Abstract
This paper summarizes a pilot study of an experiential learning technique that was designed to give undergraduate students a greater understanding of the principles and theories of learning and behavior, which is traditionally taught only in a lecture-based format. Students were assigned the role of a dog trainer, and they were responsible for designing and administering empirically and theoretically based training regimens to shelter dogs to teach them new behaviors that would make them more adoptable. Results from student feedback and their performance on assessments suggest that this activity was well-received by the students both for the learning benefit and enjoyment aspect, and this translated to a moderate level on their assessments. Details about how the learning and behavior class was made into an experiential learning course, the outcomes of this experience, and suggestions for improving the educational benefit of this experiential activity are discussed. This hands-on program offers a new alternative for teaching learning and behavior. Future offerings of this course and others like it present ideal opportunities for researching the effectiveness of more experiential methods of teaching and learning.
Learning and behavior is a foundational course that is taught in many psychology programs around the world. It is a key feature in the psychology curriculum. As evidence of this, the Australian Psychological Accreditation Council specifically includes learning in the list of core domains that must be taught to students getting a Bachelor's degree in psychology (see APAC rules and standards, June 2010). The inclusion of a learning module in the core curriculum for an undergraduate psychology degree is also recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA Guidelines 2.0, 2013) and The British Psychological Society (BPS undergraduate accreditation manual, 2015). The key concepts of a learning and behavior module include mental associations and how they are formed, how, when, and why learning is sometimes expressed or dormant in our behavior, and how we can learn new associations to purposefully change our behavior. Learning and behavior is an important component to the psychology curriculum because the principles of this field are directly related to many other academic domains, such as memory, behavioral neuroscience, cognition, and research methodology, and it has direct human application. The principles from learning and behavior have been implemented in clinical psychology and behavioral modification programs (e.g., Bouton, 2002; Bouton, Mineka, & Barlow, 2001; Kearney, 2008; Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006), education (e.g., Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006), and animal training (e.g., Breland & Breland, 1951, 1966).
The applied nature of the learning and behavior field makes it an ideal class in which to experiment with moving the course curriculum from a standard classroom setting to a hands-on activity in a real-world environment. In other words, it is moving the learning and behavior class from passive lecture-based learning to experiential learning. Experiential learning refers to a teaching and learning style that emphasizes learning by doing. It focuses on gaining knowledge and skills by immersing students in real-world environments and designing the experience to provide feedback that facilitates critical thinking and reflection (e.g., Gentry, 1990; Itin, 1999; Kolb, 1984). Kolb (1984) specified four phases of experiential learning: concrete experience, reflection, abstract generalization, and active experimentation. In broad terms, concrete experience refers to learning that occurs when the student is actively involved in the experience. Reflection occurs when the student reflects on the experience they just had, and they use abstract generalization when they can systematically analyze and conceptualize that experience. Lastly, active experimentation occurs when the student uses the knowledge they just gained through this experience and conceptualization process to influence their current behavior and decision making. Based on these four elements of experiential learning, Gentry (1990) described six features that should be present in any experiential learning activity. Firstly, it must involve student activity. That is, students must be active participants in creating their own educational experience; they cannot be passive absorbers of information. Experiential learning requires that students engage with their peers, not just the teacher. Notably, this requirement excludes many of the activities commonly conducted in psychology classes. For example, conducting the Stroop test requires the students to participate by pressing buttons on a computer, but it does not require students to engage with each other. Similarly, conducting mini-experiments usually limits the students' participation in responding to questions posed by the professor or gathering data, which will be analyzed by the professor and only discussed in groups (e.g., Tatlow-Golden, 2015). A third feature of experiential learning is that it is structured, and the educational outcomes for the experience are clearly stated to guide the students in their learning activity. Thus, activity cannot just be unstructured play; it must have pre-set objectives that are related to the curriculum. Experiential learning must be authentic. It should be conducted in a real-world setting, so that students can learn through interaction in a real environment. This helps the student to see the “big picture” for how multiple constructs come together in the real word. It also exposes the student to variability and challenges, which are not experienced in highly contrived classroom activities where the design and variables are arranged to always work perfectly. Learning through real-world experience facilitates critical thinking and reflection by the student, which should be guided by continual feedback from the instructor. Notably, this feedback should consist of process feedback (i.e., feedback about the method students used to make decisions or implement training programs) in addition to outcome feedback (i.e., grades). Lastly, experiential learning should foster a holistic education, such that the student will develop skills that are not directly related to the course topic (e.g., interpersonal skills or communication skills).
