Youth outdoor camps found four key psychological barriers to engagement

A sports-psychology strategy system targets motivation, self-control, competition, and social fit.

This study identified four common psychological problems adolescents face in outdoor camp education: low willingness to participate, weak self-regulation, excessive competition, and difficult interpersonal adaptation. It then built a four-part optimization strategy system aimed at addressing those problems and proposed an integrated implementation model plus an effect evaluation plan across pre-camp, in-camp, and post-camp stages. The work is presented in the journal article [Research on Optimization Strategies of Youth Outdoor Camp Education from the Perspective of Sports Psychology].

Quick summary

What the study found: Four recurring psychological challenges showed up in camp participation—motivation, self-regulation, over-competitiveness, and interpersonal adaptation—and the authors mapped each to a matching strategy area.
Why it matters: Camps don’t just run activities; they shape behavior under stress, feedback, and peer comparison—exactly where motivation and emotion can derail learning and safety.
What to be careful about: The abstract doesn’t report outcome data; it describes a proposed strategy system, an implementation model, and an evaluation plan rather than proven effects.

What was found

The study frames youth outdoor camp education as a mix of nature exposure, sport-like activity, and educational goals, and argues that this setting brings predictable psychological friction points for adolescents. Using on-site investigations and interviews at Fosun Tourism & Culture Mini-Camp, the authors identified four major problems that commonly arise during participation. Those problems were low participation willingness, weak self-regulation, excessive competition, and difficult interpersonal adaptation.

From a sports psychology perspective, these categories matter because they influence how young people approach challenge, handle feedback, and relate to peers. Low willingness to participate can show up as avoidance, minimal effort, or disengagement when tasks feel unfamiliar or risky. Weak self-regulation can appear as poor impulse control, difficulty persisting through discomfort, or trouble managing emotion during setbacks.

Excessive competition is treated as its own risk: when winning becomes the only acceptable outcome, learning and cooperation can collapse, and emotions can spike. Difficult interpersonal adaptation points to problems in fitting into a group, reading social cues, resolving conflict, or feeling accepted. The study’s core move is to treat these as recurring psychological targets that can be addressed systematically rather than as isolated “behavior problems.”

What it means

The most practical takeaway is the study’s four-dimensional optimization strategy system, which links each problem area to a corresponding intervention direction. The four strategy dimensions are motivation stimulation, self-regulation improvement, sports spirit shaping, and social adaptation promotion. In plain terms: get adolescents to want to participate, help them manage themselves once they’re in the activity, channel competitive energy into healthier norms, and build the social conditions that make group-based learning workable.

These dimensions align with well-established psychological principles, though the abstract doesn’t specify particular techniques. Motivation work typically focuses on making goals clear, increasing perceived competence, and improving autonomy so participation feels chosen rather than forced. Self-regulation work often emphasizes planning, emotional control, attention management, and coping skills for frustration—critical in physically and socially demanding environments like camps.

“Sports spirit shaping” signals a values-and-norms approach to competition: encouraging fairness, respect, persistence, teamwork, and rule-following, so competitive drive doesn’t turn into hostility or shame. “Social adaptation promotion” targets group belonging and interaction skills, which can determine whether a camper becomes engaged or withdrawn. Together, these dimensions treat camp performance as the product of both individual skills and the social climate created by staff and peers.

Where it fits

The study positions outdoor camp education as a developmental context, not merely recreation. Adolescence is a period where motivation becomes more internally negotiated, peer evaluation intensifies, and emotion regulation skills are still consolidating. That mix makes camps a high-visibility test of self-control, resilience, and social skill because demands are immediate and feedback is often public.

Sports psychology offers a ready framework because camps share core features with sport: structured activities, physical exertion, coaching or instruction, performance comparison, and team dynamics. When adolescents struggle in these contexts, the issue is often not “lack of character” but a mismatch between demands and skills. A strategy system helps leaders treat common patterns proactively rather than reacting after a conflict, dropout, or meltdown.

Importantly, the abstract indicates the study aims to support professional development in the camp industry by integrating sports psychology with camp education. That implies an emphasis on operationalizable models—how to plan, implement, and evaluate—rather than only describing problems. As a journal article, it reads as a practice-oriented framework: identify recurring challenges, design a structured response, and plan evaluation across stages of the program.

How to use it

The study proposes an integrated implementation model and an effect evaluation plan spanning pre-camp, in-camp, and post-camp stages. While the abstract doesn’t list the steps, the staging itself is a useful template: prepare campers before they arrive, shape behavior and climate during the program, and reinforce gains after the program ends. This reduces the common failure mode of treating camp as a one-off experience where skills vanish once normal life returns.

Pre-camp, the most logical use of the framework is screening and expectation-setting around the four risk areas. For motivation, clarify what success looks like beyond “winning” and connect activities to personally meaningful goals. For self-regulation, set simple routines and coping plans in advance (for example, what to do when overwhelmed, how to ask for a break, and how to rejoin the group without losing face).

In-camp, leaders can map daily practices to each dimension. Motivation stimulation can be supported by specific, timely feedback that emphasizes progress and competence. Self-regulation improvement can be supported by structured pauses for reflection after challenges, short goal check-ins, and coaching in calm-down strategies when emotions spike.

Sports spirit shaping becomes concrete when staff consistently reward prosocial competitive behaviors: effort, fair play, respect for rules, and support for teammates. It also requires predictable consequences when competition becomes harmful, so the group learns boundaries. Social adaptation promotion often hinges on group structure—pairing, small-team stability, rotating roles—so adolescents have repeated chances to belong, contribute, and repair ruptures.

Post-camp, the model’s value is in follow-through. If camps want developmental outcomes, they need a bridge back to school and family contexts where habits are maintained or lost. Even a brief, structured debrief that highlights what the camper learned in motivation, self-control, competition, and social adaptation can support transfer. The study’s mention of an effect evaluation plan also signals that programs should measure change, not just satisfaction, though the abstract does not specify metrics.

Limits & what we still don’t know

The abstract describes a systematic analysis, a strategy system, and a proposed implementation and evaluation plan, but it does not report results showing that the strategies improved outcomes. That means readers should treat this as a framework and model proposal grounded in on-site investigations and interviews at a specific mini-camp setting, not as evidence of effectiveness. Without outcome data, we can’t tell which dimension matters most, which techniques work best, or whether benefits persist over time.

We also don’t know how the psychological problems were defined or assessed beyond the investigation and interview approach mentioned. “Low willingness,” “weak self-regulation,” and “difficult interpersonal adaptation” can look different depending on age, context, and cultural norms. The abstract doesn’t specify participant characteristics, staff training level, or how the proposed effect evaluation plan would separate real change from short-term compliance.

Finally, the study is situated at one camp site, and the abstract doesn’t address generalizability across different camp models, durations, or activity types. Camps vary widely in structure, intensity, and staffing, which can change both the frequency of problems and the feasibility of solutions. Future work would need to test the implementation model in varied contexts and report measurable outcomes linked to each strategy dimension.

Closing takeaway

This study’s contribution is a clear map: four common psychological barriers in youth camps paired with four strategy dimensions designed to address them. The proposed pre-, in-, and post-camp implementation and evaluation structure is a practical way to make psychological support systematic rather than ad hoc. Use it as a planning framework now, and look for future evidence that tests whether these strategies reliably improve engagement, self-control, competition norms, and social adjustment.

Data in this article is provided by Semantic Scholar.

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