Drawn from Kolb’s learning theory, experiential learning is anchored in the process of learner engagement through active learning techniques that promote interactions and foster deep learning. However, as students navigate the unfamiliar and complex learning environment, experiential learning can generate strong emotions that are difficult for students to process. Furthermore, emotions have an even more fundamental role to play in the case of a globalised and transcultural classroom. Although research on the role of transculturality and emotions through psychological, sociocultural and sociological lenses has grown steadily over recent years, how to formally embed emotions and transculturality into the experiential learning curriculum remains under-researched. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of emotion in experiential learning by combining the curriculum content of a management WIL subject with learner emotion and transculturality, and investigating students’ outcomes in terms of engagement, performance, and satisfaction across geographically dispersed and culturally diverse campuses. Our study contributes to both existing literature and practice in experiential learning pedagogy. In terms of contribution to the higher education literature, to our best knowledge, the current study represents the first attempt to examine an innovative experiential learning approach that combines work-integrated learning, emotional and transcultural immersion experiences in a single and large undergraduate course in Business Education (with over a thousand students per year) offered in three different countries (Australia, Singapore, and Vietnam). Further, this research extends experiential learning literature by introducing innovative learning activities beyond the traditional classroom to enhance students’ professional competency.

Authors:
Marco De Sisto, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia
Ying Zhou, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia
Christopher Conroy, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia
Konrad Peszynski, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Australia

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Marco De Sisto is a University Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University in Australia

See this presentation on the full schedule – Thursday Schedule

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