The Effect of Anxiety on ML Assessment

Passing my Mountain Leadership (ML) Summer assessment entailed suffering the largest amount of anxiety I have ever experienced. Apparently for me, severe nerves can result in crying for no apparent reason.

Nerves can be a good thing; they are part of our natural fight or flight instinct and can increase focus, enthusiasm and energy towards an objective. Nerves can however inhibit performance due to some of the symptoms being sweating, difficulty concentrating and feeling sick (University of Wolverhampton, 2008).

Before Assessment

The ML assessment looks at a number of different aspects including navigation, rope work, river crossings, weather, leadership, general enthusiasm and motivation towards the mountains and an up to date logbook containing experience in different mountainous areas around the UK (Mountain Training, 2013). Some aspects of the ML are unpracticed due to them being for emergencies. Queue my mum and I getting very strange looks from passersby as we practiced rope work on a steep bank near a busy footpath and wading through a two metre wide trickle (a very dangerous 10cm deep) a number of times pretending it was a lot deeper. In general I came to the conclusion that I might be ready, so booked the assessment for a month later.

The Week Before Assessment

In preparation a friend of mine and I went to Snowdonia for a few days the week before. We wondered in the rain and mist up Carnedd Dafydd looking for river sources, little spurs and walls; had an entertaining climb up Tryfan (unsurprisingly in the rain), with two elderly guys informing us that “Did you know there is a path here?” as we were scrambling towards Heather Terrace, then on day three were treated to beautiful dry weather as we went up Y Foel Goch.

View from Y Foel Goch

The aim was to practice and calm my nerves for the following week. Different people respond differently to nerves depending on their personality trait anxiety, fear of failure, internal factors such as how tired they are and external factors of perceived pressure from other people. The body’s responses to these causes are split into two categories, somatic and cognitive. Somatic responses are behavioral and physiological. Behavioral responses include being fidgety, issues with coordination and accuracy, and physiological responses include increased heart rate and stomach butterflies. This therefore explains the previously mentioned crying that I experienced during the week before assessment. During fight or flight situations the body shuts down unnecessary physiological actions such as your immune system, which is why people get ill during exam season. There are a number of solutions to anxiety including relaxation techniques (deep breaths, stretching) and visualizing techniques. When I get really nervous, to reduce nerves I remind myself that it’s not going to kill me and I will still be alive when it’s over. 

Assessment Week

The first morning of my ML assessment was awash with anxiety symptoms where I woke up way too early and just about managed to eat breakfast. After an introduction we went up Moel Siabod each leading a leg doing micro navigation. Even though I was ridiculously anxious before starting my assessment thankfully all my nerves went as soon as I started. Nerves can be useful at times and proper preparation can help to prevent them, as you feel in control and confident about a situation, meaning you are more likely to succeed (The 5 P's).

The 5 P's

The rest of the week went by in a haste plants, camp craft, equipment and folk lore; walking up steep terrain, getting confused, seeing the Tour of Britain ride past and fixing problems. During the assessment I tried not to think too much about the outcome of the week and just concentrate on the issues at hand. This is an anxiety reduction technique called thought stopping, where you force yourself to stop thinking about the issue that is on your mind. However research has found that this technique leads to thought increase or rebound later on, as when you try to suppress a thought you are more likely to think about it and pay more attention to it (Leahy, 2010).

References

Leahy, R. (2010) Why Thought Stopping Doesn’t Work. Available: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anxiety-files/201007/why-thought-stopping-doesn-t-work [accessed: 13/11/2013].

Mountain Training. (2013) Mountain Leader Award. Available: http://www.mountain-training.org/award-schemes/mountain-leader- [accessed: 31/10/2013].

University of Wolverhampton. (2008) Dealing with Nerves. Available: http://www.wlv.ac.uk/default.aspx?page=26709 [accessed: 31/10/2013].

Feedback And It’s Affect On Motivation

When leading any group it’s important to remember to think about the affect feedback can have on individuals and their motivation. Harackiewicz (1979) stated that positive feedback can enhance intrinsic motivation.

Basset's Cover - The start location

 

Recently I was helping to lead a group of Scouts on a two day expedition around Cornwall. During the two days a couple of the group members were particularly struggling. For those members it was important to keep them motivated and moving, which was done through giving them feedback as to how they were doing. It was also important to keep the other members who weren’t struggling motivated as they were getting annoyed at the people who were struggling.

All the members of the group will have experienced different types of feedback during the walk including intrinsic, extrinsic, positive, negative, terminal and concurrent (BrianMac, 2012). Intrinsic feedback will have come from what the individuals body was telling them to do through balance, joints and muscles (BrianMac, 2012). The Scout members may have had intrinsic feedback telling them that their legs ached. Extrinsic feedback comes from sources outside of the body (BrainMac, 2012) such as us leaders telling them that how they were doing. Positive and negative feedback is fairly self explanatory with the feedback either being to inform the individual how well they were doing or how they could improve (BrianMac, 2012) such as telling the ones who were struggling that they were doing a good job, or that the ones who weren’t struggling needed to be more considerate to other team members. Terminal feedback is given before and after the individual performs (BrianMac, 2012) so during the two days it was giving feedback at the end of the day and then in the morning, before starting to walk again. Then concurrent feedback is given whilst the individual is performing (BrianMac, 2012), so during the weekend it would have been during the day whilst walking.

