Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
Student reflections after fourteen months
VICTORIA ADAMOVICH AND DR SARAH LOCH
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
INTRODUCTION
This research summary focuses on Pymble Ladies’ College’s Year 9 Residential Program, which takes place at the College’s second campus, Vision Valley. We are interested in understanding the impact the program has on participating students with a focus on girls’ educational experiences.
In this report, we evaluate the efficacy of a research method to collect student reflections at least one year after the end of the program. This is important because most research into outdoor education focuses on short-term impact, and programs specifically for girls, or in allgirls schools, are not extensively researched.
The Pymble Institute is committed to continue benefiting College programs through research-informed practice.
AIMS OF THE REPORT:
1. Analyse students’ written reflections on the impact of the outdoor education residential program 14 months on to understand more about the program’s medium-term impact.
2. Assess the effectiveness of asking about impact via an open-ended comment box question in an online survey.
3. Contribute to the formation of a tool or question which can sustainably and efficaciously explore the medium-term impacts of the program.
PROCESS AND INSIGHTS
Background
Commencing in 2022, the Vision Valley Residential Program (VVRP) has now taken over three hundred
girls through a four-week, full time, residential program rich in outdoor education opportunities. Students spend the month in the outdoor setting of Vision Valley, Arcadia, New South Wales, located fortyfive minutes from the College’s main campus. Students experience a range of activities including communal living, experiential outdoor learning, and outdoor education such as hiking, canoeing, camping, climbing etc. The experience is very different from the everyday as students remain with their peers 24/7 and go without their phone or seeing their family, participating in their regular activities and disconnecting from technology for the duration of the program.
The VVRP aims to provide an immersive experience which builds new skills, confidence and connectedness, helping students to experience life from another angle during the formative period of adolescence. The program is adapted from group to group, and year to year, meaning each group of students experiences a slightly different version of the VVRP. This is due to planned and unplanned elements including weather, staffing, external events and evidenceinformed program development.
The leaders of Vision Valley campus identify the medium-term impact of the program as an area of importance to better understand. Research into the VVRP looks for points of significance which hold relatively steady from program to program and cohort to cohort; meaning the method of delivering the experience may change, but providing the experience remains constant from program to program. Even with variances in the program
they experienced, all ‘graduates’ of VVRP can reflect on ‘their experience’ and consider what it means to them as they mature. These reflections have the capacity to shape future programs, as well as staff professional learning, and communication strategies with incoming students and parents. As researchers, we aim to create a method which can return data to the program for both iterative and overall improvement strategies. This report uses pilot research from the first two cohorts of VVRP attendees August/September (Wave 1) and October/November (Wave 2) 2022 to give insights into the ‘medium-term’ impact of the program on the participants. The data in this report were collected fourteen months after students returned from their VVRP. We define mediumterm as being within the three years past the end of the program, while students are still at school. We plan to progress to also research ‘longterm’ impacts of the program and will measure this from students’ post-school years, which will be fourplus-years past the end of their Year 9 residential experience.
Research context
This research project is part of a broader suite of research into the VVRP. This includes co-designed research undertaken with academics from the School of Education at Western Sydney University (WSU).
The WSU team produced a formal report, commissioned by the College, completed in 2023 and the College produced a version of this report which is available here The survey instruments used in this research are the same as the set used in the original research report.
What is the research question?
What experiences of the Vision Valley Residential Program remain with students more than one year after the completion of the program and how do students make sense of these in the context of their new stage of life?
Who
participated in this research?
Invited to participate were the first two groups to attend the VVRP in August/ September (Wave 1) and October/ November (Wave 2) 2022. There were 86 Pymble girls in these two waves. In November 2023, these students were emailed and invited to again complete the questionnaire they had completed pre and immediately post attending the residential program. The email mentioned an additional question had been added to ask for students’ reflections as it was now more than one year since the program had taken place.
