Search Results (15)

Experiential learning involves gaining knowledge and understanding from real-life experiences, which helps develop new theories through fresh insights. Kolb described learning as the process of creating knowledge through transforming experience. Its main idea is that challenges and experiences, followed by reflection, lead to learning and growth. An experiential learning module (ELM) is a type of simulation that replicates a real-world situation, simplified to help participants understand complex problems from their perspective. It is based specifically on Kolb’s experiential learning cycle. ELMs use pictures, videos, and voice-over presentations to create a rich, contextually relevant, vicarious learning experience for classroom learners. In this study, the main ELM developed in Haiti was based on Kolb’s learning cycle. The primary goal of the ELM was to help global agriculturalists tackle complex issues related to food insecurity in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to explain what experiential learning modules are and how to implement them in a study abroad program. An ELM on plantain production in Haiti was used as a case example. Students completed pre- and post-reflection surveys to evaluate their initial assumptions, expectations, and knowledge about the subject, as well as what they learned. A learning assessment measured their understanding of the ELM content. By analyzing the participants’ comments, the instructional approach proved effective in providing a vicarious experience within the classroom. The results from the initial classroom use of the banana and plantain learning module, along with student reactions, offered valuable feedback that led to proposed revisions and improvements to the tool. Full article

Experiential education that connects students with nature and well-being offers a powerful approach to advance sustainability education. Beyond individual benefits, cultivating meaningful human–nature relationships is foundational to fostering environmental stewardship—an increasingly urgent global priority. Universities can play a critical role in preparing students for both professional success and civic, social, and environmental responsibility. This exploratory study examined which components of an experiential learning course most strongly influenced students’ understanding of nature as an asset for their well-being. The course, delivered at a satellite mountain campus of a U.S. university, incorporated Kolb’s stages of experiential learning through forest bathing, reflective journaling, and group outdoor activities. Semi-structured interviews with participants revealed that the coupling of course content with direct experiences in nature, learning alongside peers, and limited technology use were among the most impactful elements. These findings demonstrate that experiential learning environments that intentionally align theory with experience—and situate students in immersive, socially rich, and technology-limited settings—can deepen personal well-being and sustainability understanding. Higher education should embrace nature-based experiential learning to prepare environmentally responsible, critically reflective, and socially connected graduates capable of contributing to a more sustainable future. Full article

The rapid advancement of Industry 4.0 and digital transformation is significantly impacting various sectors. Enabling digital technologies, such as big data, machine learning, and the Internet of Things, is becoming increasingly prevalent in industry. However, engineering curricula often fail to keep pace with these swift changes. This study, grounded in Kolb’s experiential learning theory, investigates the integration of enabling digital technologies into final academic projects for industrial engineering students to enhance their competencies through practical experience with affordable technologies. It presents a case study on the design of access control systems using Android, NFC, and Arduino. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, two projects are highlighted: one implementing an integrated parking access control system with NFC payment, and the other focusing on appointment management for access to services. A total of 50 industrial engineering students evaluated both projects, showing a high level of interest and a desire for similar future implementations. The findings indicate that integrating Industry 4.0 technologies into final academic projects effectively bridges the gap between industry requirements and engineering education, enhancing students’ technical skills through experiential learning. Full article

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into higher education offers new opportunities for inclusive and sustainable learning. This study investigates the impact of an AI-enabled microlearning cycle—comprising short instructional videos, formative quizzes, and structured discussions—on student engagement, inclusivity, and academic performance in postgraduate management education. A mixed-methods design was applied across two cohorts (2023, n = 138; 2024, n = 140). Data included: (1) survey responses on engagement, accessibility, and confidence (5-point Likert scale); (2) learning analytics (video views, quiz completion, forum activity); (3) academic results; and (4) qualitative feedback from open-ended questions. Quantitative analyses used Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, regressions, and subgroup comparisons; qualitative data underwent thematic analysis. Findings revealed significant improvements across all dimensions (p < 0.001), with large effect sizes (r = 0.35–0.48). Engagement, accessibility, and confidence increased most, supported by behavioural data showing higher video viewing (+19%), quiz completion (+21%), and forum participation (+65%). Regression analysis indicated that forum contributions (β = 0.39) and video engagement (β = 0.31) were the strongest predictors of grades. Subgroup analysis confirmed equitable outcomes, with non-native English speakers reporting slightly higher accessibility gains. Qualitative themes highlighted interactivity, real-world application, and inclusivity, but also noted quiz-related anxiety and a need for industry tools. The AI-enabled microlearning model enhanced engagement, equity, and academic success, aligning with SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). By combining Cognitive Load Theory, Kolb’s experiential learning, and Universal Design for Learning, it offers a scalable, pedagogically sustainable framework. Future research should explore emotional impacts, AI co-teaching models, and cross-disciplinary applications. By integrating Kolb’s experiential learning, Universal Design for Learning, and Cognitive Load Theory, this model advances both pedagogical and ecological sustainability. Full article