There is much research supporting the idea that using active learning strategies or including activities in class improves learning (e.g., Preszler, 2009; Prince, 2004, Tatlow-Golden, 2015). There is much evidence to suggest that using experiential learning techniques, specifically, is beneficial for student learning (e.g., Binder, Baguley, Crook, & Miller, 2015; Hamer, 2000; Yardley, Teunissen, & Dornan, 2012), and several researchers have described how they implemented experiential learning techniques in their curriculum to improve learning outcomes. For example, Stegemann and Sutton-Brady (2013) and Hopkinson and Hogg (2004) used experiential learning-based strategies to teach marketing and critical thinking to business students. Both studies reported high levels of engagement and improved learning outcomes. Bethell and Morgan (2011) combined problem-based learning in seminars and experiential learning in student-led practicals to create a program for teaching physical education. Results from student evaluations in focus groups and instructor observations suggest that this experiential learning-based program was effective in increasing students' knowledge of the content area and engaging them in learning. Similar positive results from applying experiential learning techniques to teaching medical curriculum have been observed (e.g., Ekelman, Bello-Hass, Bazyk, & Bazyk, 2003; Fenske, Freeland, Price, & Brough, 2015; Koponen, Pyörälä, & Isotalus, 2012; Zink, Halaas, Finstad, & Brooks, 2008). The higher levels of participation and engagement that come as a result of this technique are associated with increased student-perceived improvement and better attitudes towards learning (e.g., Capar & Tarim, 2015; King & Robinson, 2009; Synder & Wiles, 2015). Moreover, Karns (2005) has shown that students especially value activities that have real-world applications, and he suggests that students are most motivated to learn when activities are equal parts challenging, applicable, and have real-world use. Thus, there is wide support for the idea that techniques that encourage participation through experiential learning will improve learning outcomes.
Notably, most of the published studies that describe applying experiential learning techniques to programs come from applied disciplines (e.g., business, medicine, and education). Although the learning and behavior curriculum has a strong applied quality, this is not taken advantage of in the typical learning and behavior course. Most learning and behavior classes are limited to watching videos about learning principles or conducting simulated conditioning experiments on the computer using Sniffy the Virtual Rat (Cengage Learning, 2012). This type of activity is often conducted individually and without direct links to application. Moreover, Sniffy the Virtual Rat is programmed to do exactly as the student tells it to do, so they never experience any of the real-world messiness that often characterizes real conditioning procedures. This study is innovative in taking a traditional lecture-based course and making it into an experiential learning class. In the course I describe below, I combined lectures with classroom-based applied learning and real-world experiential learning, which involved immersing students in a dog training experience for a prolonged period of time. Moreover, the students were primarily responsible for designing and conducting the activity as a group, so they were completely engaged in the entire process.
