Abstract:
Residential outdoor adventure (OA) programmes have been recognised as one potentially successful intervention to promote positive youth development (PYD). OA programmes create a unique social and physical environment for experiential learning that encourages individual transformation. Nevertheless, young people may experience reintegration challenges upon their re-entry to home, school and peer contexts which can jeopardise the positive gains made during the OA experiences. PYD frameworks that are rooted in relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory emphasise the importance of reciprocal interaction between youth and their complex and changing environment. Given that, the positive outcomes initiated during OA interventions are more likely to be sustained when youth participants are well supported upon their return. The current study addresses existing research gaps about the reintegration process and the contextual factors that influence learning transfer and positive youth outcomes arising from participation in an OA intervention. Case study methodology was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of reintegration after youth participated in an OA component of a New Zealand-based PYD programme from the perspectives of the youth programme participants, their parents and key informants. The researcher conducted 69 semi-structured interviews with three different participant groups (17 youth, 17 parents and 11 key programme informants including staff, youth mentors and liaison teachers) from two school-based cohorts and across two periods of data collection. In order to capture changes in the reintegration experience over a prolonged period, the researcher carried out longitudinal data collection. This involved interviewing youth and their parents (independently) at two different time points: 1 and 7 months after the OA component. Using thematic analysis, the researcher developed a conceptual framework of the reintegration process, involving five major modes: 1) Preparation mode, 2) Memory mode, 3) Reaction mode, 4) Adaptation mode, and 5) Transfer mode. The conceptual framework also depicts the contextual factors that influenced the reintegration process, including factors that promoted or impeded the transfer of learning and thus the sustainability of the outcomes arising from the OA experience. The significance of this thesis is the in-depth exploration of the phenomenon of reintegration experienced by youth after an OA intervention. It provides a detailed description of the connection between youth development programme context and youth outcomes. Through this theory-building process, the research advances PYD knowledge by illuminating the phenomenon of youth's reintegration process and the encountered resources and challenges that influence the learning transfer of the youth development outcomes. This qualitative research elucidated the transformational change by highlighting the mutually influential relationships between the youth participants and their context. The discussion of the findings in conjunction with the existing literature also outlines implications for future research and practice, including evidence-informed strategies to support positive reintegration and learning transfer to sustain outcomes of youth developed as a result of PYD intervention.