Cross-Cultural Evidence on Students' Perceptions of Experiential Learning

Abstract

The experiential learning approach in higher education enables the effectiveness of courses and is particularly important for having a positive influence on students’ engagement in the learning process. This is because it is the learning experience that students tend to assimilate in their quest to develop their knowledge-base. In order to find out how students from United States and Romania perceive the benefits of experiential learning techniques, we conducted a quantitative survey on convenience samples from two higher education institutions, one from Romania and the other from United States and analyzed the results by means of appropriate statistical tests. The results indicate that U.S. students get in contact with experiential learning methods more than the Romanian students, as the American education system represents a model of students-centered setting, where learning through experience is highly supported.