I chose to use dog training as a means for teaching learning and behavior. Modern dog training is directly based on the principles of classical and instrumental conditioning. The concepts of contiguity (i.e., that action and reinforcement must be presented closely together for the dog to learn the association), contingency (i.e., that action and reinforcement must be paired consistently together and never presented apart from each other), shaping (i.e., training the dog to perform complex actions by reinforcing the dog for performing actions that approximate the desired action, and then slowly move to reinforce only actions that more closely resemble the target response while discontinuing reinforcement of prior response forms), schedules of reinforcement (i.e., reinforce the dog after every occurrence of the action and then move to a partial reinforcement schedule), and secondary reinforcement with a clicker (i.e., train the dog to associate a clicker sound with food so that the clicker can be used to reinforce the dog on intermediary trials between food reinforcement) are all heavily researched and empirically validated principles that govern behavior (e.g., see Domjan, 2015). These core principles are all discussed in depth in any learning and behavior class, and they are exemplified in dog training. For this reason, dog training is an ideal example for demonstrating real-life applications of learning and behavior. Moreover, because these principles are common to many other applications of the subject, the learning acquired in this setting can be translated easily during class discussions to other domains, such as teaching people with autism or training individuals to form desired habits through behavior modification programs.
Aim
The rest of this paper outlines a pilot study of a course that immersed students in a dog training environment for two weeks to teach them real-life applications of principles from learning and behavior. The purpose was to encourage critical thinking and understanding of the material in a novel and in-depth way, in order to make the learning more memorable and meaningful. It was also intended to teach students how to deal with unexpected challenges to training, which often occur in the real world but rarely occur in artificial learning environments. Given that such an involved and large activity is rarely conducted in teaching of learning and behavior, the overall effectiveness of the immersive class activity needed to be investigated in this pilot study. It should be noted that this paper is not attempting to compare the effectiveness of this technique to other teaching philosophies; it is simply describing the process of the immersive experiential learning activity and some response measures to assess whether this format is indeed beneficial to the students. The outcomes of this study will guide future research about the utility of using an experiential learning activity in the learning and behavior curriculum. I assessed the success of the class on two basic outcomes provided by student feedback and personal observations during class and on assessments: learning quality and student enjoyment from engagement.
Pilot Study Methods
Most professional dog trainers advocate that the owner begin training the dog in a quiet and controlled environment. Once the dog is consistently performing the desired behaviors, then distractors are slowly introduced into the environment. Eventually, the dog is taken to real-world settings where the animal's knowledge and discipline is tested. This class was designed to follow a similar procedure.
Participants
Five Chinese-ethnic undergraduate students (one male and four females) from JCU Singapore were enrolled in the class. They were all between the ages of 20 and 36 and in the final year of their Bachelor's degree in psychology. None of the students currently owned a dog or had formal dog training experience, but all of them had some degree of familiarity of being around dogs. They also had all taken the basic learning and behavior class in a previous term and earned an overall grade of 75 or higher. Because this was intended to be a pilot study, the class size was restricted. Moreover, the significant time requirement (most classes at the university are held only once per week; this class required students to go to the dog shelter every weekday for two weeks) and pre-requisite (at least 75% in the basic learning and behavior class) resulted in only five students signing up for the course. The two dogs used in the practical section were about two and four years of age. They were former street dogs that were brought to the dog shelter about two years ago. The dogs were mixed breeds of unknown origin. They were already well-acquainted with each other prior to the course; however, they are initially shy around unfamiliar humans.
Setting
The first part of the course was conducted in a standard classroom on the university campus. The second part took place at a local dog shelter. The dog shelter was arranged such that two or three dogs shared an enclosed space inside the shelter that was about 2.5 m × 5 m in size. There was space outdoors to walk the dog, but most of the time the dogs were indoors. In the shelter, the dogs could hear and smell other dogs, and they could see into the parking lot.
Course Features
In-classroom activities
The first four weeks of the course consisted of short 30–45-minute lectures about learning and behavior concepts that were directly related to that day's focus. These topics included a review of classical and instrumental conditioning, contiguity, and contingency (week 1), shaping with clickers as secondary reinforcers (week 2), evolutionary tendencies, motivational mechanisms, and schedules of reinforcement (week 3), and understanding dog behavior (week 4). Students were assigned chapters to read at home from a book about dog training (Miller, 2008), which complemented the lecture topics. The lectures were accompanied by 15-minute instructional videos that demonstrated the concepts and training procedures. For example, students watched a YouTube video of a professional dog trainer teaching her dog to lay down using clicker training. Lastly, all classes included about 1 hour of applied learning activities and group discussions. During the applied learning activities, students were encouraged to interact and practice applying the principles on each other. For example, students worked in groups to practice shaping various behaviors with a clicker. During and after the demonstrations, I prompted the students to reflect and discuss with each other what they thought was going on, why something may not be working and how they might change their behavior to achieve their goal, and other similar topics. Although the applied learning activities do not qualify as experiential learning because they lack authenticity, they still incorporate some of the critical features of experiential learning, such as active participation, reflection and conceptualization, peer-to-peer engagement, and continual process feedback.
