Background/Purpose: Outdoor education encourages positive psychological development, mental toughness, team spirit, group cohesion and leadership qualities. However, little is known about the impact of outdoor education on the qualities of future teachers among the Malaysian population. Purpose: To examines the impact of outdoor education on group cohesion of trainee teachers.
Method: Sixty-three trainee teachers were divided into experimental (n=32) and control (n=31) groups. Both groups were subjected to a four days/three nights outdoor education program. In addition, the experimental group engaged in a set of team building activities (intervention). The 18 items (9-point scale) Group Environment Questionnaire (Carron, Widmeyer & Brawley, 1985) with 4 sub-scales (Individual Attraction to the Group-Task, Individual Attraction to the Group-Social, Group Integration-Task and Group Integration-Social) was used to measure for team cohesion. A pre-test and post-test control group design was adopted to measure the impact of outdoor education on cohesiveness over time.
Analysis/Results: Both experiment and control groups were tested before and after the program. The results of pre-test showed no significant difference (t = -1.520, p > .05) for team cohesion between both groups. However, post-test indicated a significant difference (t = -7.930, p < .05) between the team cohesion mean scores of control group (M=127.03, SD=16.449) and experimental group (M=151.97, SD=6.093). Further analyses showed significant differences between the control and experimental group for all the sub-domains with experimental group showing higher mean scores.
Conclusions: Outdoor education enhances positive character building and team building activities further improved team cohesion.