The Effect of Outdoor Education on Students’ Cohesiveness and

Communication

Adli Hakama, Amung Ma’mun, Kardjono Kardjono and Ryan Abu Bakar

Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jln. Dr. Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung, Indonesia

hakamaadli@gmail.com

Keywords: outdoor education, cohesiveness, communication.

Abstract: The aim of this study was to find out the effect of outdoor education (OE) on students’ cohesiveness and

communication. To this end, an experimental study was carried out involving 80 students. 40 of them were

assigned to the experimental group, and the other 40 to the control group. The obtained data were analyzed

using a one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that OE significantly influenced students’ cohesiveness and

communication. It was concluded that students who received OE actively participated in the interaction with

their peers.

1 INTRODUCTION

Students’ behavior do not solely change without any

reasons (English, 1995). The change was not only

caused by internal factors from within oneself but

also from external factor or the environment that

affects the change in the students (Schellens, van

Keer, Valcke, and de Wever, 2007). The change must

be performed in periodic and organized training form

so that the change process can be actually seen and in

accordance with the expected aims (Hodge, 2014).

One of the development stages faced by an individual

is puberty. The principles in the social skills training,

an individual is deemed as a person that already

knows or has a skill incomprehensively. In the

‘learning for adults’ technique, there are some

principles that support the changes in behavior. The

active involvement in the learning experience can be

a foundation to an optimal learning transfer and not

only as a passive receiver of information (Park,

2003). The last but not least principles in the training

is that learning process is indeed an experience which

is started from the students who train and it happens

inside the students’ selves, hence the students are not

taught, but given motivations to look for new

knowledge, skills and behavior by digging up

resources within themselves (Ohrt, Robinson, and

Hagedorn 2013). The skill values including

cohesiveness, communication and teamwork. The

skills to praise, complain because of disagreement of

things, reject others’ requests, exchange experiences,

fight for their personal rights, give advices to others,

conflicts or problems solving, correspond or work

together with people from of opposite sex,

communicate with older people or people from higher

positions, and several other behaviors related with the

skills that are not owned by the clients (Keyton,

1994).

Teenager’s social needs urged the cohesiveness.

This urgency allowed the occurrence of a continuous

interaction between group members so that there

would be attraction to work together, thus

cohesiveness in the group would appear (Rogat and

Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2011). Cohesiveness is also

affected by the amount of time spent together by the

group members (Slater and Sewell, 1994) (Jacob and

Carron, 1998). The presence of cohesiveness in the

class allowed the consequences that will be received

by the members of the group, such as participating in

group meetings, being more prepared in tasks and

proactive in obeying the norms of the group (Nibler

and Harris, 2003). There are several other conditions

that usually arise as a result of the group with high

cohesiveness, it is the increasing will of the members

to participate in every group activity (Bergart and

Clements, 2015). The high cohesiveness level is not

always positive, it can also lead to the negativity

(Taylor, Doria, and Tyler, 1983). The communication

in life became one of the bridges to lead us to various

necessity, therefore, communication is an important

part of the life. Also in the daily life, we tend to spend

time to communicate other than other activities and it

can be confirmed that we communicate in every

Hakama, A., Ma’mun, A., Kardjono, K. and Bakar, R.

The Effect of Outdoor Education on Students’ Cohesiveness and Communication.

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education (ICSSHPE 2017) - Volume 2, pages 79-82

ISBN: 978-989-758-317-9

single aspect of life (Durant and Shepherd, 2009).

Through communication, one can understand his

fellow and find out information about the surrounding

so that he can take measures and decisions as the

response of the given information (Scollo and

Carbaugh, 2013). The interpersonal communication

is the most effective form of communication in

changing behavior, opinions, perceptions and attitude

compared to other forms of communication

(Wahlström, 2010). The interpersonal

communication occurs between two or more people

with a face to face conversation along with the media

and the presence of direct and conscious feedback. In

interpersonal communication, the deep and detail

communication may take place since the

communication is dialogical and the communicants

can talk about private matters. The level and context

of the interpersonal communication represent the

smallest human interaction unit before entering

various levels, namely: group communication,

organization communication, public communication,

and mass communication (Powers, 1995).

