Making the benefits last: transferring learning from park and recreation programs.

The concept of intentionally designing recreation programs for "benefits," or "benefits-based-programming" (BBP), is becoming more widely accepted by park and recreation professionals. This programming technique advocates a four-step approach of targeting specific programming outcomes, intentionally designing programs to impact these outcomes, assessing the program's effectiveness and publicizing the results (Allen, Stevens, Hurtes, & Harwell, 1998). In practice, many of these programs target benefits that last long after program completion. If a program's benefits are useful to participants after the program ends, then the programmers have achieved some level of learning transfer.

While formal education systems and skill-based training programs are challenged in showing that learning transfer occurs (Haskell, 2001), it is commonly acknowledged that, as with park and recreation programs, the real benefits of what participants learn often involves the retention and application of learning "outcomes" to other settings, times or contexts. For instance, if a park and recreation program purports to increase sportsmanship, it is likely that the true goal is to increase the participants' sportsmanship both in the program and in other settings (e.g., school, informal games and programs in the future). In addition to transfer across settings/contexts (school, pickup games), transfer can occur over time (same or similar program in the future), or modality (cognitive understanding or behavior). Typically, learning transfer is divided into three classes: near (specific), far (non-specific) and metaphoric (analogical).

For example, a recreation participant developing leadership skills through a youth soccer league might transfer this development to a similar situation such as a soccer game at school or a baseball league at the community recreation center. This type of learning transfer would be termed "near" transfer since the context of application is similar to where the leadership skills were developed. Alternatively, the student who might apply these same leadership skills in school or at home, might be exhibiting "far" transfer of learning, because the contexts of application are dissimilar to the original learning context. However, while the "near" and "far" designations are commonly used when discussing learning transfer, it is obvious that the application of the learned skill to con texts with differing levels of similarity is more of a continuum than an either/or proposition. The final classification of learning transfer is termed metaphoric or analogical. When this type of transfer takes place, the participant cognitively understands the learning context as parallel to the context of application. Continuing with the leadership example, the participant would be able to actively draw analogies between leadership on the soccer field and leadership in the classroom, recognizing the parallels between soccer and school. For example, he or she might say, "I have noticed that motivating my soccer team through positive and specific encouragement, which our coach encourages, is something that I have begun to use in my school setting in project groups. I believe that being the captain of the soccer team and a good group leader on school projects is really pretty similar." From this quote, it is evident that the participant is making an analogy between leadership techniques used in soccer and applicable at school.

Benefiting Others

Some examples of successful recreation programs nationwide include:

The Miamisburg Parks and Recreation Department in Ohio created a "Merry Milers" senior citizen walking program. Participants in the program demonstrated improvement in all of the objective goals of the program: physical health, cardiovascular and respiratory fitness, increased optimism and increased coping ability. They also increased their perceived competency in physical fitness (Eckhart & Allen, 1998). Outcomes such as increased health, perceived competency and increased coping ability are usually intended to provide benefits beyond the program context and time.

The Chicago Park District in Illinois developed the "Teen Outdoor Adventure Recreation Program," which targeted male Hispanic gang members ages 13-21. The participants showed significant increases in the development of life-coping skills and involvement in the program proved effective in lowering the arrest records of the participants as compared to the same period during the previous year (Allen & McGovern, 1997).

Austin Parks and Recreation in Texas initiated a Roving Leaders program in 1996. The program was designed to provide outreach to at-risk youth ages 10-18 by using a relationship-based programming strategy. One of the goals of the program was to help participants make positive choices regarding drug use and gang membership. This goal was realized by the 44-percent reduction of youth crime in one of the neighborhoods served by the roving leaders program (Witt & Baker 1999), as with the other examples, this program targeted outcomes with relevance beyond the specific recreation program and exhibited some potential evidence of successful learning transfer.

While the programs and specific behests may vary, these examples have one thing in common: transferring the learning for application and retention beyond the park and recreation program is the ultimate goal. Thus, if park and recreation professionals hope to maximize the differences that their programs make, they should work to design recreation programs tot the greatest learning transfer.

Transferring Learning

While over the years there has been all abundance of research and literature on learning transfer, there are three areas of research that seem the most applicable to park and recreation programming. These include transfer achieved through teaching skills with common underlying characteristics, transfer achieved through targeting more global or generic skill development and transfer achieved through the use of metaphor or analogy. In addition, research advocates the inclusion of several other factors in program designs that target the transfer of learning.

