Poster presented at EFYE 2018. Strengthening the wellbeing of students is an increasingly important approach of the development of students’ social, emotional and academic skills. Personal wellbeing motivates, among other things, students to learn and increases academic involvement and performance accordingly (Noble et al., 2008). According to the Centre for Education of Statistics and Evaluation (CESE, 2015) the educational welfare of students is also important for another reason; the recognition that teaching is not just about achieving academic performance, but also about the welfare of the student as a whole (intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral and spiritual). Recent studies indicate that more and more students suffer from (mental) health problems (LSvB 2013, 2017; Schaufeli et al., 2002). The aim of the Student Wellbeing Project at Inholland University of Applied Sciences is to 1) investigate the state of student wellbeing in Dutch higher education and investigate the factors that influence wellbeing, 2) explore and offer best practices to improve student wellbeing (curative and preventive) 3) establish a strong (international) partnership and collaborate to improve student wellbeing.
The necessity for humans inhabiting the 21st century to slow down and take time to carry out daily practices frames the discourse of this research note. We suggest reconceptualising tourist wellbeing through the concept of slow adventure, as a response to the cult of speed and as a vehicle for engaging in deep, immersive and more meaningful experiences during journeys in the outdoors. We suggest that slow adventure has the potential to improve people’s general health and wellbeing through mindful enjoyment and consumption of the outdoor experience and thus bring people back to a state of mental and physical equilibrium. In so doing, we argue that extending the concept to include discussions around the psychological and social aspects of slow adventure is needed.
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Against the backdrop of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3, good health and wellbeing, this paper reports on a study that examined how outdoor guides perceive their role in facilitating the psychological wellbeing of tourists who consume slow adventure experiences. These experiences, such as canoeing, stargazing or foraging, are characterised by a slower passage of time, immersion in the natural world and a sense of belonging to small social groups. Grounded in research on wellbeing from a positive psychology perspective, the study utilised semi-structured, in-depth, interviews with ten outdoor adventure guides in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Following a hermeneutic interpretive approach to analyse the interview transcripts, the findings revealed how perceptions of time, meaningful moments and a sense of togetherness are choreographed by slow adventure guides to shape tourists’ psychological wellbeing through immersive guided experiences, ultimately helping tourists to re-establish a much-yearned-for connection with nature. The study adds to tourism, wellbeing and sustainability literature by providing new perspectives on psychological wellbeing through guided slow adventures. In particular the findings contribute to positive tourism, or tourism and positive psychology field of research, by revealing how mindful and eudaimonic visitor experiences are organised by adventure tour guides in natural settings.
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