The phenomenon of students’ inability in

interpersonal communication needs to get special

attention from all of the teachers in school. One of the

development that needs to be achieved by the students

at school is the personal-social development,

particularly the interpersonal communication skill

development. The difficulty faced by the students are

generally caused by the students who still lack of

communication skill particularly in communicating

with other people in school environment. Therefore,

it caused the students hard to adapt directly, failed to

be assertive and expressed their feelings. Considering

the issues happened recently where there were lots of

juvenile delinquency issues which happened because

the students are all in the same teen age that need the

fulfillment of social needs and recognition from their

peers. Thus the presence of the negative cohesiveness

caused by the lack of communication between the

students that lead to the unwanted events (da

Conceição-Heldt and Meunier, 2014), this can be

minimized by consulting the result of the previous

research conducted toward the function of

communication and cohesiveness and how to realize

it in groups (Zaccaro, 1991). This issue cannot be left

since it affects the achievements and social

interaction of the students.

Learning activity in the nature, hill, mountain, and

forest can be an unlimited adventure and learning

place where the outdoor class has lots of potential to

improve the cognitive and physical aspects of the

students (Storli and Hagen, 2010) (Humberstone and

Stan, 2012) (Waite, Bølling, and Bentsen, 2016)

(Davies and Hamilton, 2016). There are three related

formulas in the learning performed in the nature,

namely, adventure/challenge aspect, outdoor aspect

and education aspect (Martin and Ho, 2009),

(Karppinen, 2012). The adventure in the nature along

with camping education experience provide lots of

different challenges and difficulties. The students are

required to adapt with the nature (Zimmermann and

Saura, 2017), for example when they walk along the

river, hike the hill, make the tent, and do challenge

activities or other adventures. Therefore the

interaction communication will be made and the

teamwork from the group member will be built. The

benefits of the Outdoor Education is very big mainly

in shaping the character and social values (Kelk,

1994) (Stewart, Harada, Fujimoto, and Nagazumi,

1996) (Potter, Socha, and O’Connell, 2012) (Ooko,

Muthomi, and Odhiambo, 2015) (Atencio, Tan, Ho,

and Ching, 2015). By giving the typical contribution

through sharing experience with other people, the

experience found is very educative (Taniguchi,

Freeman, and Richards, 2005), meaning that the

experience give a deep impression and beyond the

experience that merely a transaction of a person and

the environment (Stewart et al., 1996) (Rea and

Waite, 2009). The challenging surrounding allows

people to get around the self-belief, behavior and life

values as well as study with the peers (Priest, 1986).

Working together in a small group is a collective

effort. Just as science or art based on field studies or

challenging adventures and utilized the individuals

for the comprehensive group’s growth. These

activities are chosen and designed to achieve the

objectivity in general means (Purdie, Neill, and

Richards, 2002) (Ho, 2013), particularly aimed to the

behavior and social relations development. This

consists of initiation, leadership, communication,

decision making, teamwork, creativity, risk facing,

and trust (Marinho, Santos, Manfroi, Figueiredo, and

Brasil, 2017).

Consequently, a program that can give the chance

and experience for the students to develop their

cohesiveness and communication is needed. Through

a good and appropriate learning method, it is expected

that the students can improve their cohesiveness and

communication skills. The method used in this

research prioritized the outdoor activity education.

The chosen outdoor education activity is the River

camp. This activity is performed outside the class or

in the nature by camping on the riverside. The

education through nature will make the students

happy since they not only can enjoy the view, inhale

fresh air, be grateful the beauty of nature, but also

they will not get bored easily (Denham and Brown,

ICSSHPE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sports Science, Health and Physical Education

2010). The above explanation will help the kids or

youth to learn from experiences so that it is expected

to be able to improve their cohesiveness and

communication skills.

2 METHODS

2.1 Design and Participants

The researchers used quasi experiment with 80

students of Putra Siliwangi Lembang Junior High

School (40 experiment groups and 40 control groups).

2.1.1 Measure

The instruments used in this method is the

questionnaire that had been developed by the

researchers, the cohesiveness questionnaire put

forward by Forsyth in the book entitled Group

Dynamic Fifth Edition (2010: page 118) and the

communication questionnaire put forward by Peter

Hartley in the book entitled Interpersonal

Communication Second Edition (1999: page 53).

2.2 Procedure

 Determining the population, Putra Siliwangi

Lembang Junior High School.

 Determining the samples of 40 people by using

simple random sampling technique.

