Effective Integration of Experiential Processing in Adventure Education: An Investigation into Effective Processing to Enhance Transfer of Knowledge

This thesis explored the current use of facilitator and educator processing skills in adventure education and experiential education programs and in the traditional school classroom. A nonestablished, mixed methods survey was piloted that inquired about facilitator demographics as well as the use of various teaching and experiential processing techniques was completed by 23 traditional secondary education teachers and 14 college students who majored in either traditional education or adventure education. The results indicated that both classroom teachers and adventure education facilitators believe processing is important for the transfer of knowledge. Many of the same techniques that are currently being used in the adventure education field are being used in traditional classrooms. The results showed that facilitators favor techniques where the facilitator plays a large role in reflection. Facilitators believe that processing is important and are familiar with many techniques. However, they use a limited number of techniques, perhaps indicating that more experiential training is needed. Additionally, many of the classroom teachers are unfamiliar with the vocabulary or jargon used in the adventure education field.;Keywords: adventure education, experiential education, transfer, processing, self-efficacy.