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Dr James Neill
James Neill is an educational psychologist who has taught psychology at the University of Canberra and the Australian National University . In addition, James is a leading international researcher in the field of outdoor education, and also has extensive field experience, having worked at Outward Bound for 10 years. In more recent years James has worked as a research consultant to the experiential and educational industry. James’ research includes the co-authorship of a major meta-analysis examining the psychosocial impacts of outdoor education programs. James work has helped to professionalise and articulate the unique contributions and potential of experiential forms of education, training, and therapy. Most recently, James completed a two-year stint teaching outdoor education at the University of New Hampshire. In 2009 he completed his PhD thesis, which examines the impacts of outdoor education programs on the "life effectiveness" of 3,000 participants, the largest study of its kind in the field of experiential education. Since 2002 James has served as the editor of the Australian Journal of Outdoor Education, and since the mid-1990s James has been actively presenting at state, national, and international conferences and contributing to academic knowledge about experiential and adventure education in Australia and overseas.
Qualifications
BSc (Hons), PhD
Thesis Title
Enhancing Personal Effectiveness: The Impacts of Outdoor Education Programs
Abstract
This study develops a multidimensional self-report tool, the "Life Effectiveness Questionnaire" (LEQ). An eight factor LEQ is developed, with confirmatory factor analysis demonstrating an excellent fit and factorial invariance across gender and age. The LEQ was administered up to four times to approximately 3,000 participants in Outward Bound-type programs. The overall effect size was moderate (.47). Strong outcomes were evident for long (3-4 week) Outward Bound programs with young adults. Outcomes were largely retained up to 5 months, but some loss was evident 12 months after the program. The outcomes were only weakly related to the independent variables included in the study—program type and length, group size and gender, and participant age and gender. This underlines the need to investigate more theoretical social, psychological, and educational variables (such as coping responses) in order to better understand the relationship between process and outcome in outdoor education.