This study investigates the effectiveness of designing a gamified Virtual Reality (VR) intervention, grounded in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory, in enhancing social reciprocity, affective expression, and daily living skills among Thai children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Utilizing the Meta Quest 2 headset, the intervention simulated five real-world contexts—home routines, classroom behavior, street crossing, supermarket shopping, and fast-food interactions. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design was employed with 33 children aged 6–12, complemented by thematic analysis of caregiver and therapist interviews. Results from the Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Edition (SRS-2), indicated significant improvements in social communication (p = 0.001) and social motivation (p = 0.045), while changes in social awareness (p = 0.233) and repetitive behaviors (p = 0.169) were not statistically significant. However, an ANCOVA analysis controlling for pre-test scores found that the difference in post-test outcomes between the intervention and control groups did not reach statistical significance (p = 0.073), suggesting that observed improvements may be influenced by baseline variability. Qualitative feedback highlighted the program’s engagement value, cultural relevance, and usability, alongside suggestions for increased adaptivity and contextual nuance. These results underscore the potential of VR-based learning while highlighting the need for further research with larger samples and more adaptive systems. These findings offer practical insights for educators, researchers, teachers, and program developers by demonstrating how culturally grounded, gamified VR interventions when guided by experiential learning principles can effectively enhance engagement and support targeted social skill development in children with ASD. Full article

Virtual reality offers unique opportunities to personalize learning by adapting instructions to individual learning styles. This study explores the relationships between learning styles, cognitive load, and learning outcomes in a virtual reality environment designed for engineering education. Drawing on Kolb’s experiential learning theory, the research investigates how immersion and flow, in relation to learning styles, influence learning outcomes within the Submarine Simulator, an educational tool for underwater engineering. To enhance instructional design in virtual reality, this study proposes to aggregate existing and validated models, such as Kolb’s framework, to develop new models tailored specifically for learning environments in virtual reality. This research aims to highlight the interplay of these variables in a learning process focused on acquiring knowledge in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields, specifically hydrodynamics, through designing and operating a simulated submarine model in virtual reality. A cohort of 26 students from MINES Paris—PSL participated in a three-phase testing process to evaluate the effectiveness of original virtual reality software designed to support learning in underwater engineering. The findings enhance our understanding of how learning styles influence learner engagement and performance and how virtual reality environments can be optimized through adaptive instructional design guided by these novel models tailored specifically for such immersive settings. Full article

Background/Objectives: End-of-life care is a vital part of nursing education that has been overlooked until recent years. Advance care planning should be incorporated into the prelicensure nursing curriculum to build student nurses’ confidence in aiding patients and families with their preferred future care plans. Advance care planning tools, such as the Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD) and Five Wishes, provide experiential learning opportunities that bridge theoretical knowledge with real-world patient advocacy. In this study, students were asked to complete either the AHCD or Five Wishes document as though planning for their own end-of-life care, encouraging personal reflection and professional insight. Embedding these assignments into nursing education strengthens students’ confidence in facilitating end-of-life discussions. This study applied Kolb’s experiential learning theory, including concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation, to explore student nurses’ perspectives on the Advance Health Care Directive and Five Wishes assignments, as well as their understanding of end-of-life care. Methods: This study used an exploratory–descriptive qualitative design featuring one open-ended question to collect students’ views on the assignments. Results: The final sample comprised 67 prelicensure student nurses from Bachelor of Science and Entry-Level Master’s programs. The Advance Health Care Directive and/or Five Wishes assignment enhanced students’ understanding of end-of-life decision-making. Conclusions: It is essential to complete the assignment and immerse oneself in an end-of-life situation to grasp patients’ perspectives and concerns regarding when to engage in difficult conversations with their patients. Full article