The final two weeks of the course (weeks 7 and 8) were conducted back in the classroom. These were spent debriefing the students on what they learned, having group discussions about what happened, and doing student presentations (see the Assessments section below). This was a time for the students to reflect on their learning experience, to analyze and conceptualize how their experience fits with learning theory, and think about how to implement this new learning into future situations.
Seminar
At the end of week 4, the students attended a 1-hour seminar by a professional dog trainer on how to read dog body language for signs of stress or discomfort. This seminar taught the students how to recognize very early signs of stress (e.g., the dog looking away or licking its lips) and how to react to them (e.g., back away slowly and give the dog space) to minimize the chance of the students or dogs getting injured during the subsequent practical. The students also learned how to safely approach strange dogs and practiced doing this with the trainer's two real dogs during the seminar.
Practical
Weeks 5 and 6 were spent at a local dog shelter. The students went there for three hours every day during these two weeks. The students were split into two groups (two and three people). Each group was assigned a dog to focus on. The students' task was to teach the dogs basic pro-social behaviors that would make the dogs more likely to be adopted (e.g., come and sit). The first week of the practical was spent primarily familiarizing the dogs with the students. Because these were shelter dogs, they were initially very shy around strangers. This led to discussions about habituation, and how they were using treats to encourage the dogs to associate their presence with positive outcomes. On one occasion, there was a major storm, which raised discussions about defensive action patterns. By the second week, the dogs were familiar with us and ready to learn. The students began by training the dogs to associate the offering of treats with the clicker sound. During this time, I encouraged the students to think about how contiguity and contingency play into this learning. The dogs were also frequently distracted by activity in the parking lot and elsewhere in the shelter, which led to discussions about the role of salience in forming associations. In addition, the dogs were not highly interested in playing with toys, and one of the dogs was not particularly interested in social reinforcement (e.g., petting); she only wanted food reinforcement. This prompted group discussions about motivational mechanisms of behavior and the importance of finding proper reinforcement. When the students were actually training the behaviors, we were able to bring topics such as reinforcement schedules and shaping into the conversations. By the end of the second week, one group had achieved teaching their dog to reliably sit, stay, and lay down on command. The other group was able to teach their dog sit, turn (move clockwise in a full circle), and spin (move counterclockwise in a full circle). Every day ended with full group discussions about what they had done and how it related to learning and behavior. We also talked about problems they encountered and how they dealt with them or planned to accommodate them the following day. Thus, the course was grounded in empirically validated principles that were consistently referenced and applied to enhance and deepen the students' understanding of the learning and behavior constructs. It also involved a lot of group work and discussions amongst the students to solve various challenges.
It is important to note that the students were only allowed to use appetitive reinforcement with the dogs; punishment was not permitted. This course was approved by the university administration, and the course lecturer and an employee from the shelter were present at all times to ensure safety and ethical treatment of the animals and students.
Desired learning objectives and outcomes
The learning objectives for the course were explained on the first day of class and explicated in the syllabus. This course was intended primarily to give students a deeper understanding of the principles of learning and behavior by applying the concepts to a dog training context. Secondary course objectives were to increase the standard level of student participation and engagement in the course, and to encourage the students to have fun while learning. The learning outcomes for these objectives stated that students will be able to (1) effectively apply learning and behavior principles to train shelter dogs, (2) explain the principles of learning and behavior and how they relate to real life, (3) show that they can work effectively in groups to achieve a goal, and (4) demonstrate effective communication skills.
