Use Of Experiential Learning Research Articles

A systematic review of faculty development initiatives designed to improve teaching effectiveness in medical education: BEME Guide No. 8

Background: Preparing healthcare professionals for teaching is regarded as essential to enhancing teaching effectiveness. Although many reports describe various faculty development interventions, there is a paucity of research demonstrating their effectiveness.Objective: To synthesize the existing evidence that addresses the question: “What are the effects of faculty development interventions on the knowledge, attitudes and skills of teachers in medical education, and on the institutions in which they work?”Methods: The search, covering the period 1980–2002, included three databases (Medline, ERIC and EMBASE) and used the keywords: staff development; in-service training; medical faculty; faculty training/development; continuing medical education. Manual searches were also conducted.Articles with a focus on faculty development to improve teaching effectiveness, targeting basic and clinical scientists, were reviewed. All study designs that included outcome data beyond participant satisfaction were accepted. From an initial 2777 abstracts, 53 papers met the review criteria.Data were extracted by six coders, using the standardized BEME coding sheet, adapted for our use. Two reviewers coded each study and coding differences were resolved through discussion.Data were synthesized using Kirkpatrick's four levels of educational outcomes. Findings were grouped by type of intervention and described according to levels of outcome. In addition, 8 high-quality studies were analysed in a ‘focused picture’.Results: The majority of the interventions targeted practicing clinicians. All of the reports focused on teaching improvement and the interventions included workshops, seminar series, short courses, longitudinal programs and ‘other interventions’. The study designs included 6 randomized controlled trials and 47 quasi-experimental studies, of which 31 used a pre-test–post-test design.Key points: Despite methodological limitations, the faculty development literature tends to support the following outcomes:Overall satisfaction with faculty development programs was high. Participants consistently found programs acceptable, useful and relevant to their objectives.Participants reported positive changes in attitudes toward faculty development and teaching.Participants reported increased knowledge of educational principles and gains in teaching skills. Where formal tests of knowledge were used, significant gains were shown.Changes in teaching behavior were consistently reported by participants and were also detected by students.Changes in organizational practice and student learning were not frequently investigated. However, reported changes included greater educational involvement and establishment of collegiate networks.Key features of effective faculty development contributing to effectiveness included the use of experiential learning, provision of feedback, effective peer and colleague relationships, well-designed interventions following principles of teaching and learning, and the use of a diversity of educational methods within single interventions.Methodological issues: More rigorous designs and a greater use of qualitative and mixed methods are needed to capture the complexity of the interventions. Newer methods of performance-based assessment, utilizing diverse data sources, should be explored, and reliable and valid outcome measures should be developed. The maintenance of change over time should also be considered, as should process-oriented studies comparing different faculty development strategies.Conclusions: Faculty development activities appear highly valued by participants, who also report changes in learning and behavior. Notwithstanding the methodological limitations in the literature, certain program characteristics appear to be consistently associated with effectiveness. Further research to explore these associations and document outcomes, at the individual and organizational level, is required.

Use of Experiential Learning in Distance Learning and E-learning of Adults

The evolution of theoretical learning concepts brings new stimuli to lifelong learning practice. One of the new theoretical bases appropriate for adult education is an experiential learning theory which analyses and evaluates educational projects and study materials for distance learning as well as e-learning educational programmes from the standpoint of potential learning effectiveness. At the same time, it can be a gnoseological theoretical basis of designing educational programmes for adults, either on a theoretical basis of distance learning, e-learning, or on the basis of their purposeful integration, which is becoming more and more frequent in andragogy. The study gives general tenets of andragogy, presents the main characteristics of experiential learning along with its two major developmental variants – Kolb’s cycle and Jarvis´ revised model of the processes of learning. It defines the basic features of distance learning and e-learning, and formulates general stimuli how to apply experiential learning within these relatively integral educational technologies. In conclusion, it brings about information on practical use of theoretical approaches to teaching pedagogical subjects within educational programmes at universities.

