The Impact of Adventure Based Activity at Malaysian National Service Training Programme on Team Cohesion: A Demographic Analysis.

The present study examines the effects of physical module elements (adventure based activity) included in the Malaysian National Service Programme and to investigate the socio-demographic variables impact on team cohesion building among the participants. In this study, the participants were selected from three different camps, namely, Tasoh camp, Guar Chenderai camp and Meranti camp, located in the state of Perlis, Malaysia. The participants were those from the second batch intake in the year 2007. The sample sizes comprised of 994 participants (480=males, 514=females). The present study applied a pre-test and post-test design. The group was tested before and after the programme. This design was chosen because it could measure the impacts of the adventure-based activity towards team cohesion over time through the pre- and post-test scores (Berg & Latin, 2004). The variables comprised of the demographic factors (age, gender and place of residence), which included team cohesion were measured by Group Environmental Questionnaire (GEQ) (Carron, Widmeyer, & Brawley, 1985). Results indicated that the participants of the National Service Training Programme underwent group cohesion change during the Physical Module activities (adventure based activities) that were carried out at the camp. The changes were observable based on the statistically analyzed data during the pre and post-test.