reflection paper about experimental research

Reflections on experimental research in medical education

Reflections
Published: 22 April 2008
Volume 15 , pages 455–464, ( 2010 )

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reflection paper about experimental research

David A. Cook 1 &
Thomas J. Beckman 1

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As medical education research advances, it is important that education researchers employ rigorous methods for conducting and reporting their investigations. In this article we discuss several important yet oft neglected issues in designing experimental research in education. First, randomization controls for only a subset of possible confounders. Second, the posttest-only design is inherently stronger than the pretest–posttest design, provided the study is randomized and the sample is sufficiently large. Third, demonstrating the superiority of an educational intervention in comparison to no intervention does little to advance the art and science of education. Fourth, comparisons involving multifactorial interventions are hopelessly confounded, have limited application to new settings, and do little to advance our understanding of education. Fifth, single-group pretest–posttest studies are susceptible to numerous validity threats. Finally, educational interventions (including the comparison group) must be described in detail sufficient to allow replication.

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For a recent discussion of whether medical education is a hard or soft science, see Gruppen ( 2008 ).

Randomization cannot control for mortality (loss to follow-up), but it can facilitate analyses seeking to explore the implications of high participant dropout.

When pretests are used, researchers should not calculate the difference between pretest and posttest scores and statistically analyze the difference or change scores. Although this method is commonly used (indeed, we are guilty of having used it), it is inferior to the more appropriate use of the pretest as a covariate (along with treatment group and other relevant variables) in multivariate statistical models. See Cronbach and Furby ( 1970 ) and Norman and Streiner ( 2007 ) for detailed discussions.

Pretests may also be useful in randomized trials comparing active interventions if no treatment effect is found, by providing evidence that the lack of effect is not due to similarly ineffective interventions or an insensitive measurement tool (an exploration of the absolute effects of the treatments rather than the relative effects between groups). However, this analysis parallels the single-group pretest-posttest study with all attendant limitations.

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Cook, D.A., Beckman, T.J. Reflections on experimental research in medical education. Adv in Health Sci Educ 15 , 455–464 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-008-9117-3

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Reflections on experimental research in medical education

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1 Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA. [email protected]
PMID: 18427941
DOI: 10.1007/s10459-008-9117-3

As medical education research advances, it is important that education researchers employ rigorous methods for conducting and reporting their investigations. In this article we discuss several important yet oft neglected issues in designing experimental research in education. First, randomization controls for only a subset of possible confounders. Second, the posttest-only design is inherently stronger than the pretest-posttest design, provided the study is randomized and the sample is sufficiently large. Third, demonstrating the superiority of an educational intervention in comparison to no intervention does little to advance the art and science of education. Fourth, comparisons involving multifactorial interventions are hopelessly confounded, have limited application to new settings, and do little to advance our understanding of education. Fifth, single-group pretest-posttest studies are susceptible to numerous validity threats. Finally, educational interventions (including the comparison group) must be described in detail sufficient to allow replication.

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Open access
Published: 29 October 2009

The philosophy of scientific experimentation: a review

Hans Radder 1 , 2

Automated Experimentation volume 1 , Article number: 2 ( 2009 ) Cite this article

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Practicing and studying automated experimentation may benefit from philosophical reflection on experimental science in general. This paper reviews the relevant literature and discusses central issues in the philosophy of scientific experimentation. The first two sections present brief accounts of the rise of experimental science and of its philosophical study. The next sections discuss three central issues of scientific experimentation: the scientific and philosophical significance of intervention and production, the relationship between experimental science and technology, and the interactions between experimental and theoretical work. The concluding section identifies three issues for further research: the role of computing and, more specifically, automating, in experimental research, the nature of experimentation in the social and human sciences, and the significance of normative, including ethical, problems in experimental science.

The rise of experimental science

Over the past decades the historical development of experimental science has been studied in detail. One focus has been on the nature and role of experiment during the rise of the natural sciences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Earlier accounts of this so-called Scientific Revolution emphasized the universalization of the mathematical method or the mechanization of the world-view as the decisive achievement. In contrast, the more recent studies of sixteenth and seventeenth century science stress the great significance of a new experimental practice and a new experimental knowledge. Major figures were Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Robert Boyle. The story of the controversy of the latter with Thomas Hobbes, during the late 1650s and early 1660s, has become a paradigm of the recent historiography of scientific experimentation [ 1 ]. While Hobbes defended the 'old' axiomatic-deductive style of the geometric tradition, Boyle advocated the more modest acquisition of probable knowledge of experimental 'matters of fact'. Simultaneously at stake in this controversy were the technical details of Boyle's air-pump experiments, the epistemological justification of the experimental knowledge and the social legitimacy of the new experimental style of doing science.

