Experience is not experiential learning

These days experiential learning is very popular in marketing education. However, I worry that some marketing educators are providing merely experiences to their students, rather than experiential learning. The most influential theory of experiential learning is undoubtedly that of David Kolb, often presented in textbook form as the learning cycle: concrete experience; reflective observation; abstract conceptualization; active experimentation. Kolb is often cited in papers by marketing educators about the experiential learning tasks they set for students. But has Kolb been misunderstood? 

Two recent articles in particular suggest that we may have a problem with experiential learning in marketing education. Firstly, Hunter-Jones (2012) finds resistance to participation in experiential learning projects from some very able students because they are concerned that the inherent uncertainties in such a learning process may damage their grades.  She calls these the formulaic  learners: “They are less prepared, or even able, to be flexible and accommodating of other learners in case this has a negative influence on their overall mark. They want to be in control of their own achievements and are formulaic in achieving this”(Hunter-Jones, 2012:26).  Most, perhaps all, of the colleagues in the marketing academy with whom I have shared these insights from Hunter-Jones’ article have found them entirely plausible.  Secondly, Young and colleagues (2008) tried out experiential learning on a Principles of Marketing module and found that, unless students are carefully guided through all four stages of the Kolb learning cycle, experiential learning activities can result in surface learning rather than deep learning. They make what seems to me to be a very important point when they say: “experience in and of itself is not educative … if students do not think seriously about their experiences, their experiences may reinforce stereotypes and incorrect suppositions” (Young, et al., 2008:28). For example, I grew up at a time when crass homophobic and sexist jokes were staples of TV comedians. Thankfully, we have now learned that such practices are hurtful, damaging and unacceptable. However, simply sitting through more and more TV shows containing such jokes (greater experience) will not teach you that they are a bad thing, in fact it may simply convince you that such jokes are “normal”, i.e. reinforce the stereotype. 

For those of you not already deeply acquainted with Kolb’s work, let me suggest one or two places where you could start looking. Well, if you haven’t read Kolb’s 1984 book “Experiential Learning: Experience as The Source of Learning and Development”, you may be surprised at the extent to which it engages with the philosophy of knowledge (Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Edmund Husserl, George Hegel), although less surprised at all of the learning theorists who pop up. Here is Kolb’s definition of experiential learning to get you thinking: “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (D. A. Kolb, 1984:38). Then, of course, one needs a critical perspective on these things, and Christopher Kayes’ (2002) article can serve that purpose. And, naturally, one also has to look at a more recent re-statement of Kolb’s theory re-formulated in the light of two decades of criticism, reflection and reformulation, a purpose served by Kolb & Kolb (2005). An aspect of this more recent work that will interest those who follow developments in neuroscience (or neuromarketing) is that Kolb & Kolb call attention to research that suggests a link between the Kolb learning cycle and the process of brain functioning. They cite biology professor James Zull (2002), and at Zull’s website you find the following interesting information:

“According to our current model of the connection between brain function, human learning, and education, we believe that education can engage the learner's brain to the fullest extent when students follow a cycle of concrete experience with their subject, reflection on their experience and connecting it to their prior knowledge, generation of their own abstract hypotheses about their experience and testing their hypotheses through action, which produces a new sensory (concrete) experience.” (http://www.case.edu/artsci/biol/people/zull.html)

In other words, there is some evidence that the learning cycle is built into the structure of the brain!

References

Hunter-Jones, P. (2012). The Continuum of Learner Disengagement: Ethnographic Insights into Experiential Learning in Marketing Education. Journal of Marketing Education, 34(1), 19-29.

Kayes, C. D. (2002). Experiential Learning and its Critics: Preserving the Role of Experience in Management Learning and Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 1(2), 137-149.

Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning Styles and Learning Spaces: Enhancing Experiential Learning in Higher Education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(2), 193-212.

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Young, M. R., Caudill, E. M., & Murphy, J. W. (2008). Evaluating Experiential Learning Activities. Journal for Advancement of Marketing Education, 13, 28-40.

Zull, J., E. (2002). The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning. VA: Stylus: Sterling.