#outd2511

*DISCLAIMER: THIS BLOG WAS CREATED FOR OUTD 2511, LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY. THE OPTIONS EXPRESSED HERE ARE MY OWN IDEAS AND NOT THOSE OF LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY. LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY THIS BLOG.*

Prompt: “Firstly, what has drawn you to this academic program? Secondly, as a consumer of knowledge, who do you rely upon for information? Consider perhaps three or more “sources”. How do you ensure this information is reliable? How does this relate to this program?” Prompt Provided by Dr. Amanda Hooykaas.

Answer:

When I was younger, the idea of anything to do with Outdoor Recreation, Parks & Tourism had never crossed my mind, but I knew that I loved being outside. I believe that throughout my life, the journey I’ve been on -- whether it’s through summer camp or maybe even just hiking with my Aunt and her dogs -- has led me to this program. Honestly, before this I thought I wanted to be a novelist, but the second I read what Outdoor Rec, specifically this program, was about, my first thought was “that’s me!”. So everything I did from then on was to get into this program and any other school I got into didn’t matter anymore, Lakehead was the number one prospect. I think I’ve always craved being a part of this world, especially in the deeper sense that this program has to offer. Therefore, to me the only answer that I can provide as to “why?” is that I’m in love with recreation and everything the outdoors has to offer, except for cross-country skiing, I hate it! 

This case study focuses on Agafia Lykov, an old woman who is one of the last Old Believers left in Russia. She lives alone at her family’s homestead in Taiga, Siberia, Russia. Agafia’s father, Karp, decided to leave the city fearing oppression from Stalin, because of his religion, in 1936. The family lived peacefully and alone with nature till 1978, when after ~40 years of isolation, a team of Russian geologists spotted their home from a helicopter and made the trek in to visit them a few days later. The three oldest children died from pneumonia, likely brought by the geologists, and after her father died in 1988, Agafia was the last Lykov alive (VICE, 2013). In 1997, Yerofei Sedov, a retired Russian geologist, moved into a cabin down a hill from Agafia, and they both have been living there since then, alone minus the visits from researchers, park officials, and videographers, like VICE.

This video is created and directed by the American branch of VICE, with support from North Face. The cameraman and their friend are likely from New York, or around there as that is where their journey to Agafia starts. In Moscow, they meet Gleb Lisicakin, the editor for VICE Russia, who acts as their translator and is one of the main people, along with Agafia, to appear in this video. The American filmmakers seem to know very little about Russia; we see them explore Abakan, well they wait for the call about the helicopter and their flight, but we don’t see anywhere in Moscow, minus Gleb talking to the desk attendant at the airport. The invisible backpack of the filmmakers is not directly identified or noted clearly in the video.

Many different research techniques are being employed in the making of this video. The research conducted is qualitative. It is qualitative research as the filmmakers are there to learn more about Agafia and her life, and they don’t have an end goal of what they want to learn or find out an exact result as quantitative research does.

A key ethical consideration that was a part of the production of this film was Agafia possibly not fully understanding that the video and what she was saying would be available to tons of people after it was made and put on YouTube. Agafia has only been to the city five times, and even if she did learn a lot about the technology available the last time she visited, it has likely changed and improved a lot since then, as technology has undergone multiple changes and improvements over the last decade. Along with her limited knowledge of technology and how many people use it, the language barrier between the filmmakers and her could have also affected her understanding of what they were doing even more. Yes, Gleb was there as a translator, but Agafia could have not known or understood all of what he was saying.

If I was given the same opportunity, I would likely also make a video like they did, as with Agafia’s permission you can show her home, along with pictures of her family just as the filmmakers did. Something different I would do is learn more about her daily life and her religion, if she was willing to tell me about it. Agafia also made it very clear she did not want to live in the city, but the filmmakers asked her a lot about if she would move, even after she explained about how she almost died there, which could make living in the city very traumatic for her. I might ask her once just to find out her thoughts on it, but would definitely not ask her again after, and instead focus on different parts of her life. After editing the footage, I would meet with Agafia again to show her the final video and get her opinion on it if she would like anything to not be included, along with asking again if she is still okay with the video being made and published so others can see it.

Reference:

If I was conducting research as a graduated student and had limitless resources, I would choose to research the cognitive and emotional development of teenagers who participate in extreme sports. I’m interested in this topic primarily because it reflects my own teenage years – I did not participate in team sports but did I participate in mountain bike racing and alpine skiing. I’m very curious as to how this choice affected my development and how my background has affected my adult life, not only in my lifestyle choices, but in my emotional regulation and sense of self.