Assessments
The students were assessed on three items, which measured how well the learning outcomes were achieved. Working with their partners (outcome 3), they had to create a plan that outlined their training goals and how they would accomplish these goals based on the principles from learning and behavior (see Appendix A). Each group completed one for every day of the practical. This assessment was graded based on how well they described the steps they planned to take to achieve that day's goal and how the action plan was justified, based on theoretical and empirical evidence (outcome 2). Moreover, points were awarded based on the clarity with which the students were able to communicate their goals and action plans (outcome 4), and they had to include a summary of the progress they made in training their dog (outcome 1). The students were also graded based on how well they exhibited critical thinking skills.
The second assessment was an individually written report by each student that discussed their experience at the dog shelter. The paper had to review and satisfactorily explain relevant literature that pertains to conditioning and learning and how that applies to animal training. They also had to explain how they specifically used theories, principles, and empirical observations of conditioning and learning in their training program. In addition, the students had to discuss how the knowledge and experience they gained from this course could be applied to implement behavior changes in their own lives (outcome 2). The grading scheme included marks for how well the students communicated their ideas and were able to write an academic paper (outcome 4), and whether they showed evidence of critical thinking.
The final assessment was a group presentation given on the final day of class. The students worked with their training partners to put together a formal class presentation about what they did for the past two weeks. They had to talk about the conditioning process, how they used the theories and principles from learning and behavior to train their dogs (outcome 2), and the results of the training (outcome 1). They had to include a discussion about problems that arose during training and how the group was able to resolve them. The presentations were also graded on whether the students could clearly show effective teamwork and cooperation with their partners during the practical (outcome 3), and the overall clarity of their presentation (outcome 4).
Data collection
On the final day of class, students were asked to give qualitative and quantitative feedback on assessment forms regarding how well they felt that the course met its learning objectives. The assessment form was an informal and non-validated questionnaire that inquired what the students liked about the class, what they did not like about the class, how they thought it could be improved, what they thought they learned, etc. (see Appendix B for a copy of the survey). The primary purpose of this feedback was to aid the lecturer in modifying the course structure to improve it for future offerings. It was also intended to provide the lecturer with information about how the class format was perceived by the students. All feedback was completed anonymously in the absence of the lecturer, and the forms were submitted to a third party who later gave the forms to the lecturer. The forms did not contain any identifiers or ask for specific details about the students. All five students submitted a completed survey. The use of student feedback for research purposes was approved by the James Cook University Human Research Ethics Committee.
Results from Student Feedback
This study was intended to pilot out the feasibility and educational effectiveness of running a large-scale experiential learning activity at a dog shelter. I was primarily interested in two measures—how much the students learned about learning and behavior in this experiential learning format, and how much students enjoyed the course as a result of the increased level of engagement and participation. This was assessed via anonymous student feedback, which was gathered through end-of-course feedback forms and my observations about the students' performance throughout the course.
Perceived learning quality
I was interested in knowing whether students thought that the format of this class aided their understanding of the information or whether they thought it was distracting and reduced their quality of learning. Thus, I asked them to give feedback in the form of written short answers regarding whether they thought the learning objective of gaining advanced knowledge about learning and behavior through application was met. The students were all in favor of the immersive experiential learning format and wrote that it enhanced their knowledge about learning and behavior. Many of the students made comments to the effect of not knowing how learning and behavior principles could be applied to real life until they took this class. For example, one student wrote, “I learned a lot from this practical and started questioning some of my own understanding.” All five students said that applying the class to real-life situations greatly improved their understanding of the material. This is exemplified in one student's comment, “I like that we have to apply the principles in real life situation and swiftly. It really tests our fundamental understand of theories learnt in class.” Moreover, some students said that the experiential learning activity and the assessments that went with it motivated them to do more research than they would have done otherwise. There were many comments about how the practical taught them to problem-solve and adjust according to real-life variability, which is almost never discussed in traditional lectures or when working with Sniffy the Rat, who is programmed to do exactly as you tell it to do (Cengage Learning, 2012). For example, one of the feedback comments said, “Without the practical, it is more or less back to sniffy the rat. The practical is useful in revealing behaviors that were unexpected during dog training.” One student commented about how important it is to learn about the species you are using as a learning model because that will affect how they are motivated, which referred back to our earlier difficulties of finding proper motivators for the dogs. Importantly, all five students said that the experiential learning format resulted in more learning than they would have gotten in a traditional lecture format. This is because this class required more participation, which, according to the students, translated into more learning.