Forty-eight students validly completed the questionnaire in November 2023; 35 from Wave 1 and 13 from Wave 2. There had been 58 students in Wave 1 and 28 students in Wave 2. The completed questionnaires in November 2023 represent 56% of the cohort who had attended the VVRP in the first
year of the program. Students were supervised by a teacher while they completed the online questionnaire. All were aged around 16 years. Boarders and day students were in the group, as well as students from a range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Information on Pymble Ladies’ College’s socioeconomic profile can be obtained in the MySchool website
Follow up with the students who did not complete the questionnaire occurred in May 2024 via email. This ensured a balanced view by checking that students with negative experiences had intentionally not responded. These students were emailed to ask if they remembered being sent the survey. The message asked students to advise whether they recalled opting not to do the survey for any reason or whether they had been absent or missed the email, for example. Eight replies were received with most saying they missed the email, forgot to do it, or had been absent at that time (including on exchange overseas). No students commented on consciously opting not to reply.
Consent and confidentiality
Parent/carer and student consent
was gained at the commencement of the research activities at the start of the VVRP. Student ID numbers were used to link the data from session to session. The first Qualtrics survey page includes an additional and specific request for students to consent to participate. If they do not wish to proceed, they can close the webpage. In this report, the text field is being analysed independently of other data.
How was the research conducted?
The questionnaire was completed during an online reflection activity which was the same for students who had, and had not, attended the VVRP in 2022. It was part of an end of Year 10/transition to Year 11 program which involved activities over a week. Hence, all students completed a similar online activity at the same time under teacher supervision with no apparent difference to the activity being completed.
The questionnaire of forty-four questions was formed with guidance from academic colleagues at Western Sydney University (see Cooper, Ullman, Curry & Gray, 2023). The full questionnaire includes items from the Adolescent Girls Resilience Scale (AGRS) (Whittington
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
& Aspelmeir, 2018), the Academic Buoyancy Scale (Martin & Marsh, 2008), and the ‘Sense of Belonging at School’ instrument from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) (ACER, 2018). To date, the forty-four question survey has been used for seven cohorts of VVRP attendees. The post-program impact question (fourteen months post-program) has been trialled once.
To explore a way of understanding the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s outdoor education residential program, the additional question was: What have you learnt from your time at Vision Valley that has stayed with you? Concerned about students misunderstanding such an open-ended question, the research team provided the following, scaffolded prompt:
For example, are you better at making friends or dealing with friendship issues? Do you feel more confident at solving problems or dealing with challenges? Are you less likely to get upset by setbacks at school? Do you spend more time in the outdoors? Do you feel grateful?
The prompt invited students to “Please take a moment to reflect here” and to write responses in a text box.
Factors the research team considered
The question of when to assess the medium-term impacts of the VVRP is an important one. Overall, the College hopes that attitudes and skills gained during the program endure across time. In terms of research, this may mean that there is no better or worse time to ask a past participant about the impact of the VVRP.
This questionnaire was administered
a couple of weeks before the end of the school year, in students’ final year in Upper School (Year 9-10), as they prepared to transition into Senior School (Year 11-12). IIt is important to note that memories of the residential program may be hard to recall with a whole school year separating the present from the VVRP period, the summer holidays ahead, and the final two years of secondary school just around the corner. When is it a good time to ask people about their memories? Is it sensible to ask when students are embarking, again, on a similar experience? Or ‘out of the blue’ when immersed in other things? Due to the need to fit the questionnaire into the time available, this research utilises the latter approach.
We also considered how to ask students about their memories of an experience of the past which, for young people, can feel like ‘ages ago’. From anecdotal encounters, as the authors are teachers at the College, we were aware that some students felt they had ‘moved on’ from their VVRP experience – they had changed friends, for example. In her response, one student commented on an outcome of the
program, ‘I have made some more friendships but I am not as close with them as i used to [be]’. As friendships and peer relationships are crucial to adolescent development (van Harmelen et al., 2017), negative friendship experiences could significantly colour memories of the VVRP. We were also curious about how much detail students would share as, anecdotally, we had heard some say the VVRP was an experience they didn’t remember.
