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Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory

📚 Education By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated
Quick answer: Kolb's theory says learning is the cycle of experiencing, reflecting, conceptualising and experimenting through which experience becomes knowledge.
Contents
  1. 1. Background
  2. 2. Four-stage cycle
  3. 3. Styles and uses
  4. 4. References

Background

Kolb combined Dewey's learning through experience, Lewin's laboratory training and feedback, and Piaget's cognitive development in Experiential Learning (1984), defining learning as the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.

Four-stage cycle

  • Concrete experience: encountering a new situation.
  • Reflective observation: reviewing it from several angles.
  • Abstract conceptualisation: forming general ideas from the reflection.
  • Active experimentation: applying the ideas, which yields new experience.

Styles and uses

Two dimensions, grasping (CE-AC) and transforming (RO-AE) experience, give four styles: diverging, assimilating, converging and accommodating. The model shapes field placements in social work and nursing, corporate training and service learning. Critics say learning need not follow the sequence and the Learning Style Inventory has weak validity.

References

  1. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice-Hall.
  2. Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(2), 193-212.
  3. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and Education. Macmillan.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

There are no materials dedicated to this theory yet, but you can search related reports in the CampusDown library (Korean).

Find more reports · Search '콜브의 경험학습이론' on CampusDown →
Formal and Informal LearningFormal, non-formal and informal learning compared: Coombs and Ahmed's typology, UNESCO ISCED definitions, Marsick and Watkins on informal and incidental learning, the 70:20:10 debate and implications for adult and lifelong learning.📚 EducationPiaget's Theory of Cognitive DevelopmentPiaget's theory of cognitive development explained: schema, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration, the four stages, comparison with Vygotsky, criticisms, and report examples.📚 EducationBandura's Social Learning TheoryBandura's social learning theory explained: observational learning, vicarious reinforcement, reciprocal determinism, self-efficacy, the Bobo doll experiment, criticisms, and report examples.📚 EducationSkinner's Operant ConditioningSkinner's operant conditioning explained: reinforcement and punishment, schedules of reinforcement, shaping and extinction, the law of effect, criticisms, and report examples.📚 Education

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This article was last updated on October 15, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.