The students wrote that they thought spending the first few weeks in class reviewing theories and practicing skills in the applied learning activities helped them better understand the link between theory and application and aided their ability to translate their knowledge into practice during the experiential learning activity. One student suggested conducting the lectures and practicals on the same day to improve contiguity between learning and implementation, but this will be difficult to do given logistical time limits.
When asked to comment about the usefulness of the materials used in class (textbook, videos, and seminar), the students wrote that the textbook and videos were particularly informative and improved their education. About half of the students thought the seminar was helpful. The other students did not comment on the seminar.
Student enjoyment through engagement
The students were unequivocal in their enjoyment of the class, and they all particularly liked the practical. This was not just because they were able to be around dogs; the students actually perceived that they were learning more and seeing this knowledge manifest in the dogs' new learned behaviors, which was very rewarding for them. From my own personal observations, the students seemed to greatly enjoy this class. They were required to attend only five of the 10 practicals; however, four of the five students chose to attend all 10. The fifth student had to miss one day each week because it conflicted with another class. Moreover, all of the students volunteered to come back to the shelter on the weekend to continue working with the dogs, and they asked to continue coming after the practical was over. Thus, it appeared that the students were highly motivated to participate in this class and they enjoyed it enough to volunteer their own time to doing more than what was required by the course. My personal observations of the students' enjoyment from week 1 to week 2 of the practical suggest that they had more fun and found the practical to be more rewarding in week 2. At this point, they were able to start applying their learning to training the dogs, whereas in week 1, they were limited to familiarizing the dogs with their presence. Thus, it was not just “playing with dogs” that they enjoyed, it was the active participation and application that they really liked. As evidence of this, one student wrote, “This was definitely one of the most memorable classes I've ever taken here. And with the most useful take away – this has shaped my view/approach/interaction with dogs in a meaningful way.”
Results from Course Assessments
The students' knowledge was tested on three different assessments (as described above). Overall, their perceived learning translated to a moderate level to measurable performance. The students were able to show evidence of clear understanding about the basic principles of conditioning and learning, such as contiguity, schedules of reinforcement, and motivational mechanisms, and there were able to apply these concepts to dog training reasonably well. However, the students' ability to transfer their knowledge to other areas of applied value (e.g., behavior modification for autism or education) was also not as satisfactory, and future offerings should be more explicit in emphasizing how the same basic principles being used in dog training can be applied to other situations. Also, their ability to describe various theories of associative learning and how those theories apply to dog training or other real-life situations was superficial or incorrect in some parts. Overall, all of the students showed evidence of understanding the basic ideas, but they varied in their understanding and application of more complex theories. In the future, I will spend more time in the first few weeks in the classroom having more structured lectures about theories. I will also structure the group discussions at the end of the daily practicals to review the theories and skills more specifically instead of leaving it to open discussion and question and answer format. Another suggestion is to save one day of each week of the practical for having structured group discussions about how they are applying the skills and theories instead of having these discussions more informally during and after the training sessions.
Overall, the course objective of teaching the principles of learning and behavior through application was met to a moderate degree. Future offerings should include more structured discussions to make explicit how the principles transfer to real life. The aim of increasing student enjoyment through increased engagement seems to have been met. The next step is figuring out how to translate increased enjoyment to improved learning outcomes.