This research aims to study the impact of experiential learning and skill empowerment and community engagement and institutional support systems on student engagement and motivation and sustainable education in Saudi Arabian higher education institutions. The research uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Partial Least Squares (PLS) as its quantitative methodology to study the relationships between experiential learning, skill empowerment, institutional support systems, and sustainable education. The proposed theoretical model was evaluated through a survey distributed to participants who were conveniently sampled from Saudi Arabian higher education institutions. The research shows that experiential learning together with skill development and community engagement boosts student motivation and supports sustainable education in Saudi Arabia. The study further reveals that institutional support systems have a weak moderating effect because their implementation and perception require improvement to effectively support sustainability. The main limitations are the use of self-reported data which may be influenced by response biases and the focus on higher education only which limits the generalizability of the findings to other educational levels. The research indicates that experiential learning activities including internships, community projects, and skill empowerment programs should be integrated into education to boost student involvement and motivation toward sustainability. The research applies the established theories of Kolb’s Experiential Learning, Human Capital, and Social Learning to Saudi Arabia’s educational context to show how they can be adapted to promote sustainable education through experiential learning, skill development, and community engagement. This study bridges critical research gaps by elucidating the nuanced moderating role of institutional support systems—an underexplored factor—and addressing the methodological limitations associated with a reliance on self-reported data, thereby significantly advancing the understanding of their influence on student engagement and sustainable education within diverse academic and cultural contexts. Full article

Background/Objectives: Inclusive education emphasizes positive interactions between students with and without special needs to foster mutual understanding and acceptance. This study explored the effect of an experiential learning program (ExL Prog) on interaction and acceptance between students with and without special needs. Based on Kolb’s ExL theory, this study explores how the ExL Prog fosters experiential learning, reflection, and mutual growth through activities that enhance interpersonal skills, promote empathy, and create an inclusive classroom environment where students with and without special needs deepen their understanding and acceptance of one another. Methods: The study used a mixed-methods approach with 2 students with special needs and 16 students without special needs from the same sixth-grade class. Researchers divided participants into two groups: one intervention group that underwent the 8-activity ExL Prog and one comparison group that participated in regular activities. Data collection methods included questionnaires, interviews, and feedback forms, which enabled qualitative and quantitative analysis. Results: The results indicated the implementation of the ExL Prog facilitated increased opportunities for positive interactions between students with and without special needs. Regarding attitudes of acceptance toward students with special needs, students without special needs in the EXL group demonstrated lower scores than those in the control group in the cognitive dimension, higher scores in the affective dimension, and no significant difference in the behavioral dimension. The program fostered mutual listening, respect, and understanding, particularly among the intervention group, which promoted empathy and supportive relationships among participants. Conclusions: The students in the ExL Program developed a greater understanding of others and reflected on improving their relationship-building approaches. This transformation fostered increased openness, goodwill, and mutual reciprocity, promoting growth in interpersonal relationships and communication skills. Full article

Personalized learning is a defining characteristic of current education, with flexible and adaptable experiences that respond to individual learners’ requirements and approaches to learning. Traditional implementations of educational theories—such as Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory—often follow rule-based approaches, offering predefined structures but lacking adaptability to dynamically changing learner behavior. In contrast, AI-based approaches such as artificial neural networks (ANNs) have high adaptability but lack interpretability. In this work, a new model, a fuzzy-ANN model, is developed that combines fuzzy logic with ANNs to make recommendations for activities in the learning process, overcoming current model weaknesses. In the first stage, fuzzy logic is used to map Kolb’s dimensions of learning style onto continuous membership values, providing a flexible and easier-to-interpret representation of learners’ preferred approaches to learning. These fuzzy weights are then processed in an ANN, enabling refinement and improvement in learning recommendations through analysis of patterns and adaptable learning. To make recommendations adapt and develop over time, a Weighted Sum Model (WSM) is used, combining learner activity trends and real-time feedback in dynamically updating proposed activity recommendations. Experimental evaluation in an educational environment shows that the model effectively generates personalized and changing experiences for learners, in harmony with learners’ requirements and activity trends. Full article

The argument made in this study is that sustainability is a system of beliefs that extends beyond policy and the classroom to transform actions and societies into pro-sustainable behaviours. Therefore, it is crucial to equip trainee teachers to embrace their role as catalysts for change in driving Sustainable development goals, sustainable thinking, systems thinking, wise consumption, sustainable competencies, and sustainable action in their daily lives. The lack of practice-led research on incorporating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into trainee teachers’ training programmes is noted in the literature. This qualitative practice-led research explored trainee mathematics and technology teachers’ (TMTTs) experiences learning about sustainability. Kolb’s experiential theory framed this study theoretically. The data were collated from twenty purposively selected TMTTs via semi-structured interviews and reflective diaries. All ethical protocols were observed. The analysis highlighted the core experiences TMTTs gained in learning about sustainability, transformative learning, design thinking, wise consumption, agency, and sustainable teaching strategies. Theoretically, the findings emphasise the importance of using an ESD perspective and experiential learning methods to integrate sustainability education into mathematics and technology teaching. The results suggest that when TMTTs are encouraged to actively engage with sustainability issues in their communities, informed decisions are made about their future roles as teachers, the teaching strategies they intend to use, and the type of learning they aim to foster in their learners. Full article