We aimed to phrase the question in an open and generative way to prompt students to deeper thinking but being too open and general could possibly lead to imprecise feedback, such as students writing about experiences that were not part of the VVRP or saying ‘nothing’, in response to a question like, ‘What impact does the VVRP still have on you today?’ An alternative to a survey question would be face to face interviews or a focus group discussion which could be explored in the future. In this case, we needed to align with the time available and utilise a method to run in parallel with that arranged for students who had not attended the VVRP. This meant an online questionnaire was the most efficacious method to trial first.
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Overall themes
This section combines excerpts from students’ textual responses with analytical commentary. The analysis takes the form of organising the quotes into clusters and identifying themes, and points of difference and significance.
In response to the open-ended question, What have you learnt from your time at Vision Valley that has stayed with you?, four themes emerged based on a word count approach. These areas achieved the highest number of mentions in the forty-four comments (four students did not respond to this question).
• appreciation, including feeling grateful.
• relationships, including friendships.
• natural world, including outdoor environments.
Theme 1: Appreciation
Twenty-seven of forty-eight comments (56%) referenced feelings of appreciation for the program, for the opportunity to do the program and/or towards features of daily life back home. This is not surprising as ‘Do you feel grateful?’ was a specific prompt in the question, although, it is noteworthy that the majority of respondents opted to write about it in their text box and the sentiment around gratefulness was positive in all comments.
Within the feelings of appreciation expressed, students highlighted a variety of dimensions such as being grateful for the VVRP itself, for the chance to attend and the opportunities it provided:
• resilience, including confidence, physical and mental strength, independence.
Other themes identified in the word count which did not fall into these four categories include ‘academics’ and ‘tech devices’.
The majority of respondents used the prompt sub-questions as a scaffold for their response. This meant that some responded to each prompt, sentence by sentence, such as in the example below:
From Vision Valley I find that I am a little better at making friends and talking to new people because I stayed with the girls for the entire 4 weeks. I think I was already pretty good at problem
solving prior to the experience, and therefore Vision Valley didn’t improve it that much. I would say that I’m neither less likely nor more likely to get upset by setbacks at school. I think that I do try spend more time outdoors, as I found that I enjoy being outside and being active more that I originally expected. Yes I do feel more grateful, as I became more independent I recognised and appreciated more things around me.
Whilst this was not the intent of the scaffolding, it did result in responses which evenly covered a range of key areas and could be arranged thematically.
I am very grateful for this experience. It has been one of the best opportunities Pymble has offered and I am grateful to be one of the first people to experience it.
I am very grateful for this experience and I highly recommend students to participate in this.
I am also very grateful for the opportunity to go on the program as it was highly enjoyable and overall an incredible life experience.
There was a theme of being grateful for day-to-day things which were
brought into focus by stepping outside regular life experiences for a short while:
My time at Vision Valley taught me the importance of being grateful for what I have and acknowledging that others might not be as fortunate.
I am definitely more grateful for the things that I have at home (especially my bed) after experiencing a life away from home.
I feel more grateful for things at home that we didn’t have at Vision Valley and largely the smaller day-to-day things.
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
I feel very grateful for the things that i have been given by my school and my friends and family.
I think especially since we had been at vision valley for like 4 weeks that i hadn’t seen anything so close to home that it just made me feel very grateful for everyone in my life and where i live.
Other feelings of gratefulness relate to applying skills and attitudes gained in the VVRP to current activities and contexts:
I feel more grateful when I am doing exercise as i know it probably isn’t as hard as the exercise I did on Vision Valley.
I am definitely grateful for all the opportunities that I was given there and am more conscious of my choices and my interactions now. I think I am more grateful for the outdoors and nature around me. I also strengthened and built
Theme 2: Relationships
Friends, friendships and relationships with others were mentioned in twenty-four of the forty-eight comments (50%). The efficacy in the program in introducing students to new peers, including students outside their regular circle, and to enable new friendships to form, is highly significant in the adolescent years. Comments about friendship indicate that friendship is a very vulnerable and sensitive component of students’ experiences of their month away and the VVRP is a potent force for positive personal change in this area.
new friendships throughout the program which I am also very grateful for.
