A comparative analysis of expected benefits of adventure based counseling activities and actual outcome benefits of male and female clients at Peninsula Village

Adventure Based Counseling is becoming increasingly more popular as a modality of therapeutic intervention for adolescents in treatment. What do the participants expect prior to participation in these Adventure Based Counseling activities? Does the experience meet or exceed their expectations? Does background information such as gender, previous number of months in treatment, and previous experience with Adventure Based Counseling have an effect on expected and actual participation benefits? In this study, a survey designed to assess the expected and actual benefits of participation in Adventure Based Counseling activities was administered to 63 clients ranging in age from 13-18 at Peninsula Village in Louisville, Tennessee. Subjects were pre-tested on the first day of a two-day Adventure Based Counseling experience consisting of group initiatives and ropes course elements. Subjects were post-tested following completion of the activities on the second day. A two-way analysis of variance and Pearson product-moment correlation, each with an alpha level set at p = .05, were utilized to analyze pre- and post-test data collected. Based on the data collected, results showed that there was a significant difference in participants' expected and actual benefits of participation in the affective, cognitive, and experience categories. There was no significant difference in the psychomotor category. Results also indicate that there was no significant difference between males and females in their responses to expected outcomes and actual benefits of participation in Adventure Based Counseling activities based on the four benefit categories represented (affective, cognitive, psychomotor, and experience). In addition, results show that the number of months spent in treatment were not significantly related to participants responses on expected and actual outcome benefits in any of the four benefit categories. There was a significant negative correlation between the amount of previous experience with Adventure Based Counseling and the pre-test score for the psychomotor category. This indicates that the lower the amount of Adventure Based Counseling experience, the greater the expected gains in the psychomotor category and vice versa. There was no significant correlation between the amount of previous experience in Adventure Based Counseling and the post-test score in the psychomotor category. Results also indicate there were no significant correlations between the amount of previous experience with Adventure Based Counseling and pre- and post-test scores in the affective, cognitive, and experience categories.