Affective Outcomes of Experiential Education: A look at Study Abroad, Outdoor Eduaction, and Service Learning
Abstract
Experiential education has exploded on American horizons in recent years.
This paper aims to bring awareness to the affective outcomes of experiential
education and encourage the collaboration of research between different fields
within experiential education. Study abroad, outdoor education, and service
learning all fall under the experiential education heading and are discussed in
this paper. Affective outcomes gained from study abroad experiences are
largely absent from current literature. Outdoor education literature is
overflowing with affective outcomes and studies to back them up, and service
learning literature seems unable to even agree on a common set of goals let
alone begin to discuss outcomes with any measure of uniformity. Student
affective outcomes resulting from the above mentioned experiential education
fields remain separate in existing literature within each respective field, but
several close connections can and should be drawn between fields.