Research

Staff research interests

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Dr Pete Allison FRGS

Depute Director of Postgraduate Studies / Senior Lecturer

Sport, Physical Education and Health Sciences (SPEHS)

Email: Peter.Allison@ed.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6001

Location:

St Leonard's Land (Rm 4.13), Holyrood Road

Background

My main interests are around values and experiential learning. I am particularly interested in expeditions and the kinds of experiences that people report to be significant. My research is primarily qualitative and/or philosophical in nature although in recent years I have collaborated with others to undertake mixed methods research. My research was entered in RAE 2001, 2008 and will be entered in REF 2014.

Knowledge exchange regarding expeditions is an area that I am committed to and in 2011 co-founded expeditionresearch.co.uk for this purpose. More recently I have been working with students and organisations to undertake small scale research projects (recently on cross cultural expeditions in the Desert and through sailing and on volunteer motivations).

Since 2010 I have been responsible for developing and running courses for almost all MSc students in the School of Education. These three courses focus on how to read journal articles and how to undertake research. The courses use a blended learning format (sometimes known as the ‘flipped classroom’) and I have become interested in how students experience such alternative approaches to pedagogy. I am increasingly interested in the internationalisation of higher education and the influence of this on pedagogy and cross-disciplinary learning and am working on a research project funded by the Principles Teaching Award Scheme (with colleagues Dr Ken Fordyce and Dr Rory Ewins) titled: A Longitudinal Study Investigating Student Perspectives on Generic Research Methods Courses.

Recent research has been on

Connecting Cultures (Oman) – I am working on research on cross cultural education through journeys in the Wahabi sands with young people. This connects to my work with the Centre for Education and Race Equality in Scotland (CERES).
Sail Training - I have a strong relationship with Sail Training International and advise them on research and youth development.
British Association of Snowsport Instructors (BASI) - I lead a collaboration to credit rate all of their courses using the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF).
Expeditionary Learning: Personal Development on BSES Expeditions – using Self Determination Theory

In addition I serve on the Strategic Advisory Group for Duke of Edinburgh Award Scotland and am a trustee for the Spirit of Adventure Foundation.

I love to spend time in the wilderness and am an enthusiastic skier and mountaineer. I have spent lots of time leading expeditions in Greenland and the Himalayas and am interested in the way such experiences can contribute to values formation, reflection and dialogue. To make sense of this I have drawn on work by, among others, Aristotle, John Dewey, Charles Taylor and Alistair MacIntyre.

In the past I have worked for Outward Bound (hence my interest and book on Kurt Hahn), Indiana University and served on the Board of Directors for the USA based Association for Experiential Education (AEE), the expeditions committee for the British Schools Exploring Society (now BES). I am a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and founder of the Journal Of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.

I am a reviewer for the following Journals:

Annals of Leisure Research
Australian Journal of Outdoor Education
Cambridge Journal of Education
Environmental Education Research
European Physical Education Review
Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Leadership
Journal of Experiential Education
Journal of Leisure Research
Journal of Leisure Studies
Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change
Journal of Youth Studies
Qualitative Research
Quest: Official Journal of National Association of Kinesiology and Physical Education in Higher Education
Youth and Society

See you on:

Linked in

Adademia.edu

Principal interests

Youth Development through Sail Training
Cross Cultural Education through experiential learning
Expeditions for youth development
Post Expedition Adjustment and reverse culture shock
Ethics and Mountain Tourism
Kurt Hahn, John Dewey
Experiential Learning and Values
Historical developments of experiential adventure learning
Aristotle (especially Phronesis)
Ethical dilemmas in outdoor and experiential education
Self Determination Theory and adventure learning

Expeditions

I have led expeditions to Greenland, central Asia, the Himalayas and Africa.

Reconnaissance, Indian Himalaya 2012

Researcher, Connecting Cultures, Oman, 2012

Chief Leader BSES SW Greenland 2009

Reconnaissance leader SW Greenland BSES 2009

Reconnaissance leader NE Greenland BSES 2007

Expedition Leader Cycling Tibet, Everest, Nepal 2003

Chief Leader BSESE Ladakh 2001

Expedition Leader: Kilimanjaro 2001

Deputy Chief Leader BSES West Greenland 2000

Reconnaissance Ladakh 2000

Reconnaissance leader West Greenland BSES 1999

Expedition leader: Kilimanjaro 1998

Co-leader Himalayan Hand-Cycle Expedition 1997

Chief Mountaineer BSES SW Greenland 1997

Group leader NE Greenland 1990

YSES Kenya 1989

BSES NE Greenland 1988

Current and recent research

PhD Research Student Supervision:

Mark William Baker (UK): The current status and extent of outdoor provision in the UK
Aaron Marshall (USA): Virtue theory & experiential learning in schools
Matthew Pearce (UK School studentship): Physical activity outdoors: Health and well-being implications for young people
Iain Stewart-Patterson (USA): Intuition and decision making in heli ski guiding
Ioanna Papageorgiou (Greece): Cross Cultural Education Processes and Outcomes.
Silvane (Swaziland):the impact of values-based programmes in improving quality teaching
Noor Ali Alghamdi (Saudi Arabia): Intrgrating the use of corpus-based materials into treatment of grammatical errors in L2 writing classes for low-profeciency, first year university students.

Paul Stonehouse (USA): The rough ground of character:
A Philosophical Investigation Into Character

Development, Examining a Wilderness Expedition

Case Study Through a Virtue Ethical Lens
A Philosophical Investigation Into CharacterDevelopment, Examining a Wilderness ExpeditionCase Study Through a Virtue Ethical Lens COMPLETED 2011

Ralf Westphal (Germany): The outcomes of personal development by the use of Outdoor Training - COMPLETED 2011

PhD and EdD Examining:

2012 Randall Williams, University of Exeter, UK
2011 Susanna Ho, La Trobe University, Australia
2010, Geoff Platt, The University of Edinburgh, UK
2008 Shirley Gray, The University of Edinburgh, UK
2008, Christine Nash, The University of Edinburgh, UK
2006 Colin Beard, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
2003 Tracey Dickson, University of Queensland, Australia
2002 Mike Brown, University of Wollongong, Australia

Publications

Publications list for Dr Pete Allison FRGS

Teaching

The Sources of Knowledge: Understanding and analysing research literature

The Nature of Enquiry

Alpine Skiing

MSc Supervision

PhD Supervision