A preliminary study on the use of experiential learning to support women’s choices about infant feeding

Objective: To assess the impact of experiential learning methodologies in primiparous women on their choice and maintenance of an infant feeding method. Study design: A prospective controlled study into experiential learning methods applied to patients with four months’ follow up. Seventy-three primiparous women attending the antenatal clinic at the West Suffolk Hospital for their 32 weeks check were allocated to two groups on the basis of date of attendance. Multiple pregnancy and serious illness were excluded. Thirty-three women attended a two hour seminar on breast feeding using experiential techniques. Forty had routine antenatal care and acted as controls. Breast feeding rates of the two groups were recorded at various stages. Assessment also included comments from questionnaires. Results: The two groups did not differ significantly in the number of women proposing to breast feed their infants ( Z=−0.0490, P=0.9609) nor in the numbers of women breast feeding on day one ( Z=−0.6203, P=0.5350). There were proportionally more women breast feeding their infants at two weeks ( Z=−1.4944, P=0.1351) in the subject group, but this was not statistically significant. However, the difference at four months was significant, ( Z=−2.5784, P=0.0099), more than double the percentage of controls maintaining some breast feeding to four months in the subject group. Conclusions: Experiential learning was associated with increased rates of prolonged breast feeding, possibly due to increased patient confidence in their choice. This learning approach could be applied to other areas of patient health education.

Canadian supervised pastoral education--affirmations and ethical queries emerging from a two-year study.

Presents the findings of the second phase of a research study carried out in the summer of 1999 and commissioned by CAPPE/ACPEP, and The Churches' Council on Theological Education in Canada. Reports the results of a survey of students who completed a basic unit in Supervised Pastoral Education to identity the self-perceived effects of the unit on their pastoral functioning. Notes that the results of both the first and second phase of the research affirm the use of experiential learning and the success of basic SPE in increasing self-awareness.

Managing conferences in regional areas: a practical evaluation in conference management

The Meetings, Incentive, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) industry has long been recognised as a sector that provides lucrative direct and indirect expenditure for host destinations. Within Australia, Federal and State governments have recognised the opportunity afforded by this sector and have put in place a number of marketing initiatives to attract MICE business to particular high profile destinations. The issue of how regional Australia might benefit from this highly attractive market is only now beginning to be addressed. This paper examines how an Australian regional university with an established reputation for the delivery of MICE‐related subjects introduced the issue of attracting MICE business to a regional area into its curriculum through the use of experiential learning. Students were given responsibility for the planning, management and delivery of a corporate‐style conference titled “Managing Conferences in Regional Areas”, while local MICE industry representatives participated in its delivery.

No More Pencils…No More Books? Arguing For The Use Of Experiential Learning In Post Secondary Environmental Studies Classroom

How to better prepare students to address the environmental problems of the new millennium.

The use of experiential learning to help social work students assess their attitudes towards practice with older people

Many social work students are reluctant to consider entering into practice with older people because of negative attitudes towards older people and old age. Within social work education such negative views are frequently seen as the consequence of ageism, and thus in need of challenging. An understanding of the ageism within society is clearly important. However, there are risks inherent in adopting an ‘anti-ageist’ approach which is predominantly cognitive and impersonal, and which may label students' own feelings as unacceptable. Students may then be unlikely to express or explore their true feelings, and therefore not helped towards changing these attitudes. Experiential and learner-centred formats provide more effective methods for attitude change. Such methods focus on helping students to examine their existing understanding of old age and older people, and the impact these attitudes have on their practice. Two strategies are presented which can assist students in this self-assessment: a repertory grid, and a biographical approach. Their use with a group of first year social work students is discussed.

Experiential learning in a postgraduate project management programme

States that experiential learning, action learning and action research have long been recognized as among the most effective means of acquiring professional education and training. Few tertiary programmes, however, choose to give attention to such “learning by doing”, giving emphasis instead to traditional lecturing and information gathering (highly analytical) approaches. One programme which takes a strong experiential learning approach is the postgraduate project management course conducted at the Queensland University of Technology. The project management course recognizes and aims to develop the technical, financial and legal knowledge and skills, and the specialist people knowledge and practical process skills required to practise effectively as a project manager. Shared expertise comes from the host School of Construction Management and from the School of Social Science. Describes the course and indicates a balance given in training to the academic analytical requirements and to the use of experiential learning and self‐development exercises. These include indoor exercises aimed at developing knowledge of options, the use of questionnaires and the use of outdoor exercises at off‐campus camps aimed at developing self‐ and other‐awareness. Roughly 40 per cent of the course is taught through a mix of experiential and lecturing presentation; the remaining 60 per cent is more traditional in the teaching of the legal and other technical and financial requirements. Discusses the success of the experiential approach for teaching the people side of project management.