The sports I would focus on are rock-climbing, cross-country mountain biking, alpine skiing, and snowboarding. I think there is a lot of benefit that can be gained from participation in extreme sport and a study on how participation in these sports affects teenagers would help the sports to further join the mainstream and become more normalized. Finances are often a barrier for teens when it comes to participation in extreme sports, so I would specifically hope to see high school students in Thunder Bay benefit from this sport by an increased access to opportunities to try extreme sports. Ideally, more schools would adopt more extreme sports as electives and extracurriculars. Currently, some schools have the option to take skiing or snowboarding as an elective, and most have the option to mountain bike race as an extracurricular. I would want to see snowboarding and skiing be offered as an elective across the board and for mountain biking and climbing to be offered as extracurriculars at minimum.

My reason for focusing on extreme sport is that even at a glance, there is some contrast between extreme sports and team sports. Extreme sports usually involve individual goals rather than teamwork. Extreme sports involve flow states, high competency, and an aspect of danger. Due to their intense nature, extreme sports can be a way of striving for self-actualization and promoting positive personal change. Their uncertain nature provides opportunity for intense cognitive development and emotional dimension (Cohen et. Al, 2018). Teens are known for risk taking behaviours, and channeling those impulses into extreme sports would have positive outcomes.

I would love to study how participating in extreme sport affects a teenager’s sense of self-efficacy, confidence, emotional regulation, and independence, and how these aspects are carried into their adult lives. This tracking would have to take place over a 10-year period, from age 15 -25. This period spans from adolescence until the frontal lobe has fully developed (Arain et. al, 2013), giving a considerable window to see how participation affects the participants as teenagers and the benefits they carry into their adult lives.

My research method would be qualitative and quantitative – I would want to survey the participants twice a year for 10 years. The frequency is due to most extreme sports being weather dependent and therefore having an on and off-season. I want to collect qualitative opinions from the participants themselves, as well as concrete quantitative measures of cognitive development. Having such a long period would require renewed consent as the study continued.

References

Arain, M., Haque, M., Johal, L., Mathur, P., Nel, W., Rais, A., Sandhu, R., & Sharma, S. (2013). Maturation of the adolescent brain. Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment, 9, 449–461. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S39776

Cohen, R., Baluch, B., Duffy, L. (2018). Defining Extreme Sport : Conceptions and Misconceptions. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01974

The Outdoor Recreation program at Lakehead is unique. It allows students that have passions that cross disciplines and extend to various aspects of knowledge to pursue them. Most of the time the passions at first glance do not seem to correlate, but after looking deeper, they blend seamlessly into one another. This is what drew me here in the first place. The ability to continue in the chemistry field and build toward my end goal of becoming an educator all while learning about the outdoors. It seems strange to hear chemistry and the outdoors in the same sentence, but they build on each other through practical applications. For example, learning about the chemical content of nutrients in various food items teaches me which are best to have on trail for optimal nutrition and energy output. Growing up, my parents always pushed me to follow my passion for chemistry as it was safe and provided a guaranteed job where outdoor recreation wasn’t something that seemed to have many jobs that were financially stable. They would still support my passion for the outdoors through hobbies such as hiking, skiing, and outdoor climbing but would say that work and hobbies are different. This program provides me with work that is my hobby and incorporates my passions into one. It did take some time and research to prove to my parents that this program was the best choice for me and my goals, but having the opportunity to cross disciplines and fields was what really sold it. 

Me in approximately 2006 racing my brother down the hill while skiing

Me absolutely in love with Chemistry and seeing it in action in 2017. 

Research is crucial to proving the importance of the outdoors in our everyday lives. There is a prejudice upheld by some that outdoor recreation is not as important as other fields like physics and this must be disproven by providing solid data on its benefits, this is the exact thing I did for my parents’ approval for this program. Having chemistry and education at the same time as outdoor recreation allows me to use skills gained in one area and apply them to another to disprove this prejudice. Such as research and application skills gained in chemistry and education being used to gather information about the positive psychological impacts the outdoors has on individuals, or the economic potential of working in the outdoors. 

Having the scientific practice of proving experimental results in chemistry is extended into finding knowledge that is peer-reviewed and published by an external party. For example, scientific articles that have been peer-reviewed and their data replicated in multiple external trials are much more reliable than one article published by the same company that produces the item and only shows the data from their internal study, especially when the company will make money off of that item. A regular source of information for me is the local news/social media which I cross-reference with another news publication or articles to confirm the information is correct. As well as various journals (e.g. National Geographic) and documentaries as sources and again, cross-referencing the data. Having an analytical thought process from the sciences has supported my education by not taking the first piece of information presented to me as solid truth without finding more data to back it up. Especially throughout the past 2 years, fact-checking information has become much more essential and this has helped grow my love and respect for the outdoor recreation industry even more as data about the importance of the outdoors has been released. 

