Boud and Walker Essay

For the future, learning methods should be developed and applied that help reach the same learning goals in a target group specific way in the sense of diversity management for learning activities. Previously it has been recognized that experienced (older) employees learn differently than young employees but a distinction between previous education and school education of young woman and men is just as important. Finally, experiential learning as Kolb (1984) conceptualized it, does not consider different cognitive styles shaped by cultural systems and their pattern of beliefs and values â€Å"that defines a way of life and the world in which people act, judge, decide, and solve problems† (Anderson, 1988, p. 3). Different cultural backgrounds may influence learning styles as well as subtler aspects of perception and cognitive behavior. In that respect, Boud and Walker (1993) distinguish between external impositions und internal barriers to experiential learning. External barriers can come from other people, the learning environment, the broader personal situation and the context of the learner, and social forces as stereotyping, cultural expectations, classism, etc. Internal barriers on the other side are based on the unique personal experience of the learner. In addition to these social foundations of obstacles to experiential learning, representatives from Instructional Psychology stress that experiential learning might be hampered by the difficulty to draw â€Å"correct† conclusions from one’s own experiences. Some of these difficulties are introduced in the following section and serve as a foundation to develop the research questions. Finally, unsystematic working-methods and lack of planning and monitoring, are detrimental to the regulation of discovery learning. REFERENCES Anderson, J. A. (1988). Cognitive styles and multicultural populations. Journal of Teacher Education, 39, 2-9. Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy. The exercise of control. New York: Freeman and Company. Bandura, A. , & Wood, R. E. (1989). Effect of perceived controllability and performance standards on self-regulation of complex decision making. Journal of Applied Psychology, 56, 805-814. Bandura, A. , Debowski, S. , & Wood, R. E. (2001). Impact of guided exploration and enactive exploration on self-regulatory mechanisms and information acquisition through electronic search. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1129-1141. Beard, C. , & Wilson, J. P. (2002). The power of experiential learning. A handbook for trainers and educators. London: Kogan Page. Boud, D. , & Walker, D. (1993). Barriers to reflection on experience. In D. Boud, R. Cohen, & D. Walker (Eds. ), Using experience for learning (pp. 73-87). Oxfordshire: The Society for Research into Higher Education.