Objective Testing in Soft Skill Facilitation

Through my own personal experiences and reading into the topic of soft skills facilitation, I have gained a vast knowledge about how as an adventure facilitator and educator, I am able to provide an experience that can be much more significant than just an activity session. The skills required to enhance the soft skills of individuals are within the reaches of every facilitator/educator. However, I have found that there are very few readings and items of literature on the topic that detail how it actually occurs.

There are many objective tests which have been carried out which illustrate and look into an individuals own social development and how they have furthered themselves through the use of adventurous and outdoor activities. Some examples of these are; Locus of Control (Rotter, 1966), The Life Effectiveness Questionnaire (Neill, Marsh and Richards, 2001), the Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1967) and the Sixteen Personality Factors (Cattell, Eber and Tatsuoka, 1970).

The Neill et al (2001) test is a questionnaire that was first developed in Australia in the 1980’s. In this, it was stated that the test takes only a short amount of time and is likely to provide a maximum amount of results. I struggle to agree with this due to believing that for any outcome from the adventure industry to be measured, it would take a prolonged amount of time and would take more than just a simple questionnaire to reveal a ‘maximum’ amount of results. It does however provide a good starting point for further research into the area.

Although each of these methods are formed from valid and trusted sources, I don’t believe that results gained from simple questionnaires could provide as much depth as other methods of research. If a study were to combine the benefits of both qualitative data which is gained from the questionnaires, as well as quantitative data which could be collected through other means, I strongly believe that results would carry much more weight, depth and provide more accurate results.

References:

Cattell, R.B., Eber, H.W., and Tatsuoka, M. (1970). Handbook for the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. USA: Institute for Personality and Ability Testing.

Coopersmith, S. (1967). Antecedents of Self-Esteem. USA: Freeman.

Neill, J.T., Marsh, H.W. and Richards, G.E. (2001) The Life Effectiveness Questionnaire: Development and Psychometrics. Sydney: University of Western Sydney.

Rotter, J.B. (1966). Generalised Expectations for Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied. 80 (1), 1-28.