Much of transfer research in physical activity and education has focused on the learning of common physical movements that can be applied across contexts (e.g., Wilkinson, 2000). For example, students might be taught how to throw a baseball overhand, hut then call apply this learning to an overhand tennis stroke. Wise (1999) posits that development of one exercise technique that shares common characteristics with another exercise is one approach to increase transfer in physical education, but the utility is sometimes limited if the application of learning is transferred to a very similar context (e.g., from the bench press to the incline press).

Bandura's (1977; 1997) theory of self-efficacy also suggests that learning a skill with similar characteristics to another skill will enhance the potential for learning transfer, for example, research has shown that weightlifting training with similar characteristics to daily living skills (Wise, Ellis, & Trunnell, 2002), or exercise programs targeting a common class of outcomes, such as another physical activity can effectively be applied outside of the gym (Rejeski, Ettinger, Martin, & Morgan, 1998). Thus, if skills share common characteristics, improvement in one should lead to improvements in the other. Depending on the similarity of the training and application contexts, this approach might lead to either near or far transfer applications.

A second approach that has been shown to enhance the transfer of learning is the teaching of targeted outcomes or skills that have the ability to be applied in a variety of contexts. For example, coping skills training through sport and athletics has been shown to be applicable in other contexts like academic performance (e.g., Smith, 1099). Thus, a number of organizations looking for outcomes that are applicable beyond the recreation programs have begun to explicitly target outcomes such as resilience, perceived competence, social efficacy and social responsibility through programs (e.g., Hurtes, Allen, Stevens, & Lee, 2000). This general approach was also supported by a study conducted by Hurtes, who found that participants in an adventure recreation program reported that the most applicable learning to the home environment involved the development of generic skills (sometimes called life, skills), which can be applied in a variety of post-program contexts (Sibthorp, 2000).

A third promising approach includes using metaphors or analogies in recreation programs (Gass & Priest 1993). This approach has been widely supported by education and training research as a viable method of enhancing transfer (e.g., Bernardo, 200l; Thompson, Gentner, & Loewenstein, 2000). Doherty (1995) conducted one of the first empirical studies on this approach in a recreation setting. Sire exposed college resident advisors to three different facilitation techniques during a day of ropes course participation. The group constructing metaphors For post-program application exbibited superior learning and retention compared to groups using either traditional debriefing or unstructured reflection. Subsequent research has also supported the effectiveness of metaphors For learning and retention in recreation programs. For example, Priest and Gass (2003) found that corporate clients in a team-building program that used metaphors to address commonalities showed greater client development and retention than similar programs that used post-activity debriefing or let the clients draw connections on their own.

Boyle (1999) conducted research supporting the use of metaphor. In this study, the researcher compared the impacts of a caving experience between three groups: a group that went caving, a group that went caving and was debriefed, and a group that went caving where the caving experience was briefed and debriefed as an analogy for life experiences. For example, at the end of the experience, the participants were asked, "At some stage during the cave today you doubted your ability to successfully get through the cave, yet you pushed through these fears, learning new things about yourself What did you learn in the cave today that could hell) you break free of doubts and Fears in other areas of your life?" The group intentionally forming metaphors for life benefited most from the caving experience.

Fundamentally, these three approaches exemplify different techniques that assist the program participant in understanding the connections between what they are learning in the recreation context and the actual application, a premise that trainers consider critical to enhancing learning transfer (Olsen, 1998). For skills involving highly similar characteristics, it is often easy For participants to see the commonalities without assistance, but as the skills become less obviously similar, the recreation leader may need to offer guidance. Even when a generic skills approach is used, it is advantageous for the participants to understand where and how these skills might be applied beyond the recreation context. The use of metaphors or analogies is one technique that seems to assist participants in making these cognitive connections and understanding parallels that are less obvious.

Other research has identified some general principles that seem to apply across specific approaches or designs. First, recreation participation appears to be an authentic platform for developing skills inherently necessary for participation (Sibthorp, 2003). For example, while participants can clearly learn from recreation activities, it is often a combination of the motivation (people want to participate), and the inherent needs for active and successful participation in these activities that provide the most valuable lessons: organizing, resolving conflicts, negotiating and motivating others. Such skills are made authentic via the interest and participation (or lack of participation) in the activity. Thus, recreation programs can provide authentic platforms for practicing generic skills that have applications beyond the program.

