Challenges Should Match Skills
[abstract only; full text not retrieved, 2026-10-20] Lovoll, H. S., & Vittersoe, J. (2014). 'Can Balance be Boring? A Critique of the "Challenges Should Match Skills" Hypotheses in Flow Theory.' Social Indicators Research, 115(1), 117-136. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0211-9. two field studies on outdoor students. Study 1 followed 64 first-year sport and outdoor students across a three-day coastal trip and a three-day ski trip, 698 single reports at 76 per cent compliance; Study 2 followed 26 second-year outdoor students on a five-day glacier course, 260 reports at full compliance. Multiple regressions with challenges, skills and their interaction found no support for the challenge-skill ratio shaping subjective experience. The experience fluctuation model, the Milan group's eight-channel refinement, explained 2% of the variance in pleasure and 3% of the variance in interest in Study 1. The two points the article carries: neither flow indicator peaked when challenges and skills were balanced, and the findings challenge the widespread idea that flow arises when challenges and skills are harmonised. BOUND AS ITS OWN READERS BOUND IT: outdoor students on trips.
[abstract only; full text not retrieved, 2026-10-20] Lovoll, H. S., & Vittersoe, J. (2014). 'Can Balance be Boring? A Critique of the "Challenges Should Match Skills" Hypotheses in Flow Theory.' Social Indicators Research, 115(1), 117-136. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0211-9. two field studies on outdoor students. Study 1 followed 64 first-year sport and outdoor students across a three-day coastal trip and a three-day ski trip, 698 single reports at 76 per cent compliance; Study 2 followed 26 second-year outdoor students on a five-day glacier course, 260 reports at full compliance. Multiple regressions with challenges, skills and their interaction found no support for the challenge-skill ratio shaping subjective experience. The experience fluctuation model, the Milan group's eight-channel refinement, explained 2% of the variance in pleasure and 3% of the variance in interest in Study 1. The two points the article carries: neither flow indicator peaked when challenges and skills were balanced, and the findings challenge the widespread idea that flow arises when challenges and skills are harmonised. BOUND AS ITS OWN READERS BOUND IT: outdoor students on trips.
Written from the abstract only; full text not retrieved, 2026-10-20.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Hypotheses in Flow Theory.' Social Indicators Research, 115(1), 117-136.