Learning From Experience: Perceived Cognitive, Affective, And Behavioral Benefits Of Experiential Study Abroad

Study abroad plays a significant role in many students’ collegiate experiences. The merits of learning by doing are widely believed and accepted to be true, but these impacts have not been categorized to see if they would confer more overall benefit to students’ development. To better understand the lasting perceived impacts of study abroad, both in a traditional sense and in a more experiential sense, the connections between depth of experience and perceived gains will be researched to allow instructors to better understand what experiences are most valuable to students’ personal and educational development. The variables that will be researched will relate directly to a student’s perceived cognitive, affective, and behavioral benefits from personal experience compared to what benefits might be gained in a more traditional study abroad environment. The cognitive, affective, and behavioral structure is based on the ABC (affective, behavioral, cognitive) psychological model which measures affective (emotion-based) responses, behavioral (action-influence based) responses, and cognitive (logic and understanding based) responses (Breckler, 1984). Relevant research will be grouped into these three types of responses to determine whether or not there is a connection to overall better-perceived results from experiential study abroad compared to traditional methods.