Second, goal setting seems to enhance learning retention and application beyond the actual recreation program. Crane, Hattie, & Houghton (1997) found that participants in a sail-training program, who set more specific and attainable goals, a higher number of goals and goals that were more congruent with the program, were rated as more successful than participants who set fewer, less specific and less congruent goals. Third, mental practice, or visualization, can both allow participants to actively visualize the transfer of learning to the application context, and can also provide a means for anticipating and navigating barriers to implementing the new learning. Morin & Latham (2000) found that a training program involving mental practice and imagery was more effective six months later than programs involving only goal setting or no specific technique thought to enhance learning transfer.

A fourth area thought to enhance learning transfer involves attributing successes to stable and internal attributes rather than to unstable or external ones. For example, Ellis, Maughan-Prichett, & Ruddell (1993)found that verbal persuasion targeting internal and stable attributes was more effective at increasing the efficacy of video game play over both time and context. Praising skill or ability (e.g., "you have great reflexes") was found more effective at increasing self-efficacy than more ambiguous feedback (e.g., "that move was lucky").

Annals of Learning Transfer

Despite these assertions about ways to enhance learning transfer not all research has supported the idea that transfer can be achieved. Most models of learning transfer (e.g., Ford & Weissbein, 1997) readily acknowledge that successful transfer is a function of the individual learner the program design and the targeted context for transfer. For example, if the individual is not engaged with the content of the program, or if the targeted context (e.g., home) is not conducive to applying the new learning, then it is not likely that transfer will occur (Smith-Jentsch, Salas, & Brannick, 2001). While this is not very surprising, it again validates the need to include as much of the application context as is possible into the actual program a reason why there is continued interest in providing recreation programs to intact groups, such as families (e.g., Zabriskie, 2001). Such programs can then address both the needs of the individual learner and the targeted transfer environment (e.g., the home or flintily system).

Regardless of the specific approach, it is clear that if parks and recreation programmers hope to make a lasting difference, they should design programs to maximize learning transfer. The current research oil learning transfer indicates that this can be achieved through focusing on the common characteristics between what is being taught and where it might be used, targeting more generic and universally applicable outcomes, and by helping participants draw analogies between what they are learning and how they might apply it in the future. In addition, using recreation programs as an authentic platform for learning and including techniques such as goal setting, visualization and verbal persuasion targeting internal attribution, may help enhance the long-term benefits of recreation program participation. Last, by offering programming for intact groups (e.g., families), recreation programs can potentially attend to both the individual participant and the targeted application context (e.g., the home environment), thus, making the benefits last.

RESEARCH INTO ACTION: EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL LEARNING TRANSFER PROGRAMS

While many recreation professionals currently design programs for lasting benefits, the recent research on how learning is transferred offers some considerations for those desiring to increase the utility and durability of their programs' outcomes. Make sure participants see the connections between what they are learning in the program and how they might apply it later. This can be accomplished by following a few simple principles:

* Teach general concepts and focus on common characteristics between the skill being taught and other skills that may be useful in the future.

* Target generic skills, such as resiliency, coping skills, or social skills that can be applied in a variety of contexts.

* Use analogies when appropriate to help participants draw parallels between the recreation context and other areas for application. These analogies can either be provided by the program or created by the participants (e.g., "how is this program like ...?")

* Provide a variety of practice applications and examples so that participants can see both the similarities between what they are learning and where they might use it. These practice applications and examples also help participants to recognize "cues" for when to access their past learning.

* Teach skills in an authentic manner, letting recreational contexts serve as an authentic platform for skills such as leadership, conflict resolution, sportsmanship and social competence. Using such skills is a necessary and inherent part of participation in many recreation activities.

* Encourage participants to set goals that will remain applicable after the recreation program is completed.

* Help participants to overcome potential barriers to application of the learning in the targeted context. This can be addressed by either directly addressing the application context (e.g., family), or by using exercises where the participants visualize potential barriers to implementing learning and envision ways to overcome these.

* Focus feedback on internal and stable attributes instead of external or unstable ones. For example, praise skill or ability instead of luck.

References

Allen, L. R., & McGovern, T. D. (1997). BBM: It's working! Parks and Recreation, 32, 48-55.