Discussion
This paper presented a pilot study of an applied learning and behavior class that tested the feasibility and outcomes of using an experiential learning activity to improve learning. After spending four weeks in the classroom, students were taken to a dog shelter every day for two weeks to train dogs in basic behaviors. This class consistently referenced principles from formal learning and behavior theory, and the students were required to use these principles throughout the class while they completed their assignments and trained the dogs. Imposing an experiential learning activity resulted in high levels of engagement and participation by the students. They also greatly enjoyed the course and its applied focus. The students perceived learning was very high, although this translated to only a moderate level on actual assessment performance. Overall, this study suggests positive benefits of implementing more experiential learning activities, particularly prolonged ones, to teaching learning and behavior.
Plan to achieve goals:
The dog training activity encompassed all of the characteristics Gentry (1990) claimed should be part of an experiential learning activity. Students showed active learning by role playing in the classroom-based applied learning activities, and they created and implemented a dog training regimen. Importantly, this activity put the onus of responsibility almost entirely on the students. They were the dog trainers; I was there simply to guide and facilitate the learning. This gave the students more ownership of their education than activities that require minimal input from students. Thus, they were motivated to be proactive learners so that they could be effective dog trainers. This was supported by one student's comment that that they found themselves doing more research for this course than they would otherwise. Throughout the course, the students worked with each other to accomplish their assessments and training objectives. Even during the initial four weeks spent in the classroom, the students were required to interact with each other. This resulted in lively group discussions and spontaneous peer-to-peer teaching and learning opportunities. The dog training activity was structured in a way to meet certain learning objectives and improve learning outcomes. The students were all aware of the purpose of the course and the expectations placed upon them. As mentioned above, my personal observations suggest that the students were more enthusiastic and motivated during the second week of the practical when they were able to begin working on some of the learning objectives. The students were aware that this course was not just to play with dogs, and when they were finally able to conduct dog training, they gave more positive informal feedback about the activity. This course began in the classroom with applied learning activities, but it ended with taking the students to a real dog shelter and having them train real dogs. This gave the activity authenticity and directly linked theory to application. It also exposed the students to real-world problems and variables. As a result, the students had to practice critical thinking skills to identify what was causing problems and modify their training programs to alleviate these problems. This turned out to be the most important aspect of the activity according to the students. All of the students cited the focus on application and direct translation of theory to practice as what they liked the most and what they thought they learned the most from. Feedback to the students was provided by myself throughout the course. Thus, students were not only given outcome feedback regarding how they performed on assessments, but they were also given process feedback, which guided them on how to create empirically and theoretically validated training regimens and how to correctly implement such a training program (e.g., Gentry, 1990). The process feedback was provided continuously throughout the course, which led to many learning opportunities and moments of reflection and synthesis by the students. Lastly, this activity fostered holistic learning. Students learned communication skills, critical thinking and problem-solving skills, professional skills from working with a community organization, empathy from working with a dog, and personal responsibility from attending class off campus in a less-structured environment.
This study investigated the degree to which the students enjoyed this class and how well they performed on assessments. There is little doubt that enjoying an activity produces more intrinsic motivation to participate and learn, which leads to improved learning outcomes (e.g., Krapp, 1999; Lin & McKeachie, 1999; Schiefele, Krapp, & Winteler, 1992). The students were clear in their enjoyment of the course. While this translated to only moderate performance on the assessments, it gives hope that better learning outcomes will be achieved once more scaffolding is in place to facilitate the transfer of learning.
Challenges, Limitations, and Suggestions
The questionnaire used to assess the course was informal and could obviously use improvement to be more objective and complete. However, it is the opinion of this author that the data presented here are favorable and suggest that adding experiential learning activities to classes, or at least emphasizing more real-life applications of the material in class, would benefit the students' learning. Future research on teaching and learning should focus on the tangible and educational benefits of conducting more applied and experiential learning classes, particularly for those subjects that are less applied topics. This can be done by using proper control groups to compare the effectiveness of the experiential learning class format relative to the traditional format or a flipped classroom format. Future studies might also investigate the optimal length of time that should be devoted to experiential learning activities that still provide maximal learning opportunities (e.g., two days versus two weeks versus two months).