Science and technology require learners to engage in practical work and inquiry-based learning. In South Africa, schools still need laboratories, textbooks, and equipment for practical work. Considering the above contextual challenges, this paper calls for integrating computer simulation-based learning (SBL) into science and technology education. Very little is known about science and technology teachers’ experiences of simulation-based learning in rural settings. This interpretative study, located at a teacher training institution in South Africa, aimed to explore science and technology teachers’ experiences of integrating simulation-based learning in their teaching. The study was framed within Kolb’s experiential learning theory, which posits that learning is a process of creating knowledge through the transformation of experience. Sixteen practicing teachers enrolled for their honors degree were purposively selected. Data were generated via semi-structured interviews, online interactive discussion forums, and reflective journals. All ethical protocols were observed. NVIVO was used to create tag clouds before thematic analysis could begin. The findings illuminated participant experiences as learning, unlearning, disrupting pedagogies, revisioning best practices in a community of inquiry, and promoting conceptual understanding and spatial visualization. The findings demonstrated an authentic practice of educating and training teachers to integrate SBL into their teaching and the use of SBL in promoting the conceptual understanding and spatial ability of learners in school settings that lack laboratories and functional equipment. Full article

To promote the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), public awareness of the importance and urgency of sustainable development should be raised by providing relevant education programs. Although game-based learning has been confirmed to be one of the most effective routes to deepen public understanding of the SDGs and sustainable development in general, games for comprehensive sustainable development-based courses have yet to be popularized. Thus, we developed a game-based learning approach that delivers comprehensive conceptual information on SDGs. Based on Kolb’s theory of experiential learning, students understood the relevance of the SDGs by playing a board game designed to simulate the real world, including national and international policies. Furthermore, considering the suspension of in-person learning and shifts to digital instruction caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a digital version of the board game was created to compare the effects of digital and non-digital game-based learning. A comprehensive sustainable development evaluation questionnaire was developed and optimized using the fuzzy Delphi method to assess the participants’ knowledge of and attitudes toward the SDGs. Our results reveal that the digital and non-digital board game both improve students’ knowledge and attitude toward sustainable development. However, the digital board game was more effective than the non-digital board game. Full article

The process of transferring to online teaching during the pandemic COVID-19 lockdown has been a core issue for teachers around the globe. The main aim of this paper was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of emotional intelligence (EI) and general self-efficacy on the adaptability to online teaching (AOT). A multiple-mediation model was proposed, including the mediating effect via the teacher’s Facilitator role and teacher’s concrete experience learning mode (CE-LM), as defined in experiential learning theory (ELT). Methods: Data were collected from a sample of 330 preschool and primary school teachers (84 males, M_age = 38.3, SD = 9.14). Path analysis was performed based on maximum likelihood estimation with the resampling method. Results: The findings showed that the proposed model fit the data well. A serial mediation path between EI and AOT via the teacher’s Facilitator role and CE-LM was obtained. In addition, CE-LM mediated the relationship between general self-efficacy and AOT. Conclusion: To date, this is the first study to analyse the direct and indirect effects of dispositional traits, such as EI and general self-efficacy, on AOT in the framework of Kolb’s ELT. Our results highlight the mediating mechanisms of this relationship, that is, the teacher’s Facilitator role and CE-LM. The current research provides an empirical body based on which new instructional strategies will be developed to improve the quality of online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Full article

Nurses and health care professionals should have an active role in meeting the spiritual needs of patients in collaboration with the family and the chaplain. Literature criticizes the impaired holistic care because the spiritual dimension is often overlooked by health care professionals. This could be due to feelings of incompetence due to lack of education on spiritual care; lack of inter-professional education (IPE); work overload; lack of time; different cultures; lack of attention to personal spirituality; ethical issues and unwillingness to deliver spiritual care. Literature defines spiritual care as recognizing, respecting, and meeting patients’ spiritual needs; facilitating participation in religious rituals; communicating through listening and talking with clients; being with the patient by caring, supporting, and showing empathy; promoting a sense of well-being by helping them to find meaning and purpose in their illness and overall life; and referring them to other professionals, including the chaplain/pastor. This paper outlines the systematic mode of intra-professional theoretical education on spiritual care and its integration into their clinical practice; supported by role modeling. Examples will be given from the author’s creative and innovative ways of teaching spiritual care to undergraduate and post-graduate students. The essence of spiritual care is being in doing whereby personal spirituality and therapeutic use of self contribute towards effective holistic care. While taking into consideration the factors that may inhibit and enhance the delivery of spiritual care, recommendations are proposed to the education, clinical, and management sectors for further research and personal spirituality to ameliorate patient holistic care. Full article