Experiential Learning Theory

Experiential learning theory, developed by the American educational theorist David Kolb and presented most fully in his 1984 book Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, holds that learning is best understood as a process in which knowledge is created through the transformation of experience rather than as the simple transmission or reception of fixed content. Kolb described this process as a four-stage cycle: concrete experience, in which the learner actively engages in a new experience; reflective observation, in which the learner reflects on that experience from multiple perspectives; abstract conceptualization, in which the learner forms new ideas or modifies existing concepts based on that reflection; and active experimentation, in which the learner applies the resulting ideas to new situations, generating a fresh concrete experience that begins the cycle again. Kolb built the theory on earlier work by John Dewey, Kurt Lewin and Jean Piaget, each of whom had emphasized experience as central to learning and development. He further proposed that individuals tend to favor particular stages of the cycle, producing four broad learning styles, diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating, which he measured through the Kolb Learning Style Inventory. Experiential learning theory has been widely influential in adult education, management training and experiential and outdoor education, where instructional design is often built directly around the four-stage cycle.