Hybridizing Outdoor Adventure Education and Cooperative Learning in physical education. Students and teachers’ views

ABSTRACT

The goal of the study was to assess the effects of two instructional frameworks (Cooperative Learning/Outdoor Adventure Education hybridization and Direct Instruction) on students’ motivation and disruptive behaviours and explore students and teachers’ views on hybridization. The participants were 170 high school students randomly distributed into an Experimental (hybridization) and a Comparison Group, and their two teachers. A quasi-experimental study and a mixed quantitative-qualitative approach were followed. Those who experienced the hybridization showed significantly higher intrinsic motivation and lower disruptive behaviours. The analysis of teachers and students’ responses produced four positive themes (enjoyment, autonomy, novelty, motivation), one negative (workload), and other mixing different feelings (uncertainty, relatedness, learning). Orienteering lessons were found capable of impacting positively on students. All students felt fully integrated into the class, promoting both models (Adventure Education and Cooperative Learning) and the content implemented (Orienteering) a shift in social hierarchies and equality among boys and girls.

KEYWORDS:

• Disruptive behaviours
• experiential education
• motivation
• pedagogical models

Acknowledgments

This study is part of the project “Innovating in Physical Activities in the Natural Environment through pedagogical models: Adventure Education and Cooperative Learning,” funded by the Regional Ministry of Education of Andalusia, Spain (PIV-006/19). The third author is hired through a contract of Requalification “Margarita Salas” funded by the University of Castilla-La Mancha (MS2021).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2022.2087194

Notes

1. Puzzle (Jigsaw; Aronson, 1978): A cooperative learning technique where each group member is responsible for learning a piece of content and become the group’s expert in that piece; next, the experts get together to learn; and finally, each expert returns to his or her initial group to teach the rest of group.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejería de Educación y Deportes of Andalucía [PIV-006/19]; and theUniversidad de Castilla-La Mancha through a Requalification ”Margarita Salas” contract [MS2021].

Notes on contributors

Javier Lamoneda

Javier Lamoneda Prieto. Physical Education teacher at Junta de Andalucía, Spain. Doctor in sports science with research in educational intervention with young people. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9833-4804

Sixto González-Víllora

Sixto González-Víllora. Associate Professor at Faculty of Education (Albacete) and Academic Director of the Vice-Rector’s Office for Science Policy at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain. His research focuses on models-based practice, teacher learning/research and youth sport (focus on decision-making). http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2473-5223

Carlos Evangelio

Carlos Evangelio. Doctor in Physical Education, currently at the Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Valencia. He is hired through a contract of Requalification ‘Margarita Salas’ funded by the University of Castilla-La Mancha (MS2021). His lines of research focuses on models-based practices. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5461-2588.

Javier Fernandez-Rio

Javier Fernandez-Rio. Professor at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education and area director for Sport and Health at the University of Oviedo, Spain. His lines of research include pedagogical models. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1368-3723