Being in the program I am in and having the opportunity to cross research fields while pursuing all my passions is something that I never thought I would be able to do for university, which is exactly what drew me here to this program. This program supports all the various paths of research and application in such a freeing way, it makes the Outdoor Recreation program at Lakehead truly unique and is what drew me here.

Agafia is a woman who has been living for almost 70 years in the Siberian wilderness. She was born there in 1944 with her family after they had moved due to the murders of people whose beliefs did align with those of Joseph Stalin. The location is over 160 miles from the nearest town and is only accessible via certain transportation methods, such as helicopter. For the last 25 years she had lived without her family after they passed away, likely due to a virus brought in by geologists. She has lived in almost complete isolation since then, with the exception of one neighbour; Yerofei. Agafia shares personal information of her life experiences both positive and negative with one very strong theme; she does not want to be a part of mainstream society.

I believe the researchers were demonstrating qualitative research with both a case study and ethnography approach. By their fieldwork and the primary researchers completing the documentary, as well as focusing on the way of life (process) rather than receiving an answer to a direct question.

I view the invisible backpack as the researcher's access to high quality material things. The researchers sleep in a high quality tent, wear lots of “The North Face” brand clothing items and reference drinking coffee (a luxury) while Agafia does her morning prayers. I think this is very subtle within the film. I would consider more directly as actively speaking up and referencing their clothing or materials used. From the audience's view, they go about this rather respectfully in regards to Agafia's way of life.

While watching this documentary, I questioned the following when considering ethics in research:

Participants (Agafia & Yerofei) can’t leave as researchers are staying with them until a helicopter returns

Participant (Agafia) starts sharing vulnerable information while researchers have no resources to help with trauma

What are the benefits for Agafia by inviting strangers into her home and way of living? Are there any?

Risk vs benefit (For an example of risk: the geologists that had visited and passed a virus that likely killed most of the family. For an example of potential benefit: Agafia received animals as a form of payment while completing research however what if these brought in animals carried illnesses as well).

*DISCLAIMER: THIS BLOG WAS CREATED FOR OUTD 2511, LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY. THE OPTIONS EXPRESSED HERE ARE MY OWN IDEAS AND NOT THOSE OF LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY. LAKEHEAD UNIVERSITY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY THIS BLOG.*

Prompt: “Outline the case study (who, what, where, when, why, how). Identify the research techniques being employed - to the best of your ability at this point in the term. Determine the invisible backpack of the documentary filmmaker - as best you can. Comment on whether this is directly identified or somehow noted in the film. Describe some key ethics considerations that were made in the production of this film and how they might have been addressed.

‘If you were given the same opportunity (to both research the family and communicate your findings to a larger audience of peers), how would you approach this research assignment? Outline your own identity and “who” you are as a student researcher approaching this topic. What are some key ethical considerations you might have and how might you address them?” (Prompt provided by Dr. Amanda Hooykaas).

Answer: *Trigger Warning: Mention of Assault*

In this study, Surviving in the Siberian Wilderness for 70 Years, a producer from VICE America, John Martin and an editor from VICE Russia, Gleb Lisichkin ventured out into the Mountains of Sayan in Taiga, Siberia. John Martin, not only took a 10 hour flight but another plane and a helicopter trip into the Mountains -- hiking is not an option for these parts in winter. Why? For a woman named Agafia Lykov, who had lived in these Mountains at the time of the study for seventy years. This study took place in 2013. Her family, before the second world war, escaped those who were after the old believers. The old believers were a group of people who were an ultra-orthodox sect of christianity, just before the war Stalin was after them. Many of these old believers still exist today but only in small communities. Agafia was born in these Mountains in 1944 and from the time her family arrived in the Mountains it had been forty years until they had a visitor. When they did, shortly afterwards the three eldest children died from complications from pneumonia. Life for the Lykovs, was difficult with barely having any food to get by Agafia’s mother died in 1961 due to starvation because there wasn’t enough food for both her and her children. 

