Adaptive expertise – a characteristic of expertise in outdoor instructors?

Abstract

Background: Over the past 10 years, research has started to investigate the pedagogic practices of instructors and coaches working in adventure sports settings. Outdoor instructors face particular challenges regarding the impact the dynamic environment has on the coaching process and their students. This challenging combination of factors obliges the instructor to be agile in response. We propose that this adaptive expertise is characteristic of these factors and that adaptability may be a beneficial focus of outdoor instructor training and education. Purpose: The major aim was to identify if adaptive expertise is an attribute of outdoor instructors? And if so, what are its characteristics in this context? Research design and data collection: We applied a mixed methodology to a sample of outdoor instructors (n =64). The instructors were asked to complete a quantitative adaptive expertise inventory. We then interviewed a selected subsample (n = 12).

Risk and Safety Management in Physical Education: A Study of Teachers' Practice Perspectives

“…The ways teachers seem to combine different strands of strategy in dealing with risk in addition to other pedagogical considerations in PE might both deviate from and nuance the promotion of what seems to be rational risk strategies in the PE literature on RSM. It more so seems to be a flexible balancing act that resonates with RSM of other professions (Horlick-Jones, 2005;Collins and Collins, 2013;Brown and Gale, 2018a,b;Mees et al, 2020), which shows the importance of gaining teachers' perspectives on practice. The results also suggest that combining quantitative and qualitative data is fruitful to gain knowledge of the complex character and nuance teachers' RSM practices.…”

“…Although it may be beneficial in documenting default equipment or accidents that have happened, these strategies might not fit areas of uncertainty or pedagogical concerns of teaching. In outdoor adventure, it is the complex and flexible character of the work that is highlighted in research (Collins and Collins, 2013;Mees et al, 2020). Against this backdrop, the case of compulsory safety guidelines seems questionable.…”

“…PE teachers' RSM practices might be comparable to those of other professions with "risk work" characterized by multiple concerns and strategies (Brown and Gale, 2018a,b). The dynamic and complex environments of outdoor instructors seem to require adaptive expertise (Mees et al, 2020), and it seems plausible that the environment of PE teaching might require teachers to be equally flexible. Due to the scarcity of studies that have investigated teachers' RSM practices, this article therefore makes use of a risk strategy typology developed by Zinn (2016) in a discussion of the results: to differentiate between teachers' risk strategies and suggest how they combine them in their practice.…”

Risk and Safety Management in Physical Education: Teachers’ Perceptions

“…Nevertheless, risk uncertainty generates additional complexity to RSM and boundaries for teachers to take control of the unforeseen by means of RSM. Research from the outdoor adventure field might provide some support to PE teachers because dynamic environments require "adaptive expertise" [20], flexible plans [18] and ongoing judgement [19], which might be equally relevant for PE teachers as for the outdoor leaders. Albeit uncertainty in teaching is not something new [38], the fundamental uncertainty in risk [34,37] does not seem to have gained attention in research targeting RSM in PE.…”

“…However, adaption of plans [18] and ongoing risk assessment are crucial for adventure sports coaches to retain the learning potential for participants [19]. Hence, the dynamic environments of outdoor instructors and coaches require "adaptive expertise" [20] (p. 425). While these studies from the outdoor field recognize the experts and their perspectives for generating knowledge, PE literature on RSM is top-down oriented and focuses less on the practitioners' perspectives and experiences.…”