Abstract
Decision making theory has been applied to many facets of professional and group behaviour. However, in the field of outdoor leadership, it is still an emerging theory. Although there is considerable literature regarding decision-making and outdoor leadership, no known research describes the mechanics of how intuition works in decision making process. In outdoor settings, outdoor leaders bear responsibilities of ensuring that their participants remain safe throughout the program. Apart from having technical competencies, an outdoor leader also needs to make appropriate decisions and display good judgement. The purpose of this research was to examine what sort of evaluation processes outdoor leaders use in naturalistic decision making situations, and to investigate how they use intuition and analysis in their evaluation. The research focus was to elicit decision making processes of outdoor leaders through use of a cognitive task analysis technique called Critical Decision Method. Ten experienced outdoor leaders were interviewed and this allowed insights into their evaluation processes in their decision making episodes. The outcomes of the research provided case-based support for both Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model and Dual-process theories. Applications from research findings includes defined strategies that an organisation might want to employ in their training and professional development of future outdoor leaders.