A more wide-ranging account of the role of experimentation in the natural sciences has been proposed by Thomas Kuhn [ 2 ]. He claims that the rise of modern physical science resulted from two simultaneous developments. On the one hand, a radical conceptual and world-view change occurred in what he calls the classical, or mathematical, sciences, such as astronomy, statics and optics. On the other, the novel type of Baconian, or experimental, sciences emerged, dealing with the study of light, heat, magnetism and electricity, among other things. Kuhn argues that it was not before the second half of the nineteenth century that a systematic interaction and merging of the experimental and mathematical traditions took place. An example is the transformation of the Baconian science of heat into an experimental-mathematical thermodynamics during the first half of the nineteenth century. At about the same time, the interactions between (at first, mainly experimental) science and technology increased substantially. Important results of this scientification of technology were chemical dye stuffs and artificial fertilizers.

Starting in the second half of the nineteenth century, extensive experimentation also took root in various other sciences. This happened in medicine, in particular in physiology, somewhat later in psychology, and still later in the social sciences. A characteristic feature of many experiments in those sciences is a strong reliance on statistical methods (see, e.g., [ 3 ]).

The rise of the philosophy of scientific experimentation

Alongside the actual practices of experimentation, a variety of authors--both philosophers and philosophy-minded scientists--have reflected upon the nature and function of scientific experiments. Among the better-known examples are Bacon's and Galileo's advocacy of the experimental method. John Stuart Mill (around the middle of the nineteenth century) and Ernst Mach (late nineteenth-early twentieth century) provided some methodological and epistemological analyses of experimentation. Claude Bernard promoted and analyzed the use of the experimental method in medicine. His Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine [ 4 ] influenced a number of twentieth century French writers, including Pierre Duhem, Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem. While those authors addressed some aspects of experimentation in their accounts of science, a substantial and coherent tradition in the philosophy of scientific experimentation did not yet arise.

Such a tradition did spring up in Germany, in the second half of the twentieth century. Within this German tradition two approaches may be distinguished. One developed Hugo Dingler's pioneering work [ 5 ]. Dingler emphasized the manipulation and intervention character of experimentation, and hence its kinship to technology. One of his aims was to show how the basic theoretical concepts of physics, such as length or mass, could be grounded in concrete experimental actions. During the 1960s and 1970s, this part of Dingler's views was taken up and systematically developed by several other German philosophers, including Paul Lorenzen, Klaus Holzkamp and Peter Janich. More recently, the emphasis on the methodical construction of theoretical concepts in terms of experimental actions has given way to a more culturalistic interpretation of experimental procedures and results [ 6 ].

A second approach within the German tradition took its departure even more directly from the kinship between experiment and technology. The major figure here is the early Jürgen Habermas. In his work from the 1960s, Habermas conceived of (empirical-analytical) science as 'anticipated technology', the crucial link being experimental action [ 7 ]. In the spirit of Karl Marx, Martin Heidegger and Herbert Marcuse, Habermas' aim was not merely to develop a theory of (scientific) knowledge but rather a critique of technocratic reason. More recently, attempts have been made to connect this German tradition to Anglo-Saxon philosophy of experiment [ 8 , 9 ] and to contemporary social studies of science and technology [ 10 ]. Recent work on 'science as technology' by Srđan Lelas [ 11 ] can be characterized as, broadly, inspired by this second branch of the German tradition.

In the English-speaking world, a substantial number of studies of scientific experimentation have been written since the mid-1970s. They resulted from the Kuhnian 'programs in history and philosophy of science'. In their studies of (historical or contemporary) scientific controversies, sociologists of scientific knowledge often focused on experimental work (e.g., [ 12 ]), while so-called laboratory studies addressed the ordinary practices of experimental scientists (e.g., [ 13 ]). An approach that remained more faithful to the history and philosophy of science idea started with Ian Hacking's argument for the relative autonomy of experimentation and his plea for a philosophical study of experiment as a topic in its own right [ 14 ]. It includes work by Allan Franklin, Peter Galison, David Gooding and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, among many others (see the edited volumes [ 15 , 16 ] and [ 17 ]).

More recently, several philosophers argue that a further step should be taken by combining the results of the historical and sociological study of experiment with more developed theoretical-philosophical analyses [ 18 ]. A mature philosophy of experiment, they claim, should not be limited to summing up its practical features but attempt to provide a systematic analysis of experimental practice and experimental knowledge. The latter is often lacking in the sociological and historical literature on scientific experimentation.

