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According to prevailing models, experiential learning is by definition a stepwise process beginning with direct experience, followed by reflection, followed by learning. It has been argued, however, that stepwise models inadequately explain the holistic learning processes that are central to learning from experience, and that they lack scientific or philosophical foundations. Criticism also centers on the way complex cultural, social, and physical processes during experience and learning are reduced to a rational, excessively cognitive, individual phenomenon. This article reviews this criticism and adds a historical dimension to the analysis, concluding that existing cyclic models might be better valued for their important historical contribution, rather than as active theories of learning in experiential education.
KEYWORDS: Experiential Learning, Outdoor Education, Adventure Education
Advocates of outdoor and adventure education would undoubtedly consider their approaches to be robust arenas for experiential learning. For nearly three decades, however, researchers and practitioners have recognized a gap between the powerful learning often witnessed during experiential programs, and the ability of the most common conceptual models and research methods to explain how this learning occurs (e.g., Kraft, 1990; Wichmann, 1980). This has come to be known as the "black box" phenomenon (Baldwin, Persing, & Magnuson, 2004). On the one hand, the persistence of this gap supports the view that experiential learning might simply be "too mysterious a phenomenon to fully comprehend" (Conrad & Hedin, 1981, p. 6). On the other hand, it is possible that this gap in knowledge can be attributed to the fundamental way learning has been conceived within these fields.
Experiential learning is typically described within outdoor and adventure education "as a sequential process consisting of several different components, and learning occurs once one has completed the entire sequence" (Wurdinger & Paxton, 2003, p. 41). Yet the idea that experiential learning is by definition a cycle made up of orderly, sequential steps is neither eternal nor universally shared. In fact, this idea has received considerable criticism in the broader education literature, so much so that the editors of Adult Education Quarterly recently declared it a hindrance to future scholarship. Observing changes in knowledge, research methods, and historical circumstances, they urged readers to "not be caught up short in our thinking and action with unquestioned traditions living on in...