Some students conveyed a sense of gratitude for the VVRP being part of their journey towards independence and to greater maturity and knowledge:
Yes I do feel more grateful, as I became more independent I recognised and appreciated more things around me.
I am grateful for my time at Vision Valley as it enhanced my independence and resilience when it comes to facing challenges.
From my time at Vision Valley I have developed a deeper sense of gratitude and independence, whether I knew it or not when I was there, I was becoming more connected with the land and understanding Australian nature in a more thorough way. I now
understand how to communicate within my friendships and what I truly value at home such as my family and pets.
The following two comments reveal deep reflection about the role of the VVRP in the young people’s growth and development. These comments indicate awareness of what the program was trying to achieve and strong self-awareness of why they were not able to fully realise the opportunity at the time:
During the program I exhibited some poor behaviour, which I can now reflect on and use to improve myself when I approach new opportunities, which I am grateful for.
I am grateful for the opportunity but believe I could have fulfilled it more to have had more fun.
The comments indicate the program is giving students a combination of skills, confidence and opportunity to expand their skillset around making new friends and dealing with new social situations. Even where comments point to a student being without her main friendship group, or needing to work at fostering new relationships, they convey a sense of growth and recognition in having managed this important life skill.
Many comments referenced developing new friendships which gives a sense of the importance
of this area and the achievements students made in the program. In these comments, the phrasing suggests many students are still using the skills acquired at Vision Valley.
From Vision Valley I find that I am a little better at making friends and talking to new people. Vision Valley has definitely taught myself and my peers about connecting with people and making friends.
My time at Vision Valley helped to encourage me to interact with
girls from other ‘groups’ who have since become good friends of mine.
I have become friends with girls that are outside of my regular circle.
I am better at making friends post Vision Valley. I feel more confident and accepted. I am more knowledgeable and courageous.
I think I feel more comfortable talking to new people following the program, I made many new friends and having lived with them, went through many ups and downs.
I also got better at making friends easier and quicker when put with people I didn’t know especially on the camps when we were together all the time.
Skill development for friendships and relationships is commented upon extensively, indicating students have learnt explicitly about, or reflected meaningfully on, this life skill in the VVRP context. There is a strong sense of students having gained more confidence in making friends and they bring more depth to how they speak about friendships. The core theme of broadening one’s friendship group and making friends with more people, and more diverse people, was pervasive:
From my time at Vision Valley I became better at making new friends.
I have become friends with more of my peers and learnt how to have more friendships outside friend groups.
This opportunity allowed me to better improve my social skills and make friends with lots more people and many different personality types.
I am better at making friends and dealing with issues in friendships since Vision Valley I feel more open to solving problems and dealing with unexpected challenges.
Throughout my time at Vision Valley I think I became more capable and able to make more friends outside my usual circle, increasing my confidence to do so in the future.
I now understand how to communicate within my friendships.
I also feel that i am better at making friends and am more kind to people.
I learnt from Vision Valley that it is important to make friends with a range of different people from different groups and not be stuck in a clique, i learnt that kindness is important if you want to be a likable person because often during the program people would become impatient and stubborn with each other.
After my time at Vision Valley, I have noticed that I am becoming better at making friends and dealing with friendship issues. Before my stay at vision valley, i had been quite scared to speak up and lacked confidence when dealing with friendship issues. However, in my time at vision valley, i began to make new friends and connections as well
as gained confidence and now i am not afraid to speak up when dealing with challenges. i have also become better at dealing with problems and working in a group.
In addition to students experiencing the process of making friends, some also commented on the VVRP playing a role in cementing existing friendships:
I also have long-lasting friendships from the residential program that stick with me today.
I became closer with my peers although at the start I was already friends with most of them.
I feel as though my friendship skills have improved since Vision Valley, the program being a good chance to get me started on that journey. I do feel confident when solving problems or facing challenges as I know I have a group of friends that are there to support me every step of the way.
