The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of the adventure education courses on sports-majored students' group cohesion. Methods: Quasi -experimental as well as the pretest-posttest nonequivalent groups design were used. The participants were junior high students divided into two groups, including: experimental group participating in the adventure education courses (n=26) and control group without participating the experimental courses (n=16). The Group Cohesion scale (including 4 subscales: ”attraction to the group-social orientation”, ATG-S; ”group integration-task orientation”, GI-T; ”attraction to the group-task orientation”, ATG-T; ”group integration-social orientation”, GI-S) was taken to pretest and posttest the effects. Data analysis was conducted by SPSS 18.0 for Windows by the methods of paired t-test, One-way ANCOVA and effect size. Results: The experimental group received more significant and positive improvement on Group Cohesion F(1,39)=27.14, p < .05, ATG-S F(1,39)=18.88, p < .05, GI-T F(1,39)=31.89, p < .05, ATG-T F(1,39)=21.59, p < .05, GI-S F(1,39)=21.37 than the control group. Conclusions: The designed adventure education courses with integration of portable adventure activities as well as ropes courses could promote group cohesion.
The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of the adventure education courses on sports-majored students' group cohesion. Methods: Quasi -experimental as well as the pretest-posttest nonequivalent groups design were used. The participants were junior high students divided into two groups, including: experimental group participating in the adventure education courses (n=26) and control group without participating the experimental courses (n=16). The Group Cohesion scale (including 4 subscales: ”attraction to the group-social orientation”, ATG-S; ”group integration-task orientation”, GI-T; ”attraction to the group-task orientation”, ATG-T; ”group integration-social orientation”, GI-S) was taken to pretest and posttest the effects. Data analysis was conducted by SPSS 18.0 for Windows by the methods of paired t-test, One-way ANCOVA and effect size. Results: The experimental group received more significant and positive improvement on Group Cohesion F(1,39)=27.14, p < .05, ATG-S F(1,39)=18.88, p < .05, GI-T F(1,39)=31.89, p < .05, ATG-T F(1,39)=21.59, p < .05, GI-S F(1,39)=21.37 than the control group. Conclusions: The designed adventure education courses with integration of portable adventure activities as well as ropes courses could promote group cohesion.