Teachers' Use of Experiential Learning Strategies in Agricultural Laboratories

Abstract

Experiential learning in agricultural laboratories has been a foundational component of secondary agricultural education. While inclusion of the four stages of the experiential learning cycle can enhance student learning in laboratory settings to help students reach various goals related to scientific literacy and higher-level thinking, agricultural laboratories have traditionally been sites of psychomotor skill development. This exploratory study used a nonexperimental survey design to assess NAAE members’ use of the stages of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1984) during lessons involving agricultural laboratories. Results indicated that respondents incorporated concrete experience activities and those associated with grasping information more frequently and for longer durations than they included active experimentation activities or those associated with transforming information. Further, over half of the respondents reported designing lessons in laboratory settings that engaged students in fewer than all four stages of the experiential learning cycle. Recommendations include further study in order to gain a more holistic understanding of how experiential learning is used in agricultural laboratories.