Students responded honestly by also raising some complexities around friendships in the context of the program. Some headed into the month away with close friends in their program group, whereas others had no existing friends with them. The three comments below indicate experiences of finding the program challenging, not being able to easily fit in and make friends, entering the program immediately after having friendship problems at school, and moving away from VVRP friends in the months after the program:
When reflecting on my time at Vision Valley, I would regard it as the not the most fulfilling
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
experience. I do think that heavily affected my ability to make or deal with friendship.
The opportunity to attend Vision Valley was useful for me to connect with girls in my year group that I previously was not as close with … However, I also happened to experience some friendship problems prior to attending and therefore wasn’t in a group with my current friends … I have made some more
Theme 3: The Natural World
The Vision Valley site is nestled in native bushland with features such as a dam, active bird life, rockfaces and small walking paths. There is extremely little intrusion of noise from cars or industry, with natural sights and sounds prevailing. As the area is in a rural, agricultural part of Sydney’s outskirts, contact with the regular, busy world is very limited. In addition to this calm and secluded daily experience, during the program students and staff leave the Vision Valley site on a few occasions to trek into regional national parks and move through river valleys, and go up and down mountains to reach beaches and waterways to the east. Thus, nature is a core aspect of all parts of the program. Learning takes place in all weather and largely outdoors, and a range of physical activities take students to different places around the site and broader local area.
There were sixteen comments reflecting on the role of nature in the VVRP experience (33% of responses). All of these were positive and many indicate a deep and transformative appreciation for nature through their
friendships but I am not as close with them as i used to.
In light of the insightful comments about friendships and relationship management during the VVRP, the following comments highlight rich self-awareness around how students navigated peers and friends whilst on the program:
My time at Vision Valley taught me a lot about myself and others. Yes, there were ups and downs
with friendships, but we learned how to deal with them and not let our tempers get a hold of us.
I did not find a change in my ability to make friends with my peers in the experience, but did have many moments of personal introspection which led me to better understand myself and my environment.
experiences. There is a sense that the VVRP has triggered an ongoing interest and confidence in being outdoors which might be a new part of some students’ lives. Further research could explore the role the VVRP plays in initiating this interest and confidence, as it is only hinted at in these comments:
From my time at Vision Valley, I developed my appreciation for the outdoors and nature and gained a further understanding about the importance of being present and in touch with my surroundings.
I think I am more grateful for the outdoors and nature around me.
I did however become more acquainted with the outdoors, I like being outside more and participating in activities such as heights.
From my time at Vision Valley, I have learnt how to be more independent, as well as an increased understanding and
respect when it comes to being outdoors.
One student, previously quoted, commented eloquently on how her connection to and appreciation of the land and nature was deepened by the VVRP:
I have developed a deeper sense of gratitude and independence, whether I knew it or not when I was there, I was becoming more connected with the land and understanding Australian nature in a more thorough way.
Some students mentioned enduring changes to lifestyle, especially spending time outdoors and feeling happy and comfortable doing so:
I also found a greater appreciation for the outdoors and have spent more time within nature post residential program.
I spend more time outside since Vision Valley.
I like to try and spend less time
on my phone and more time outside rather than sitting in my bed all day.
I also have a new found respect for the positives of being in the outdoors, as the benefits gained are something that I haven’t experienced any other way.
I think that I do try spend more time outdoors, as I found that I enjoy being outside and being active more that I originally expected.
Comments also indicate how some in this group (the pioneer group for whom attendance was optional) were already confident and comfortable in the outdoors:
As for the time I spend outdoors, I spend around the same amount (which is, to say, a lot)
Although I don’t think spending more time in the outdoors has been a result of the Residential Program, I am definitely more confident in what I’m doing when I go on school camps etc
Also revealed is the role the VVRP played in contributing to students’ decision to attend the optional Year 10 Outdoor Education program, Namadji, a challenging nine-day hike in southern New South Wales. The direct correlation between attending the VVRP and deciding to take the Namadji trip is noteworthy with five students (10%) mentioning this:
I do try to keep the balance of the outdoors in my life and participating in the residential program allowed me to be confident in going on Namadji. - the Nine day hike in year 10 for outdoor education.