At this point in the term, I believe that the research conducted in this study is qualitative research. John Martin and Gleb Lisichkin both took the time and effort into making sure that Agafia’s life story was heard. That the struggles she and her family had endured were told in dignity, these researchers took their time to respect Agafia and her way of life, they even brought her a goat and chicken as gifts. I believe that even if it wasn’t stated in the film that it was the intent to perform a qualitative study on Agafia. I think that the ethics behind this research were done in respect to Agafia, especially when it came to speaking on the relationship between her and Yerofei.

What I noticed from the film is that Agafia still held sadness and fear from the past experience with Yerofei, her neighbour. I think that if the researchers had more information on the situation, I think they left it out on purpose, not for Yerofei but for Agafia. Even though they are extremely excluded from technology and the modern world, Agafia seemed as though she still harboured a lot of fear towards Yerofei, despite his physical disabilities. When a person has gone through, what seemed to be an implied assault, the assaulters abilities don’t protect the victims from their own minds. Additionally, Agafia is too kind to let the man rot, her generous heart is what keeps Yerofei alive in the conditions they live in. When it came to the ethics of revealing to the world what may have happened all those years ago, I think they respected Agafias’ right to make her own decisions on reporting the matter. Although she grew up not having access to law enforcement to help her with the situation because they are about 160 miles from the nearest town, access would have been limited due to the harsh environment. Not to mention, that the assault may not have been taken seriously by law enforcement, especially in the time period it occurred.

I think as a student researcher, I may have approached or at least tried to approach it the same way John Martin and Gleb Lisichkin did. However, I would also take into consideration that when most outsiders come, illness is quick to follow because of how isolated she is from the germs in larger communities, her immune system may not be as developed as mine. As a researcher, I try to remain respectful to those who are participating. Respect for others is a large part of my own personal ethics and try to bring that to everything I do, therefore, I bring this to my research. I would apply this by not digging deeper than it seems the participant can handle regardless of my own desire towards the answer. Doing something that would make the participant uncomfortable would be disrespectful towards their life experience and their autonomy. 

Reference:

Three Things I know for certain about outdoor recreation research:

The Importance of Ethics and Protecting the Confidentiality of Participants

From this course, I learned about the importance of ethics and being an ethical researcher. Ethical researchers might not get many rewards and little praise, but that is better than the long list of consequences an unethical researcher can face when caught (Neuman, 2018). The best preparation for ethical behaviour is to internalize a sensitivity to ethical concerns, to adopt a serious professional role, and to interact regularly with other researchers. Moveover, the scientific community demands ethical behaviour without exceptions” (Neuman, 2018). The ethics tutorial by TCPS-2 also taught me a lot about ethics, such as the level of confidentiality needed with participants of many age-ranges, mostly children. The textbook explains what scientific misconduct is, and two forms of it, research fraud and plagiarism. I had heard of plagiarism before, from my other University classes and that blurb in all the syllabuses, but also from an Academic Integrity Matters (AIM) course I did last year.

Invisible Backpacks in Research

Every person has an invisible backpack that affects their life. A person’s invisible backpack can affect, not only other people’s opinions and views of them, but also their own ideals, ideas, and opinions about the world around them, including any research they partake in (Hooykaas, 2022).

My invisible backpack affects and impacts my views and opinions on the things around me.

My Invisible Backpack Photo Credit: Drew Miller, made on Canva

Bad Science: How to spot it

Another thing I learned from this class was Bad Science and how to spot it.

Photo Credits: Hooykaas, 2022

The 12 tips to spotting bad science are:

Sensationalized Headlines

Misinterpreted Results

Conflict of Interests

Correlation & Causation

Speculative Language

Sample Size Too Small

Unrepresentative Samples

No Control Group Used

No Blind Testing Used

‘Cherry-picked’ Results

Unreplicable Results

Journals & Citations

I used these tips for spotting bad articles when writing my final paper for a different class this semester. I searched for keywords and read the abstracts for each one that came up, along with also avoiding the ones with “sensationalized headlines [and titles].”

Three Things I’m still confused about are:

How I will use this knowledge I have gained from this class in my future, as right now I am not planning on going into a career in the research field; I’m leaning more towards the outdoor education field.

Some of the research-related terms and phrases. I have learned many terms from this course, through the textbook and the slides. An example of a phrase I’m confused with is ‘Axial Coding’, which from the textbook is defined as “a second coding of qualitative data after open coding. The researcher organizes the codes, develops linkages among them, and discovers key analytic categories” (Neuman, 2018). Another phrase is ‘Alternative Hypothesis’, and when I looked up the definition in the textbook, I didn’t know one of the words, ‘null hypothesis’, that was part of the definition, so I had to learn what that term meant to figure out what my original confusing term meant. This occurred many times throughout the assigned textbook readings for me.

