This study is concerned with how the flow state is experienced by climbers during mountaineering. A new inventory was developed. Items were based on Flow State Scale created by Jackson et al. (1996) to measure flow in sports and physical activity settings, and qualitative analysis of interviews with climbers. A sample group of climbers (N=134) reported the best feelings they experienced while mountaineering. Factor analysis was conducted on these responses to the questionnaire, and produced ten factors. These ten were labeled as follows: “Clear Goals and Sense of ability”, “Merging into Nature”, “Companion”, “Action-Awareness Merging”, “Self-Awareness”, “Transformation of Time”, “Sense of Achievement”, “Revival”, “Concentration on task” and “Autotelic Experience”. The reliability of these factors were tested by the coefficient a and credible results were obtained. Analyses of variance revealed that some factors were significantly related to their sexuality and experiences of mountaineering. Suggestions for use of this inventory and further research were discussed.

View full abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate psychological aspects of the children influenced by outdoor activities in the snow at one of National Nature Centers for Children. The children (N=42) participated in a fourday program of activities in the snow such as cross-country skiing, a snow house making. Before and after these activities the group meeting was held and after the activities each group activity was reported at the meeting. We examined their psychological aspects obtained through this program, such as state-anxiety, trait-related aspects (the competence and general self-efficacy), and task-related efficacy (the self-consciousness and consciousness of outdoor activity and fellowship)
The results were as follows.
1) As for children's mental condition on this program it was at pre-test and on the 3rd night (before lodging at snow house) that they felt higher state-anxiety.
2) On their trait-related aspects, their competence of fellowship was improved through these activities. And the children with no previous experiences of outdoor activities showed higher general self-efficacy than those with the previous experiences of outdoor activities.
3) It showed that these activities were effective on their task-related efficacy. Particularly the children with the previous experiences acquired the high self-consciousness through this program.
It was suggested that this program taking activities in the snow and group meeting for the discussion of the activities were effective for the participated children on their task-related efficacy and competence of fellowship. We discussed the relation between this program and the children's perceived efficacy, and the difference between the children with and without past outdoor experience.

View full abstract

Primary and lower secondary school students have learned Outdoor Education in school events, but in the new Course of Study, outdoor education can be taught together at the same time in the “time of general education”. The new Course of Study describes the importance of outdoor experience. In the background, we researched about consciousness of learning through natural and social experience in the primary and lower secondary schools. The results are as follows:
Learning through natural experience provides more learning experiences than lower secondary school. Asense of difficulty about learning through natural experience is from factor of age in primary school, but in lower secondary school, sense of difficulty is from factor of guidance.
The result of the study shows that teachers who are younger have more capacity to perform the natural experience. The older teachers, on the other hand, have more leadership qualities for social experience and coodinator ship. The teachers then should learn to improve themselves in terms of skills described in the study regardless of their age and number of years in teaching.

View full abstract