Theme 4: Resilience, independence, confidence
The clusters of words used for this section include resilience (15 comments), confidence (9), independence (6). Across these, many comments overlapped with one comment mentioning all three, hence, for analysis they are grouped together. These comments convey students’ self-reflections on their own capacity and self-efficacy and reveal how their VVRP experiences connected with and boosted these positive feelings. In a general sense, from the approximately twenty-five comments in this category, all agreed the program contributed positively to their resilience or strength to cope with life. They have been quoted here in full as they provide a powerful corollary of messages about the
VVRP and its impact on resilience, independence and confidence:
I also developed a stronger sense of resilience that helps with today in all areas.
I feel more confident being left on my own, more independent.
As a result of being mostly independent during the residential program, I have gained a wide range of new knowledge and confidence when it comes to dealing with my own problems.
This experience has caused me to feel more confident in my ability when completing tasks
I enjoy my time outdoors and it has encouraged me to since sign up for further outdoor education opportunities such as Namadji.
I definitely spend more time outdoors, I recently went on a 9 day hike as part of school camp because i learnt a lot from vision valley expeditions.
I feel that it significantly assisted my engagement with the outdoors and prompted me to attend Namadji.
Being more comfortable in outdoor education programs like the Snowy River expedition I just went on.
as I experienced some different situations that tested my mental strength.
I have found that I am also more resilient and can get through and adapt to unfamiliar environments and activities.
I have become more resilient since then and have gained more confidence in my abilities.
I definitely feel more confident and am less likely to be upset by setbacks.
After this experience I trust myself more in my decisions and what I pick. I know that wherever I end
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
up I will be able to preserver and look for the brighter sides of the problem.
Physical resilience and strength were recognised with comments reflecting on elements that enhanced physical wellness, which is an important outcome for girls in terms of their long-term health and lifestyle:
Vision Valley was a test of both my physical and mental strength, and I was proud to observe my own resilience once I’d completed it.
The program helped me develop physically and emotionally.
Looking back I overcame heaps of challenges, whether that be hiking up a mountain or not being in a group with people I’d usually talk to. It helped me develop my resilience.
It has also taught me resilience, and it tested my ability to persevere at times (especially on hikes). This made me realise that I am a lot stronger than I think I am.
Students commented on their resilience when facing challenges and how the VVRP enhanced this perception:
This experience has caused me to feel more confident in my ability when completing tasks as I experienced some different situations that tested my mental strength.
I am grateful for my time at Vision Valley as it enhanced my independence and resilience when it comes to facing challenges. As I did not have the comfort of my regular social network at times it could be challenging but I persevered and ended up with stronger connections to my peers and stronger skill set.
In terms of students’ resilience when facing challenges at school, the results varied. A couple of students directly referenced their increased resilience in relation to school:
I am less likely to get upset by setbacks at school.
I feel more confident at school.
Others were open about the absence of change in this area, including reflecting on whether anything had shifted for them:
I still get disappointed with setbacks at school.
I don’t know if it made me more confident in solving problems or dealing with challenges. I was already quite independent and able to deal with my own challenges but I am not sure if these skill were improved specifically through the program.
I don’t think the program necessarily improved my problem solving or dealing with challenges - there weren’t many scenarios in which this was required, though it did help me feel more independent.
DISCUSSION OF THE DATA
The data suggest the VVRP made an effective and enduring impact on participating students, with numerous areas of change being maintained fourteen months beyond the end of the program. The areas of impact can be summarised as;
• enhanced feelings of gratitude and appreciation about the experience and life in general,
• enhanced skills relating to friendships, relationships and communication,
• enhanced connection with nature and the outdoor environment,
• greater confidence and resilience in relation to a range of situations.
The textual data in the open-ended text boxes paint a picture of a wellorganised program that produced meaningful learning experiences in at least the four areas explored above. Whilst not all students, at all times, enjoyed or appreciated every activity at the time it was being undertaken, which is to be expected, the distance primarily left positive feelings amongst most respondents in most areas.
The areas of greatest impact, evident in student comments, are in skill building relating to friendships and feelings of comfort and joy in the natural world. Enduring changes in mindset are also evident in students’ feelings of gratitude, resilience and independence which they explain now shape their approach to life. Combining these areas points to the VVRP making a strong difference in students’ lives in ways that can be applied to regular life.
