Experiential and Applied Learning
  • Home
  • Higher Education Topics - Blog
  • Applied and Experiential Learning - Blog
  • Research & Teaching Critical Thinking - Blog
  • About
  • Media Coverage
  • Experiential and Applied Learning Examples
    • Experiential Learning Vietnam 2017
    • Monopoly for Teamwork
    • Learning in Hanoi
    • Hanoi Community Service
    • Saigon Starbucks Experience
    • Saigon Class Concert
    • Outside the Classroom

Writing my Experiential Learning Dissertation

4/22/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
The research for my PhD dissertation is almost complete. The analysis starts in one week, along with starting to write. The research subject and questions are:

Exploring definitions and perceived value of experiential learning at an American university in Asia.

1) What definitions of experiential learning are expressed by students, faculty, and administrators?

2) Within a classroom learning context, how do participants describe teaching and learning related to experiential learning? Specifically, how do: 

 a. students describe their own classroom experiences with experiential learning? 

  b. instructors describe their experiences with experiential learning?

 c. administrators describe their understandings of the ways in which instructors and students experience and engage in experiential learning?

3) What value, if any, do students, faculty, and administrators ascribe to experiential learning?

During this research, which involved interviews of students, instructors, and academic administrators, I was impressed by the insights and thoughtfulness of many of the students. Interview questions included asking about the value of experiential learning, its challenges, and definitions from the students' perspectives. Here is one student's statement of value:

"I think it enables me to ... be more adaptable. Yeah, because it puts me in a situation likes there's no predictability. I have no idea what I'm going to face next. So it keeps me on my toes ... enables me to think fast and be more ... malleable, yeah."

Here is another quote from a student who is defining experiential learning:

"I think experiential learning is ... a more active form of learning ... it doesn’t involve just like the lectures and the spoon-feeding that most Asian education systems are like ... Asian education system is ... it’s very common to have the lecture style of teaching in Asian schools, but I feel that the program [I am in now] is more of interactive ... We did class group projects and discussions in class. So it’s more about like an active engagement in the content that we’re learning. It’s not simply just memorizing from the textbooks. So I feel that yeah, it’s like we get to interact first hand with practicalities of the content that we’re learning."

Several students identified social loafers among the challenges of experiential learning. For example:

"I guess one of those would be social loafer where people do not put in as much effort as you do, and perhaps also the level of motivation, because maybe some people are not as motivated to accomplish this task."

There is so much more. For the next two months, I will be analyzing the interview data to code and categorize the interviews, and then to identify themes. Listening to the students during the interviews was a treat. I look forward to revisiting the interview transcripts and the recordings to conduct the analysis. More updates will follow.

Image reference

Bergsteiner, H., et al. (2010). "Kolb's experiential learning model: critique from a modelling perspective." Studies in Continuing Education 32(1): 29-46.
0 Comments

    Paul mcafee

    This blog summarizes research about active and experiential learning that I have read, and research that I have conducted.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    January 2022
    January 2020
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All
    Active Learning
    Analyzing Interview Data
    Coding Interview Data
    EndNote
    Experiential Learning
    Honor Society
    NVivo
    Online Teaching
    Passive Learning
    Paul McAfee
    Problem Based Learning
    Problem-Based Learning
    Project Based Learning
    Project-Based Learning
    Qualitative Data
    Qualitative Research
    Research Interviews
    Research Paradigms
    STEM Higher Education
    Veteran
    Vietnam
    Vietnam Education Foundation
    Voyant Tools

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2013-2019 Paul McAfee
LinkedIn Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/paulmcafee