Allen, L. R., Stevens, B. W., Hurtes, K. P., & Harwell, R, (1998). Benefits-Based Programming of recreation services. Ashburn, VA: National Recreation and Park Association.

Bandura, A. (1977). Self efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.

Bandura, A. (1997). Sell-efficacy, The exercise of control. New York: W. H Freeman and Company.

Bernardo, A (2001) Analogical problem construction and transfer in mathematical problem solving. Educational Psychology, 21, 137-150.

Boyle, I. (1999). Debriefing tools to enhance redaction and learning [Abstract]. In The Human Face of Outdoor Education. The 11th National Outdoor Education Conference Proceedings. Murdoch University, Perth, WA. 2730.

Crane, D., Hattie, J., & Houghton, S. (1997). Goal setting and the adventure experience. Australian Journal of Psychology, 49, 6-13.

Doherty, K. (1995). A quantitative analysis of three teaching styles. The Journal of Experiential Education, 18, 12-19.

Eckhart, A. S., & Allen, L R. (1998). Benefits-based programming: Improving the health of seniors [ Electronic version]. Parks and Recreation, 33, 21-26.

Ellis, G. D., Maughan-Pritchett, M, & Ruddell, E. (1993). Effects of attribution based verbal persuasion and imagery on self efficacy of adolescents diagnosed with major depression. Therapeutic Recreation Journal, 27, 83-97.

Ford, J. K. & Weissen, D. (1997). Transfer of training: An updated review and analysis, Performance Improvement Quarterly, 10, 22-41.

Gass, M. & Priest, S. (1993). Using metaphors and isomorphs to transfer learning in adventure education. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership, 10(4), 18-23.

Haskell, R. E. (2001). Transfer of learning: Cognition, instruction, and reasoning. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Hurtes, K. P.; Allen, L R., Stevens, B. W., & Lee, C. (2000). Benefits-based Programming: Making an impact on youth. Journal of Park and Recreation Administration, 18, 34-49.

Morin, L., & Latham, G. E (2000). The effect of mental practice and goal setting as a transfer of training intervention on supervisors' self-efficacy and communication skills: An exploratory study. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 49, 566-578.

Olson, J. H., Jr. (1998). The evaluation and enhancement of training transfer, International Journal of Training and Development, 2, 61-75.

Priest, S. & Gass, M (2003, November). Innovations in the Development of Metaphors in Experiential Learning. Presented at the meeting of the Association of Experiential Education, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Rejeski, W. J., Ettinger, W. H., Martin, K., & Morgan, T. (1998). Treating disability in knee osteoarthritis with exercise therapy: A central role for self-efficacy and pain. Arthritis Care and Research, 11, 94-101.

Sibthorp, J. (2003). Learning transferable skills through adventure education: The role of authentic process. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 3, 145-157.

Smith, R. E. (1999). Generalization effects in coping skills training. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 21, 189-204.

Smith-Jentsch, K. A., Sales, E., & Brannick, M. T. (2001). To transfer or not to transfer? Investigating the combined effects of trainee characteristics, team leader support, and team climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 279-292.

Thompson, L., Genter, D., & Loewenstein, J. (2000), Avoiding missed opportunities in managerial life: Analogical training mare powerful than individual case training. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81, 60-75.

Wilkinson, S. (2000). Transfer of qualitative skill analysis ability to similar sport specific skills. Journal of Physical Education Recreation and Dance, 71, 16-18.

Wise, J. B. (1999). Increasing and generalizing self efficacy through strength training. Palaestra, 15, 40-45.

Wise, J. B., Ellis, G. D., & Trunnell, E. P. (2002), Effects of a curriculum designed to generalize self- efficacy from weight-training exercises to activities of daily living among adults with spinal injuries. Journal of Applied Psychology, 32, 500-521.

Witt, EA., & Baker, J.E. (1999). Making a r.e.a.l. difference. Parks &Recreation, 34, 7080.

Zabriskie, R. B. (2001) Family recreation: Flew can we make a difference? Parks & Recreation, 36, 30-42.

Jim Sibthorp Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism at the University of Utah where he teaches courses in research methods, experiential education and commercial recreation. Cathryn Haas is a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah in the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department. Haas received her Master's degree in recreation administration from California State University in Sacramento, where she studied the constraints relzated to the provision outdoor recreation programming by municipal parks and recreation agencies.