During the weekend all the previous mentioned types of feedback were used, all of the time combining the different types of feedback. For instance on the second day about half the way through, one of the guys was really struggling even with one of the other leaders carrying his bag and having gained two walking poles to help him. At this point the rest of the group needed more feedback than the guy struggling, because they were getting annoyed and being impatience, by showing their aggravation and not waiting. The feedback given was mixing concurrent, extrinsic and negative; as the feedback provided was during the activity, not from within their body and negative, to say what they needed to improve, to increase their team work and the group’s overall motivation.

To keep the group motivated throughout the two days, a mixture of the different types of feedback, needed to be given to keep the group together and moving, whilst also motivating each other. This factor is important when leading any group as from experience, group members are more motivated by their peers than their leaders.

Maenporth Beach - The end location (Helpful Holidays, 2012)

References

BrianMac (2012) Information Feedback. [online] Available: http://www.brianmac.co.uk/infofb.htm [date accessed: 9 May 2012]

Harackiewicz, J M. (1979) ‘The Effect of Reward Contingency and Performance Feedback on Intrinsic Motivation’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37 (8), 1352-1363.

Helpful Holidays (2012) Maenporth 2012. [online] Available: http://www.helpfulholidays.com/property.asp?ref=S39&year=2012#MAENPORTH BEACH_1_DSC04716(with text) [date accessed: 9 May 2012]

Leadership Styles – Hersey and Blanchard

              There are a number of different leadership styles that can be effectively used, when leading groups in the mountains. Hersey and Blanchard (no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied) state that there are four main styles of leadership called telling, selling, participating and delegating. A leader should change between the styles, depending on the group’s maturity, experience and the task. The different styles place different emphasis on the task or the relationship with the leader, depending on what the situation requires (Hersey and Blanchard, no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied).

Recently I was leading a group on Bodmin Moor; during the day I used most of the leadership styles stated. At the beginning of the day I gave a brief as to what was going to happen, by using a telling method of leadership, where I told the students exactly what to do and how to do it (Hersey and Blanchard, no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied). However before we started walking I used a delegation style, where I handed responsibility to the group and monitored there progress (Hersey and Blanchard, no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied), by asking them to locate and plan the next leg. I then asked a group member to lead the leg, with them having the responsibility of getting to our first location.

The style of setting out a clear objective then delegating the responsibility to an individual on each leg worked well with the group, as it was easy to assess who needed help, and stopped a certain amount of following the rest of the group.

Certain aspects of navigation needed to be taught or refreshed. I tried to use a selling style of teaching, where I gave them the information needed but allowed for the group’s input. The aim of the selling style is to ‘sell’ the message to the group and get them on the side of the leader (Hersey and Blanchard, no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied). As the day went on this style worked better as the group started to know what I was teaching and could input more answers themselves.

The participating style of leadership means that the leader focuses on the relationship with the group and less on the direction of the task. In this style the leader works with the team and shares the responsibility of decision making (Hersey and Blanchard, no date supplied, cited in Mind Tools, no date supplied). This style wasn’t needed with the group on Bodmin Moor, as the aim was for the group to learn more navigation skills not to be friends with the leader, or their peers who they already knew.

On reflection if I was with a group for a longer period of time, more emphasis needs to be placed on the participation style, to allow for better understanding of the group members.

References

Cap Members (2000) Fundamentals of Leadership [online]. Available: http://www.capmembers.com/prof_dev_modules/cap_lesson_01/lesson1_html/lesson1.htm [date accessed: 14 March 2012]

Mind Tools (no date supplied) The Hersey – Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory [online]. Available: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_44.htm [date accessed: 14 March 2012]

Ordnance Survey (2012) Bodmin Moor - Bing Maps [online]. Available: http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=Z9LH4 [date accessed: 18 March 2012]

The Learning Process of Bloom's Taxonomy

Each person has a different way of learning. The process they consciously go through to learn information can be more affective for one person, than another, this should be remembered when teaching.

Bloom (1956, cited in Clark, 2010) came up with a theory that looks at the unconscious and conscious thought processes that take place, when recalling learnt information, to then gain new knowledge.

 Blooms (1956, cited in Clark, 2010) Taxonomy of Learning Domains can be related to my group navigating, on the recent trip to Snowdonia. When climbing Pen yr Ole Wen, a member of the group needed to be walked down due to injury. Whilst this was taking place, I asked the rest to locate where we were, as it was a slightly challenging place to find.

