Abstract
Objective:
Mental health problems are a leading cause of health-related disability during adolescence. The objectives of the current study were to investigate whether participating in an adventure education programme (AEP) increased adolescents’ resilience and elucidate how social connectedness contributes to any increase.
Method:
Adolescents who participated in the AEP had their resilience measured on the first (Time 1) and last day (Time 2) of a 10-day voyage. Perceived social support and sense of belonging were also measured at Time 2. A control group of adolescents, who did not take part in the voyage, also had their resilience assessed at two time points, 10 days apart.
Result:
Adolescents who participated in the AEP, but not those in the control group, displayed an increase in resilience from Time 1 to Time 2. Further, the increase in resilience was related to the adolescents’ sense of belonging, and this effect held when controlling for perceived social support.
Conclusion:
These findings demonstrate the positive impact AEPs have on adolescents’ resilience and a mechanism through which this occurs.
Keywords
Mental disorders affect 10–20% of children and adolescents worldwide, and most adult mental disorders are extensions of mental disorders that arose during development. 1 Given this, it is not surprising that a range of targeted (i.e. interventions for at-risk populations) and universal interventions have been developed to improve psychological resilience in adolescent populations.2,3 Psychological resilience can be defined as ‘…the role of mental processes and behavior in promoting personal assets and protecting an individual from the potential negative effect of stressors’ (p. 16). 4 With the aim of improving psychological resilience, Adventure Education Programmes (AEPs) have been used in both targeted 5 and universal forms,6,7 generally finding that AEPs have a positive impact on adolescent resilience. Beyond the physical challenges AEPs contain, there is little discussion of the pathways through which these increases in resilience occur. The Social Identity Approach to Health 8 provides a range of theoretical pathways through which AEPs may increase resilience. Derived from Social Identity Theory, 9 the Social Identity Approach to Health holds that groups provide us with a sense of meaning and belonging, and that these identity processes have a significant positive impact on our health and wellbeing. 8 In the current study, we investigate the extent to which an individual’s sense of belonging (i.e. acceptance by the in group) contributes to the increases in resilience that generally follow AEPs.5-7
Method
A 10-day developmental voyage upon the Spirit of New Zealand
The Spirit of New Zealand is a barquentine that sails the coastal waters of New Zealand. The 10-day developmental voyage involves between 30 and 40 adolescents 15–19 years of age. The voyage is organised so that none of the participants know each other prior to participating. A critical component of the voyage is to assign participants to a Watch Group on the first day of the voyage. Each Watch Group consists of approximately five males and five females. The primary aim of the Watch Groups is to make the voyage less daunting and to ensure that everyone belongs to a group. Watch Groups move to different parts of the vessel on each day of the voyage and complete a number of tasks that can only be completed by working together. Also, each day a different person acts as the Watch Group leader, leading the group through each of the day’s tasks and a group discussion that occurs at the end of each day.
Participants
In total, 180 adolescents (102 females) participated in the current study; 90 (mean age = 16.67) completed the 10-day voyage on the Spirit of New Zealand and 90 (mean age = 16.42) were local high school students that acted as a control group. The 30–40 participants on each voyage were all drawn from different high schools and, therefore, did not know one another prior to participating. The current study consists of data from three separate voyages. All methods and procedures were reviewed and approved by the University of Otago Human Ethics Committee.
Design
Voyage participants were assessed on the first day (Time 1) and the last day (day 10; Time 2) of the voyage by the on-board crew. Control group participants were assessed by an experimenter who visited their school at the start of term and again 10 days later. The timing of the questionnaires was not matched between the experimental (i.e. voyage) and control conditions.
Measures
Resilience was assessed using a shortened version of Wagnild and Young’s 10 Resilience Scale (RS). This 15-item scale was adapted by Neill and Dias 7 to measure changes in resilience brought about by AEPs (e.g. ‘When I am in a difficult situation, I can usually find my way out of it’, Cronbach’s α = .87). Social support was measured using four items developed by Neill and Dias 7 to assess social support during AEPs (e.g. ‘How supportive have you found the other members of the Watch’, Cronbach’s α = .72). Belonging was measured using Sheldon and Bettencourt’s 11 3-item group inclusion scale (e.g. ‘I feel included by the other members of my Watch’, Cronbach’s α = .85). Responses to the former scales (RS and social support) were scored on 7-point Likert scales (1 = disagree strongly to 7 = agree strongly). Responses to the latter scale (belonging) were scored on 5-point Likert scales (1 = disagree strongly to 5 = agree strongly).
Results
Preliminary analysis showed no main or interaction effects for age or gender and, therefore, these factors were not included in any further analyses. For RS scores, we conducted a 2 (Group: Voyage vs. Control) × 2 (Time of measurement: Time 1 vs. Time 2) mixed-model analysis of variance (ANOVA). There was a significant main effect of Time, F(1, 178) = 49.43, p < .001, η2 = .22, that was qualified by a significant Group by Time interaction, F(2, 178) = 51.10, p < .001, η2 = .22. Post hoc planned comparisons revealed the significant interaction was due to voyage participants, t(89) = 8.40, p < .0005, η2 = .44, but not control participants, t(89) = .11, p = .91, reporting higher levels of resilience at the end (T2), relative to the start (T1), of the voyage (Figure 1).
Resilience scores for voyage and control participants at Time 1 and Time 2. Error bars represent ±1 standard error of the mean.
To investigate whether social support and belonging, both assessed at Time 2, contributed to the increases in resilience reported by the voyage participants, we conducted a standard multiple regression. Resilience at Time 2 was entered as the dependent variable. Resilience at Time 1, social support and group belonging were entered as predictor variables. The overall model was significant, R2 = .44, F(2, 87) = 22.38, p < .001. Inspection of beta weights revealed that only resilience at Time 1, β = +.60, p < .001, and group belonging, β = +.21, p < .02, but not social support β = +.08, p = .34, made a unique contribution to resilience at Time 2.
Discussion
The current study demonstrates that the adversity and challenges inherent in AEPs are not the sole mechanism through which these programmes promote resilience. Further, the study provides empirical support for the widely held view that challenging circumstances and social connectedness are key ingredients in outdoor programmes,12,13 and adds to a growing body of literature demonstrating that, across a range of contexts, acceptance by others is an important predictor of resilience.14,15 Critically, the relationship between resilience and belonging held when controlling for social support. In fact, social support did not uniquely contribute to increases in resilience at all. This latter finding adds to the mixed evidence regarding social support and its relation to health and wellbeing. 16 As Jetten et al. 16 note, findings such as this underscore the fact that ‘just bringing people together is not a recipe for success in enhancing health and wellbeing’ (p. 108) and that identity processes must be a focus in any programme that aims to have a positive impact on these outcomes.
Limitations of the current study include the fact that the participants on the voyage and those in the control group were not assessed at the same point in the school year. In addition, the current study consists solely of quantitative data. Indeed, although all the constructs under study were measured using standard scales, future work should include a qualitative component in order to provide more depth regarding participants’ conceptions of social support and belonging. Finally, it is important to note that the beneficial effect AEPs have on resilience, and the pathway through which this occurs, is just one of the many positive outcomes (e.g. increases in self-efficacy 17 and self-esteem18,19) and pathways at play during AEPs. To conclude, while much of the adolescent literature focuses on the negative impacts of peers and social groups on adolescent behaviour,20-25 the current work demonstrates that they may also be the key to enhancing health and wellbeing in adolescents.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thank you to the Spirit of Adventure Trust, and the crew on board the boat, for making this research possible. We would also like to that the adolescents that participated.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.