 Questionnaire trials performed to 40 students

sample at another junior high school (1

Katapang Public Junior High School).

 Performing the research by distributing the

questionnaire of cohesiveness and

communication before going to the camp as the

initial data and ended by distributing the

questionnaire after the camping as the final data.

 Data processing, analysing and concluding

based on the data processing and analysis.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The analysis was performed at a significance level α

= 0,05. Based on the data analysis and processing, the

cohesiveness result is f = 45,57 and sig = 0,000,

whereas the communication result is f = 29,23 and sig

= 0,000.

Table 1: Statistic descriptive analysis.

Mean ± SD

Cohesiveness n = 40

5,58 ± 7,291

Communication n =

6,58 ± 8,336

The result of this research shows that the outdoor

education program gave a positive impacts to the

social values (cohesiveness and communication) of

the students. The count result of the data analysis

performed is as follows:

The result of the data analysis performed whether

as data description analysis and data frequency

analysis as well as hypothetical statistic test analysis

showed a significant result of outdoor education

toward the students’ cohesiveness. The result was

also supported by several theories which stated that

outdoor education was an education that uses outdoor

learning experience for one’s development,

Rickinson 2004 stated that “The intended outcomes

of outdoor learning, meanwhile, can include:

behaviours such as group interactions or personal

coping strategies” which means that the result given

by outdoor education includes behaviour such as

group interaction or self-handling strategies. Further

Ibid stated that “Outdoor Adventure Activity (OAA)

provided many opportunities for them to build their

confidence, skills and abilities in both cooperative

and competitive situations” which means that the

OAA gives lots of chances for them to build

confidence, soft skills and ability in cooperative and

competitive situations. Furthermore in the research by

Farnham and Mutrie (1997), the study of a four-day

residential outdoor education programme for 19

young people (13–17 years) they found evidence of

(i) a decrease in tension and anxiety, and loud and

aggressive behaviour within the group; and (ii) an

improvement in overall group cohesion, such as

willingness to participate in extra-curricular activities

and group discussions”. It can be defined that the

outdoor education program for teenagers can improve

the students’ cohesiveness.

The result of the data analysis performed whether

as data description analysis and data frequency

analysis as well as hypothetical statistic test analysis

showed a significant result of outdoor education

toward the students’ communication. The result was

also supported by the theory of Rickinson (2004)

which stated that outdoor adventure programmes can

impact positively on the teenagers’ attitudes, beliefs

and self-perceptions – examples of outcomes include

independence, confidence, self-esteem, locus of

control, self-efficacy, personal effectiveness and

coping strategies, interpersonal and social skills –

The Effect of Outdoor Education on Students’ Cohesiveness and Communication

such as social effectiveness, communication skills,

group cohesion and teamwork.

The above mentioned statement means that the

outdoor education programmes affect the teenagers

positively, particularly in the social values,

communication. Further, Hattie et al (1997) clearly

stated that “in our meta-analysis, across all

interpersonal dimensions, there are marked increases

as a consequence of the adventure programs […] It

certainly appears that adventure programs affect the

social skills of participants in desirable ways,” which

means outdoor education can improve all

interpersonal communication dimension.

Furthermore, in a one month period, the writer

took the post-test data in order to find out whether

after a one month intervention of outdoor education

and river camp learning experience through the

experiential method showed an applied impact on the

students’ cohesiveness and communication. The

average cohesiveness data result achieved was 138,07

compared to the average pre-test data which was

133,6, while the average data for communication was

133,38 compared to the average pre-test data which

was 124,78. This showed that the intervention of

outdoor education with the river camp learning

experience was still applied even though the average

results was lower than the initial post-test after the

treatment. Considering this result, it can be concluded

that the outdoor education program through the

experiential learning method in improving or

developing the students’ social values (cohesiveness

and communication) is very important.

4 CONCLUSIONS

In accordance with the data processing and analysis,

it can be concluded that the Outdoor Education (OE)

or the education in the nature gave such big impact to

the students in gaining experience and reflecting it in

their routines and was relatively applied for one

month, this is very important since the OE can give a

significant change toward the social values

particularly the cohesiveness and communication.

Through OE, the students will actively participate in

interacting with other students so that it will lead to

positive outcomes and minimize the juvenile

delinquency that often occur. Therefore, the OE is

suggested to be applied as one of the learning

materials related with physical education at schools.

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