Experiential Learning Techniques in Marketing Education

“Experiential Learning Techniques in Marketing Education” examines the comparison of teaching approaches and techniques as well as course format and content of advertising courser. A random sample of 100 advertising professors drawn from the membership list of schools which belong to the American Advertising Federation was utilized to determine how widespread experiential advertising activities are. SAS was used to analyze the data. The results of the survey document widespread use of experiential learning in advertising, yet indicate opportunities for expansion.

Look before You Leap: Knowledge and Learning in Legal Skills Education

In the past three years, skills education has become the vogue topic of legal education. The proliferation of continuing legal education courses and the rise of the in-house trainer1 reflect a growing interest in instructional approaches which emphasize the development of contextualized skills for legal practice. Both the Bar2 and the Law Society3 have thoroughly reviewed their models of education and training, finally implementing the spirit as well as the letter of the recommendations of the Ormrod Report of 1971 that the vocational stage of legal education should be more practically oriented.4 Movement towards the direct teaching and assessment of skills applied in the context of legal knowledge reflects curriculum reform taking place all over the Commonwealth, in particular at the professional stage of legal education.5 Throughout these programmes, skills teaching is characterized by the use of experiential learning, generally role-play, demonstration and/or observation, in which students rehearse the conduct of legal transactions and tasks rather than simply listen to lectures about how to do them. Skills education pays as much or more attention to the processes associated with legal practice how to conduct research in an unknown area, how to structure a letter or a memorandum of advice or a statement of claim, how to interview a client in a manner which will put him at his ease, how to persuade a client that she would do better to settle than to pursue costly litigation as it does to the legal substance of these and other tasks and their end products. If what we understand by 'skills' education includes all forms of experience-based and experience-directed learning, such as mooting, or legal writing and drafting programmes, including what was packaged in earlier days as 'clinical legal education',6 law teachers may be forgiven for pointing out that skills education in law is not really so 'new' at all. What is new however is the widespread and sustained attention skills education is now receiving from both institutions and individuals.

Principles in the use of experiential learning as a source of prior knowledge

The importance of experience and experiential learning is investigated in this report. An attempt is made to chart this concept and attention is paid to the manner in which experience can be measured and be used within the system of higher education. Since distance education attracts many mature adults with experiential learning, an indication is given of the direction that developments should take within Dutch higher education, and in the Open University in particular, in order to make an optimal use of this experience.

Experiential Learning in Planning Education

This paper presents the authors' views on the radical use of experien tial learning in a planning course. The paper begins by comparing the ories of education, explaining what is meant by the radical approach, and arguing for the adoption of such an approach in planning education. A well-known conceptual model of experiential learning is briefly out lined, that of D. A. Kolb, and an illustrative example is given of a particular experience: an intensive five-day workshop which formed the core of a planning course for third- year students at the University of Melbourne. Reflecting upon their own experience, the authors propose a modification to Kolb's model in line with the radical approach. Fi nally they discuss the implications of adopting such an approach in a con ventional academic setting.

Experiential education at the graduate level: A perspective on faculty role and development

Adult development is an implicit component of graduate education. Yet, this idea is often ignored as traditional programs continue to view graduate education as largely a process of intellectual growth, usually detached from other life experience. Sponsored experiential learning provides one context through which adult developmental and intellectual goals may be simultaneously recognized and pursued. Required are a recognition of new roles for faculty and new efforts to help faculty in implementing these roles. The issues surrounding faculty role and faculty development are addressed in the context of a nontraditional graduate program which maximizes opportunities for the use of experiential learning.