To start with the group were on the knowledge aspect of the taxonomy, recalling what they had already learnt (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010), such as how to use a map and compass. The group members then moved onto comprehension, where they understood what was being asked and changed it into their own words to better understand (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010). Application of the information was then used (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010) to apply it to the location and situation.

The group then analysed my description of where we had been (the information) and the sight of what was around them (the context) and related them to each other. Where initially it may not have corresponded, through logic they relooked at the information and the context to solve problems (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010). Before the group could finalise where they were, they would have synthesised by putting the information given by me and the information there sight was telling them together, to create a new meaning, or location in this instance (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010). Having discovered there location, the group then evaluated the information’s usefulness and how it then related to the location that was being headed for (Bloom, 1956, cited in Clark, 2010).

Anderson (no date supplied, cited in Clark, 2010) however later disagreed with Bloom stating that the terminology needed to be revised and that the order needed to also be different. Anderson (no date supplied, cited in Clark, 2010) stated that evaluating information came before synthesis (creating). This new revised order of learning domains can also be easily transferred to locating on Pen yr Ole Wen, as the information’s usefulness could have been considered, before a location was found.

On reflection Bloom’s theory explains the process that group members would have gone to come to a conclusion. In the future with this theory in mind, I could use words and phrases to prompt the process, to be more consciously thought about, resulting in the process speeding up. For instance saying, “think about what is around and where we’ve been. Compare them, to how they are on the map”, may speed up the analysis and synthesis process.

References:

Clark, D. (2010) Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains [online]. Available: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html [date accessed: 6th. December 2011]

Comfort Zones, Adventure Paradigm and Experiential Learning

Leadership in the mountains has to be flexible to adjust to the ever changing environment, however this doesn’t change the fact that you always reflect on past situations and think that you could have done something differently. For instance on a recent trip to Snowdonia when climbing Pen yr Ole Wen even though it is a steep sometimes scrabble slope no learning took place.

This is likely to have occurred because all members of the group and us two leaders, were well within our comfort zones. In Senninger’s (2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008) Learning Zone Model the comfort zone is important, as is gives us a safe place to return to. However in order to learn we need to be in the learning zone, outside the comfort but, not into the panic zone (Senninger, 2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008). Being in the comfort zone, resulted in a lack of learning taking place, as the steep ground location was too comfortable and familiar to our group members, all of whom climb regularly. For learning to take place we as leaders would have needed to be in our comfort zones whilst, group members needed to be in the learning zone. With both the leaders, and the group members being of equal competence on steep ground, us as leaders had the inability to push group members into the learning zone.

(Senninger, 2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008)

The situation can also be related to Priest’s (1990, cited in Neill, 2007) adventure paradigm. Both leaders, and the group were in adventure, however for learning to take place the group members needed to be in peak adventure (Priest, 1990, cited in Neill, 2007). For this to take place we as leaders would need to be of a much higher competence than the group. We would have ideally been in exploration and experimentation or adventure, to then take the group into situations that they deem as risky, so that they could learn from the situation.

(Priest, 1990, cited in Neill, 2007)

Gibbons and Hopkins (1980, cited in Neill, 2005) created a ten step scale of experiential learning; with one being that somebody is stimulated and receptive by seeing something on TV or in pictures, and ten being that tasks can be completed, with maturity and others can learn at the same time. I believe that when climbing Pen yr Ole Wen as leaders we were on stage four where we analysed the situations and experience (Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005). I believe our group members however, were on stage three, where they were playing and exploring in the situation but not necessarily learning much from it (Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005).

(Gibbons and Hopkins, 1980, cited in Neill, 2005)

On reflection to become a better leader additional time in the hills will improve my competence and confidence, which then gives me the ability to push my group further, to enable them to learn and gain more from the experience by being in peak adventure and in the learning zone.

References:

Gibbons and Hopkins (1980, cited in Neill, 2005) Scale of Experientiality. [on-line] Available: http://wilderdom.com/theory/ScaleOfExperientiality.html [date accessed: 2nd December 2011]

Priest, S. (1990, cited in Neill, 2007) The Adventure Experience Paradigm. [on-line] Available: http://wilderdom.com/philosophy/PriestAdventureExperienceParadigm.html [date accessed: 2nd December 2011]

Senninger. (2000, cited in ThemPra, ca 2008) The Learning Zone Model. [on-line] Available: http://social-pedagogy.co.uk/concepts_lzm.htm [date accessed: 2nd.  December 2011]

Aims for the year

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my blog. Throughout the year I will be reflecting on different leadership styles that I have used and looking at how I can then do things differently in the future to improve my leadership.

By the end of the year I aim to be well on my way to getting my Mountain Leadersip qualification to do this I will need to:

• Improve my micronavigation, especially in low visability
• Feel more confident in what I am already doing
• Spend as much time in the hills as possible to practice skills