outdoor education programs, and how they impact the students who participate in outdoor education programs. Rationale One of the gaps in outdoor education (OE) literature is the lack of research on OE within the school system. Much of the research is focused on summer programs, such as Outward Bound or the National Outdoor Leadership School, or on teaching environmental science or geography through an outdoor context. Outdoor education in the Ontario public school system is usually incorporated into an integrated course that provides the opportunity for students to receive three or four high school credits in 3 different domains (i.e. geography, physical education, environmental science) for a semester long program, or as an adapted physical education credit. The difference between these manifestations of outdoor education and the Outward Bound experience, for example, is the assignment of a final grade upon completion of the program. This means that different types of assessment methods must be used, since teachers must concomitantly base their courses on curriculum requirements as well as outdoor principles, resulting in a different, more formal assessment framework than is typically used in outdoor recreation. In these school-based courses students are formally assessed not only on practical skills, but also on affective objectives such as cooperation. When students are being assessed on affective objectives, such as cooperation, initiative, personal growth, and leadership, it is especially important to be aware of the impact of assessment. Research on assessment has shown that assessment techniques, grading, and feedback have the potential to impact not only the students’learning processes, but their affective responsesas well, as seen through motivation and self-concept (Brookhart, Walsh, & Zientarski, 2006; Harlen & Deakin Crick, 2003). Research on outdoor education shows that outdoor experiences also impact the affective domain (Hattie, Marsh, Neill, & Richards, 1997). A unique situation arises then, when we combine formal assessment and outdoor education. Both have the potential to impact students’ affective experiences in very different ways. It is worth exploring this situation in order to learn more about how assessment in outdoor education impacts the affective domain of students. There are potential implications for both fields of research, as well as for outdoor education practice. 4