The Developmental Importance of Success and Failure Experiences at Summer Camp

Abstract

Young people can learn from success and failure. Such experiences are useful in developing skills (e.g., perseverance and coping), and remain essential facets of youth programming. However, success and failure can also impede development. Appraisal theory has been used widely to examine youths' experiences with success and failure in school and sport, yet summer camps represent an important setting where success and failure may look and feel different. In camp settings success or failure are often more subjective and less dependent on objective performance indicators such as grades, wins, or losses. Because of these contextual differences, little is known about youth experiences with success and failure at summer camp. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to use summer camp as a context to describe youths' appraisals of success and failure experiences and the associated development. Findings explain how success and failure at camp can contribute to the positive development of selfefficacy, effective coping, and perseverance. Furthermore, some youth exhibit unproductive responses to failure at camp which may obstruct opportunities for growth. Implications for practice are recommended to help camp staff support young people through failure experiences and to maximize the positive developmental potential of both failure and success at camp.

Evaluation of the Impact of a Summer Construction Camp on Participants' Perceptions

“…Also, it was found that residential camps generate a stronger effect on the relationship between social capital and emotional intelligence than day camps. The effectiveness of summer camps and evaluation of students' success or failure have been investigated in a study conducted by Wilson and Sibthorp (2017) in which they stated that failure experiences are important to realize as such failures can result in unproductive and disrupt youths' engagement in positive youth development frameworks during summer camps.…”