Wynn Shooter

The Roles of Heuristics, Avalanche Forecast, and Risk Propensity in the Decision Making of Backcountry Skiers

Backcountry winter recreation accidents and deaths due to avalanches have grown considerably in recent decades. To better understand how individuals make decisions in avalanche terrain, this study examined the decision-making factors identified by McCammon (2004) that are said to be complicit in avalanche accidents. This study also explored risk-taking propensity and avalanche forecast variables in decision making. Results indicate that five decision-making factors, risk-taking propensity, and avalanche forecast variables influence the decision to ski a slope. Implications for how individuals make decisions in risky leisure pursuits are discussed and implications for outdoor recreation, and avalanche education are considered.

Fostering Trust in Outdoor Leaders: The Role of Personal Attributes

This study examined trust development between participants of outdoor education programs and outdoor leaders. Participants were college students enrolled in outdoor education courses. Using a factorial survey design, the technical ability, interpersonal ability, benevolence, integrity, and gender of an outdoor leader was displayed randomly in a series of scenarios. Along with these leader attributes, the scenarios included two hypothetical situations that occur in outdoor education settings. Participants also completed a measure of dispositional optimism. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling, which revealed that displays of a leaders technical ability, interpersonal ability, benevolence, and integrity each influenced trust scores positively. Implications for future research and for outdoor leadership practice are discussed.

Trust Development in Outdoor Leadership.

Establishing trusting relationships between leaders and participants is one way that outdoor leaders can create an emotionally safe and productive milieu that supports the attainment of desirable outcomes. Multidisciplinary literature offers considerable insight into leader trust development and the outcomes that are linked to trust in a leader. This paper considers the contributions of that literature and offers findings from two studies that examined how outdoor leaders might gain the trust of participants. The results of these two studies suggest that participants develop trust in outdoor leaders in response to displays of both leader ability and character.

The Importance of Trust in Outdoor Education: Exploring the Relationship Between Trust in Outdoor Leaders and Developmental Outcomes

Abstract: Recent studies have acknowledged the influence of the leader in the outdoor education process and have illuminated the need for strong interpersonal relationships between participants and leaders. Developing interpersonal trust is one among many ways that leaders can promote such positive interpersonal relationships between themselves and participants. Transdisciplinary literature suggests that trust in a leader can predict outcomes that are important to outdoor education. This study found a positive relationship between trust in outdoor leaders and the course outcomes of leadership development and outdoor skills development among students of National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) courses. Implications for program implementation and theory development are discussed.

The Effect of Decision-Making Factors, Risk-Taking Propensity, and Environmental Conditions on Decision Making in Hazardous Outdoor Terrain

D espite the popularity of avalanche education courses, snow avalanches kill or injure hundreds of winter backcountry users each year (Tremper, 2001). From 1998 to 2008, there have been 308 avalanche-related fatalities in the United States and 129 in Canada (American Avalanche Association, n.d.). Experts claim that accidents are often a combination of both environmental factors and human factors (Fredston, Fesler, & Tremper, 1994). Investigation of variables present during decision-making in hazardous outdoor terrain may inform experiential educational programs designed to teach students about these factors and ultimately, increase safety in the outdoors.

Environmental factors affecting the predicted decisions of backcountry skiers: An examination of the obvious clues method decision aid.

Snow avalanches present a dangerous and potentially fatal hazard to wintertime backcountry enthusiasts, and individuals who participate in wintertime mountain recreation often expose themselves to avalanche hazards. In the winter of 2009-10, 36 people were killed by avalanches in the United States, and from 1999/10 to 2009/10, there were 316 avalanche-related fatalities--97% of which were recreationists. (Colorado Avalanche Information Center, n.d.). The discipline of avalanche science has countered the rising accident and fatality rate with both research and education. Recent empirical work has focused on developing appropriate models of decision-making (McCammon & Haegeli, 2007), refining snowpack analysis tests to better inform backcountry skiers (Lehning et al., 2002), developing better rescue techniques (Genswein & Eide, 2008), and developing new technologies designed to reduce the chance of injury or deaths (Radwin & Grissom, 2002).

Through Adventure Education: Using a Socio-ecological Model in Adventure Education to Address Environmental Problems

This chapter considers the relationship between adventure education and the socio-ecological model. A first look at the socio-ecological model might leave one wondering how adventure education fits within it. Given that the model is historically about promoting health behaviours by focusing on the interactions of people with both their physical environments and socio-cultural settings in their everyday lives, adventure education may seem at odds with socio-ecological thinking. After all, the nature of multi-day adventure education programs is to take participants out of their everyday environments, or what might be called their everyday social ecology. This chapter however, highlights the connections by suggesting there are three primary reasons why adventure education programs fit well within the socio-ecological model. First, both adventure education and socio-ecological models regard positive behaviour change as a desired outcome. Second, adventure education and socio-ecological models both offer insights to address environmental problems. Third, both models highlight our social and environmental interrelatedness. Adventure education provides a unique opportunity to step away from the complexities and distractions of day-to-day life and learn directly about both human and ecological interrelationships. Adventure education can be an effective way to teach systems thinking and the socio-ecological model provides a useful framework to do so.