Leadership by Design Summer Day Camp: University and High School Student Outcomes

Abstract

The Leadership by Design (LbD) summer day camp provided interactive learning experiences for university and high school students. While LbD is similar to other university recruitment programs, none looks directly at the learning outcomes for students through a social constructivist theory design that evaluates the acquisition of the learning outcomes. With such a design, the summer day camp offered leadership development opportunities to university students through a "live," hands-on experience in a special event management course curriculum. LbD also provided high school participants with an opportunity to explore leadership characteristics and increase their understanding of university culture. The specific purpose of the pre-and post-test study design was to evaluate the gains in learning for university students' leadership development and their course curriculum experience, and the high school students' leadership development and understanding of university culture. Wilcoxon signed-ranked results indicated statistically significant gains in all outcomes.