Experience-Based Development

What is Experience Based Development?

Experience-based development is also referred as experiential learning, experiential training and development experiential teaching, and other similar terms. (Thompson, 2008) According to AACSB, Experience-based development is “ a business curriculum-related endeavor which is interactive (other than between teacher and pupil) and is characterized by variability and uncertainty.” In other words, experience-based development is an approach that tries to develop participants through their own experiences instead of teachers’. Comparing to the traditional training method, experience based development develop people from the inside. Instead of teaching employees new knowledge or skills, it emphasizes on utilizing employees’ own experience.

Experience based development is based on experiential learning theory, a learning theory which believes that learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. (Kolb, 1984) Kolb argues that the learning process of people is actually a cycle, in which people learn by having concrete experience, observing and reflecting on the experience, forming abstract concepts, testing the concepts in new situations, having another experience, and so on. Based on the theory, experience-based learning tries to help participants learn and develop through real experiences. The assumptions behind the learning are (Boud, Cohen and Walker, 1993):

 experience is the foundation of, and the stimulus for, learning

 learners actively construct their own experience

 learning is a holistic process

 learning is socially and culturally constructed

 learning is influenced by the socio-emotional context in which it occurs.

Origins

Since ancient times, people have known the value of learning through experiences. In ancient China, Confucius said that “I do and I understand.” And in ancient Greek, Aristotle argued that “men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory without experience.” Over the century the experience based learning has been widely used in education, and has been influenced by psychology.

Implications

Today, experience based development is widely used in professional education in many forms such as internships, work placements, on-the-job training, excursions, adventure and wilderness trips, studios, laboratories, workshops, clinical, practicum, case study approaches, action research, role plays, hypotheticals, and simulations. Moreover, there are more methods that are not purely experience based but also related to experiential learning including active learning in lectures, computer simulations,