How to use Tumblr. Before this class, I had never used Tumblr or any blogging platform. I have learned how to post, and repost and reply to other’s posts. One thing that still confuses me about Tumblr is how sometimes when I click on someone’s post or repost to read it, it pops up on the side in a smaller area; I’m not sure why, but it only happens randomly, so it is not too bad.

Three things I know for certain about me as an outdoor recreation researcher:

I prefer to analyze and use qualitative research over quantitative when researching. I don’t mind analyzing numbers and more concrete data, but qualitative data, with its information in words, pictures, sounds, visual images or objects (Neuman, 2018) is more my style.

I currently plan to not go into a career in the research field, more aiming for the outdoor education field. But I have learned that if I am interested in and like the topic I’m researching, whether outdoor-related or not, I will be more excited and passionate about it. For example, when I was writing the script for my podcast group, I was much more excited about writing the sections about ghost towns and shipwrecks over the rest of it.

Three areas I need to spend time developing/learning in order to feel more confident in my skills:

Taking time and having more practice with writing research/survey questions, whether the questions are quantitative or qualitative. I don’t have much practice writing either type of questions, or really any survey research questions before this class.

Organizing my research notes better. I need to spend some time improving my note collecting method, which right now is to put everything in one doc, under general headings and with a certain note to remember which one of my references it came from. This works for some assignments and projects, but for others, that have a lot of research and notes, it is a little confusing.

More confident in myself, in my researching skills and in general. I’m not the most confident person, with my skills and knowledge, or sharing them with others. I have gained some confidence over the last year and a half, as I am still often very quiet, but now I will sometimes offer my opinions and thoughts, more than just when I have to, like after being called on in class.

References:

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 2 Theory and Social Research. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 21 - 40). essay, Pearson.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 4 Reviewing the Scholarly Literature and Planning a Study. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 62 - 79). essay, Pearson.

Neuman, W. L., & Robson, K. (2018). Chapter 5 Designing a Study. In Basics of Social Research Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th Canadian Edition, pp. 79 – 102). essay, Pearson.

For prompt six of the blog posts assignment we are to choose a key thinker to interview on the topic of our podcast assignment. As I am currently in the process of working on my individual podcast I will be completing this assignment for the topic of Group 2, which is “How does rock climbing in Thunder Bay affect the wellbeing of citizens in the community?”

1) For this interview, I think that it would be best to pick an Instructor or employee at the Boulder Bear Climbing Centre, which is located in Thunder Bay. I think that an individual from the Centre would be ideal to interview because of two factors: Firstly, they would likely be interested and experienced with climbing to a certain degree already, and would be knowledgeable on safety procedures, techniques, and locales. Secondly, they would be used to distilling their knowledge down to a beginner level, and explaining it in an effective manner to prospective climbers who visited the gym.

2) Five questions that I would ask an instructor or employee at Boulder Bear would be as follows:

1. How high is the barrier of entry for an individual who has no prior experience with climbing? 

The reason I think it is important to ask a question like this is because if the difficulty of getting into rock climbing technically is too high, then the benefits of actually doing it do not matter, since only a select few people would be able to reap said benefits. 

2. Is rock climbing an economical activity compared to other popular outdoor activities in Thunder Bay?

As with the first question, the benefits of rock climbing for an individuals physical and mental health are moot if the activity breaks the bank when compared to other activities. For example, are the costs of going to Boulder Bear comparable to a traditional gym membership? Is it comparable to the costs of Nordic skiing?

3. Do the benefits of rock climbing outweigh the potential risks involved with it? 

Rock climbing is of course a dangerous activity, and without proper equipment, training, and experience, there are many things which could go wrong during a climb. Risk management is an important aspect of any group activity, but rock climbing in particular has the potential to be extremely dangerous. In a normal setting, is it worth taking these risks for the enjoyment and challenge of the climb?

4. As a physical activity, how does rock climbing promote a healthy lifestyle?

I would ask this question because I believe that it is important to hear from an individual who frequently climbs what kinds of things they feel that they gain from it. Regarding the physical aspect specifically, how does rock climbing frequently affect an individual's day-to-day life? Do people who climb frequently find that they from new habits or rituals off the wall which are beneficial?

5. At a glance, would you say you were generally happier before or after you began rock climbing?

While people may find it difficult to quantify the particular ways in which an activity may be improving their lives, a surefire way to figure out if it has or has not, is to simply ask whether a person feels happier or more content since they began climbing.