Environmental Education Commons^™

"A Sense Of Competence." Re-Conceptualizing Issues Of Competence For Women In Outdoor Education, T. A. Loeffler

Research in Outdoor Education

Competence development in outdoor education is a complex process that is shaped by gender-role socialization, learning environments, and by individual differences. Outdoor educators need to further their un­derstanding of this process so they can fully empower themselves and their students. Outdoor programs need to be designed to support the development of both compe­tence in outdoor skills and a sense of com­petence in these skills so program partici­pants will be able to fully participate in out­door activities. This abstract provides an introduction to the issue of competence de­velopment and further discussion of this topic is available in Loeffler (1997).