The very small sample size presents another difficulty regarding the conclusions reached from this study. While this was out of the author's control, this does limit the external validity of the study. Future studies should arrange the class to avoid such small samples. The study was also based only on the students who enrolled for the class, so I was unable to draw conclusions about the motivation or performance for students who enrolled in other classes.
Logistical Considerations
The immersive format of this class presented a host of challenges, not the least of which was the significant time requirement placed on both the students and the lecturer. The two-week practical meant that students were attending “class” every day rather than just once a week, which is the normal schedule of classes at this university. Informal discussions with other students who I knew were interested in the course but did not sign up pointed to this heavy time requirement as the primary reason for not enrolling. In consideration of this burden, the students were allowed to miss up to four of the visits if at least one of their partners was present for the training. However, four of the five students chose to attend all 10 of the training sessions (some of the students even volunteered to come on the weekend to continue training); the one student who did not attend all of the sessions missed two sessions because of conflicting class obligations. This gives evidence to the students' enthusiasm for learning how to use their knowledge in an applied setting, but it came at a large cost. The dog shelter was far away from the university and from any public transportation stop. Most of the students in Singapore do not have cars, so they had to take taxis to and from the shelter. Although they generally carpooled in the taxis to share the cost, it still managed to be a moderate financial burden for each of the students. The financial burden to the students should not be much of an issue in the USA, where most students own a car, but for anyone in a country where this is not common, I recommend coming up with a plan to secure a grant that will pay at least part of the transportation costs for the students. I also recommend trying to get larger groups and reminding the students that they are not required to attend every session so that the time demand does not become too much of a burden. This was true for the lecturer as well. I was the only lecturer supervising the training sessions, so I had to attend the shelter every day for the two weeks. Each visit lasted about 3 hours in total, which was a significant amount of time spent away from the office. I recommend having a secondary supervisor for the class to share the burden of overseeing the shelter visits.
In addition, it can be difficult finding a shelter that will accommodate such a program. Most of the dog shelters that I contacted said that they already have a volunteer program and were not able to allow us to conduct our training there. Thus, I recommend exploring the idea of using students' pets rather than going to a shelter. This would also minimize some of the challenges we encountered, such as not being able to use toys as motivation. The street dogs were unfamiliar with playing with toys, which is commonly used to reinforce the dogs during training so that they are not being given too many treats. The shelter dogs are less motivated by social rewards as well, such as saying “good dog” or petting, which tend to be highly rewarding for pet dogs.
Another unexpected challenge was the length of time it took to get the shelter dogs comfortable with our presence. This was necessary before we could proceed to training, but it limited what the students were able to accomplish given the already short time-frame. I recommend either using pet dogs or shelter dogs that are not stranger-shy or adding another week to the practical. This, however, would greatly increase the already significant time demand required.
Final Reflections and Concluding Thoughts
In conclusion, learning and behavior is highly amenable for teaching in an applied setting, which gives students a new and different perspective on learning. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first systematic attempt to create an experiential learning-based course on learning and behavior. Results from this pilot study indicate that more research on translating standard lecture-based courses into experiential learning courses has merit for improving student learning outcomes. Future directions for this type of course can include applying it to educational or therapeutic settings. It should be noted that anyone wishing to take up this type of course needs to be aware of the significant time and monetary costs to the professor and students. However, as a whole, the course was successful in teaching students more about learning in behavior through active participation and application, and the students enjoyed this aspect greatly. Overall, the students felt like they learned more through active participation and application of the principles to real-life settings than they would by sitting in a traditional lecture class. They also enjoyed learning, which will hopefully lead to more engagement and interest in the field.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
The author would like to thank Joanna Barlas, Aoife McLoughlin, and the two anonymous reviewers for providing comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.