Over the years, the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning (ABSEL) has invested considerable effort in formulating its research mission while reflecting on its unique identity among professional organizations. This article reviews the literature on this topic while identifying key issues and proposals. It then discusses the…

This study examined the long-term effects of participation in a half-day, low-element challenge course on the group functioning of members of college student organizations. Seventy-six participants completed measures of group cohesion, group effectiveness, and individual effectiveness within the group at four points in time: (a) one week prior to…

Contemporary theories of learning postulate one or at most a small number of different learning mechanisms. However, people are capable of mastering a given task through qualitatively different learning paths such as learning by instruction and learning by doing. We hypothesize that the knowledge acquired through such alternative paths differs…

Cultures throughout time have marked the passage of young people into adulthood with carefully designed tasks and rituals. The purpose of these activities is to prepare youth to mindfully consider their individual and communal life intention. The relative lack of modern rites of passage for adolescents is seen as having significant implications…

This article describes a collaborative and cross-curricula initiative undertaken in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. The project involved developing an integrated approach to providing professional year pre-service secondary teacher education students with experiences that would assist them to develop…

This article uses primary and secondary research on educational, social, and political theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to argue that the history of service-learning must be revised to include Jane Addams' pioneering work. A full consideration of Addams significantly revises understanding the origins of service-learning, suggesting…

This article introduces an approach to service learning based on students' collective engagement with a range of community organizations. We explore the particular benefits of this comparative collective community-based (CCC) learning model through a discussion of the "Possibilities for Change in American Communities" program, which was begun by…

Decision-makers in organizations often make what appear as being intuitively obviously and reasonable decisions, which often turn out to yield unintended outcomes. The cause of such ineffective decisions can be a combination of cognitive biases, poor mental models of complex systems, and errors in thinking provoked by anxiety, all of which tend to…

The present learning discourse and terms such as "learning in practice", "situated learning", "project and problem based learning" are like variations on a recurrent theme: learning by doing--the striking maxims of progressivism. The newest reforms confirm that the maxim is still alive as a standpoint with…

At the heart of any successful cross-cultural knowledge transfer effort lies an individual or group of individuals with the skills to manage a complex, ambiguous and often stressful process. The ability to manage the knowledge transfer process depends as much on learning in real time as it does on rational planning. Yet, few approaches to…

Teachers from the departments of Mathematics and Computer Science, and Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater collaboratively developed and implemented an evening math event, "Family Math Fun Night," at local elementary schools. As an assignment, preservice elementary teachers developed hands-on mathematical…

The present research refers to the assigning of a hands-on group project to freshman engineering students, evaluating their performance, and deriving conclusions on student benefits and educational advances. The research procedure included action plans for the instructor and the students, instructions to the students on performing the work,…

This inquiry originates in a conversation between the first two authors which concluded with the challenge that a Revans Institute for Action Learning & Research should not only be doing research "by" action learning and but should also be researching "into" action learning itself. Action learning has been a recognised…

For most of the twentieth century, the goal in education was the generation and dissemination of information. With the rise of technology and unlimited access to information, it is the ability to apply knowledge and learn from experience that is the new priority for employee development. Action learning, with its emphasis on action and reflection,…

Most studies of gender and information technology have investigated gender differences in the relationships between education and achievement, and attitudes towards and use of computers. Few have explored gendered experiences of faculty members using learning technologies in higher education. The study on which this article is based explored the…