In terms of the development of friendship skills, students outlined a large range of learning opportunities which some were largely forced to
apply as they were living with the cohort for four weeks, something they needed to accept and adapt to. For shyer, more introverted students, the impetus to engage and communicate led to stronger selfawareness which they recognised as empowering and uplifting. Students reflected on their ability to adapt to the situation and frequently learnt from challenges which may never have arisen in regular life, for example, finding themselves without their usual friends and needing to go out of their way to make friends. The isolated nature of the program meant that students needed to persist and have confidence in themselves, but it is also possible that, although not mentioned in students’ comments, the teachers and outdoor educators at the program helped facilitate the growth of friendship skills.
Considering the bushland location of Vision Valley and the locations of expeditions through National Parks and nature reserves, it is not surprising that students recognised the pervasive presence of the outdoors – being such a contrast to home life which usually involves much less time outdoors. The comments suggest considerable growth occurred in relation to students’ confidence in the outdoors, with many saying they now sought natural settings even though outdoor recreation was no longer compulsory for them. With today’s world saturated in technology, screens and indoor activities, including many more people living in apartments, gaining a sense of ease and pleasure in the outdoors is a lifelong asset.
Students also reflected strongly on their enhanced feelings of gratitude, confidence, independence and resilience, and often through
expressing combinations of these. This reflects how students’ mindsets have been impacted by experiences in the VVRP. Students mentioned they could now apply new ways of thinking and problem solving to situations occurring today which indicates the VVRP had a lasting impact on students’ ways of interacting with others and the world around them.
These insights will be very affirming for students and parents who are preparing to attend the VVRP in the future. Some of the experiences, such as no exposure to technology, outdoor learning and living, and needing to bond with new friends would be unlikely to take place if the student was not participating in the Vision Valley program. Student responses indicate the various features of the VVRP combine to leave positive and healthy mindsets and confidence in oneself which endures fourteen months after the end of the program.
ANALYSIS OF THE TOOL
Overall, students’ reflective comments fourteen months after their VVRP experience demonstrate interest in this research topic, indicating it would be feasible to continue researching this area longitudinally as students get older and further away from their VVRP time. All responses in this dataset were meaningful, reflective and considered. They indicate investment in the VVRP experience and self-awareness of its impacts. The anonymity and personal nature of the online survey may have elevated students’ openness and it is also possible that the timing of the survey, held during the Year 10 to 11 Transition Week, brought a more reflective mindset to the task.
Researching the medium-term impacts of Pymble’s Year 9 Residential Program
However, with a response rate of only 56% to the November 2023 questionnaire, it is possible that the email method during another school program was not effective.
The ways in which students addressed the broad question, ‘What have you learnt from your time at Vision Valley that has stayed with you?’ may have been aided by the range of sub-prompts which accompanied it in the survey. Considering students’ responses to each sub-question within the overall question, a suggestion for future ways to ask the impact-reflection question would be to ask each subquestion separately. A negative of this would be the additional length of the questionnaire and removing the intended openness.
An alternative method of collecting
data about this question is to ask what was learned from the time at Vision Valley via a focus group and individual interview approach. The length, quality and reflectiveness of responses could then be compared with the online questionnaire format to explore how students respond and whether more variety or depth is attained.
CONCLUSION
This report concludes that the process of researching students’ experiences at a point in time beyond the immediate end of the Vision Valley Residential Program is a worthwhile endeavour and the open-ended text box is a simple, sustainable and useful data collection method.
Through students’ responses to the pilot of this single question, it
appears that the residential and outdoor education experience made a valuable contribution to students’ life journeys as young adolescents, especially in the areas of gratitude and appreciation for life in general, managing friendships, relationships and communication amongst people, finding comfort and joy in the natural world, and feeling more confident and resilient in one’s self.
This outcome will be of interest to the College’s Vision Valley and Upper School teams, parents of participants and future participants, students themselves, school leaders in other contexts and the outdoor education research field.
References
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