EVALUATING INTERACTIVE AVALANCHE EDUCATION TOOLS

Avalanche fatalities throughout Cascadia are rising as wilderness and "out of bounds" areas become increasingly accessible to amateur recreationists. Easy access to high-quality, affordable equipment has made it easier than ever to venture into potentially hazardous terrain with little to no formal safety training. The unprecedented deaths of 29 people, including seven high school students, in Canadian avalanches in 2003 prompted the avalanche community to begin looking for ways to provide more effective and accessible education material and tools. The Canadian Avalanche Centre (CAC) launched the Avaluator decision-making tool and an online tutorial with interactive terrain and route-identification exercises. Although similar web-based avalanche tutorials are becoming increasingly popular in the avalanche community, their educational effectiveness is unknown, as no studies have directly addressed the mechanisms by which terrain and route-finding exercises that use interactive visualizations impart avalanche knowledge to individuals. The present study explores properties of a web-based interactive interface and its effect on amateur recreationists’ understanding and identification of avalanche hazards. An exercise, incorporating the CAC’s AVALUATOR booklet and an Flash-based interface based on its current training modules, was used to examine 172 participants’ responses to surveys measuring avalanche safety knowledge. The performance of a subset of participants on route-finding and hazard identification tasks was also examined. Survey scores increased significantly after the participants read the AVALUATOR booklet but not after the route-finding exercise. Participants correctly identified only 25% of visible hazards present on a single terrain photograph and route-finding worsened on successive attempts. Analysis suggests 2D representations and hazard feedback, delivered through Flash pop-ups, negatively impacted performance. The present study suggests that the avalanche community may be underestimating the role of visual representations in mediating access to factual and conceptual knowledge by failing to consider how features of visual interfaces, such as feedback, representation, and interaction design may inhibit learning.