Four Pillars of Success: Significance, Cost Benefits, Treatment Fidelity, and Public Policy

Four Pillars of Success: Significance, Cost Benefits, Treatment Fidelity, and Public Policy

Presenter: Michael Gass

The purpose of this key note Address was to "set the stage" for the 4th REAP Symposium in Santa Fe, New Mexico on March 19, 2008. It was meant to initiate discussion on the current role and influences of evidenced-based practices (EBP) and research on adventure programs in the United States. In addressing these issues, it identified areas of adventure programming affected by EBP, the history of poor research prior to 1985, ramifications of the current consequences of large scale imprisonment in the USA, and the role a few critical research studies on adventure programming played in the development of EBP with the US Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in the 1980s.

The keynote address also highlighted "What was significant?" to various sectors of the public beyond significance testing. The study highlighted research bibliographies compiled in the areas of adventure therapy, adventure programming in K-12 education, wilderness programming, and adventure programming with colleges. Each study in these research bibliographies was evaluated on 13 factors related to EBP principles with a rubric developed by Gass (2007). These 13 areas were experiential design, evidenced-based research evaluation, case studies and clinical samples, benefit-cost analysis, results reporting, training models, power of research design, proper instrumentation, cultural variability, treatment/intervention fidelity, background literature support, replication, and length of treatment effectiveness.

Also introduced as a new source of basic research for the field was the Research and Evaluation Network funded by the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). This web based practice research network and archival database will provide an affordable data collection tool for all NATSAP programs to utilize, create a research data base that could be used to improve NATSAP program practices (especially EBP), and attract the interest of other researchers in appropriately using a NATSAP research database.

The effects of benefit-cost analysis and treatment fidelity were also highlighted as key concerns with programs. Recent findings regarding treatment fidelity were also presented. Regarding public policy, plans were shared on recent efforts by the federal government to produce a Hierarchical Classification Framework for Program Effectiveness. In conclusion, ten goals for the future development of EBP in adventure programming were shared.