Intervention and production, and their philosophical implications

Looking at the specific features of experiments within the overall practice of science, there is one feature that stands out. In order to perform experiments, whether they are large-scale or small-scale, experimenters have to intervene actively in the material world; moreover, in doing so they produce all kinds of new objects, substances, phenomena and processes. More precisely, experimentation involves the material realization of the experimental system (that is to say, the object(s) of study, the apparatus, and their interaction) as well as an active intervention in the environment of this system. In this respect, experiment contrasts with theory even if theoretical work is always attended with material acts (such as the typing or writing down of a mathematical formula). Hence, a central issue for a philosophy of experiment is the question of the nature of experimental intervention and production, and their philosophical implications. To be sure, at times scientists devise and discuss so-called thought experiments [ 19 ]. However, such 'experiments'--in which the crucial aspect of intervention and production is missing--are better conceived as not being experiments at all but rather as particular types of theoretical argument, which may or may not be materially realizable in experimental practice.

Clearly, not just any kind of intervention in the material world counts as a scientific experiment. Quite generally, one may say that successful experiments require, at least, a certain stability and reproducibility, and meeting this requirement presupposes a measure of control of the experimental system and its environment as well as a measure of discipline of the experimenters and the other people involved in realizing the experiment.

Experimenters employ a variety of strategies for producing stable and reproducible experiments (see, e.g., [ 20 , 21 ] and [ 6 ]). One such strategy is to attempt to realize 'pure cases' of experimental effects. For example, in some early electromagnetic experiments carried out in the 1820s, André Ampère investigated the interaction between an electric current and a freely suspended magnetic needle [ 22 ]. He systematically varied a number of factors of his experimental system and examined whether or not they were relevant, that is to say, whether or not they had a destabilizing impact on the experimental process.

Furthermore, realizing a stable object-apparatus system requires knowledge and control of the (actual and potential) interactions between this system and its environment. Depending on the aim and design of the experiment, specific interactions may be necessary (and hence required), allowed (but irrelevant), or forbidden (because disturbing). Thus, in his experiments on electromagnetism, Ampère anticipated a potential disturbance exerted by the magnetism of the earth. In response, he designed his experiment in such a way that terrestrial magnetism constituted an allowed rather than a forbidden interaction.

A further aspect of experimental stability is implied by the notion of reproducibility [ 9 ]. A successful performance of an experiment by the original experimenter is an achievement that may depend on certain idiosyncratic aspects of a local situation. Yet, a purely local experiment that cannot be carried out in other experimental contexts will, in the end, be unproductive for science. However, since the performance of an experiment is a complex process, no repetition will be strictly identical to the original experiment and many repetitions may be dissimilar in several respects. For this reason, we need to specify what we take or require to be reproducible (for instance, a particular aspect of the experimental process or a certain average over different runs). Furthermore, there is the question of who should be able to reproduce the experiment (for instance, the original experimenter, contemporary scientists, or even any scientist or human being). Investigating these questions leads to different types and ranges of experimental reproducibility, which can be observed to play different roles in experimental practice.

Laboratory experiments in physics, chemistry and molecular biology often allow one to control the objects under investigation to such an extent that the relevant objects in successive experiments may be assumed to be in identical states. Hence, statistical methods are employed primarily to further analyze or process the data (see, for instance, the error-statistical approach by Deborah Mayo [ 23 ]). In contrast, in field biology, medicine, psychology and social science, such a strict experimental control is often not feasible. To compensate for this, statistical methods in these areas are used directly to construct groups of experimental subjects that are presumed to possess identical average characteristics. It is only after such groups have been constructed that one can start the investigation of hypotheses about the research subjects. One can phrase this contrast in a different way by saying that in the former group of sciences statistical considerations mostly bear upon linking experimental data and theoretical hypotheses, while in the latter group it is often the case that statistics already play a role at the stage of producing the actual individual data.

The intervention and production aspect of scientific experimentation carries implications for several philosophical questions. A general lesson, already drawn by Bachelard, appears to be this: the intervention and production character of experimentation entails that the actual objects and phenomena themselves are, at least in part, materially realized through human interference. Hence, it is not just the knowledge of experimental objects and phenomena but also their actual existence and occurrence that prove to be dependent on specific, productive interventions by the experimenters. This fact gives rise to a number of important philosophical issues. If experimental objects and phenomena have to be realized through active human intervention, does it still make sense to speak of a 'natural' nature or does one merely deal with artificially produced laboratory worlds? If one does not want to endorse a fully-fledged constructivism, according to which the experimental objects and phenomena are nothing but artificial, human creations, one needs to develop a more differentiated categorization of reality. In this spirit, various authors (e.g., [ 20 , 9 ]) have argued that an appropriate interpretation of experimental science needs some kind of dispositional concepts, such as powers, potentialities, or tendencies. These human-independent dispositions would then underlie and enable the human construction of particular experimental processes.

A further important question is whether scientists, on the basis of artificial experimental intervention, can acquire knowledge of a human-independent nature. Some philosophers claim that, at least in a number of philosophically significant cases, such 'back inferences' from the artificial laboratory experiments to their natural counterparts can be justified. Another approach accepts the constructed nature of much experimental science, but stresses the fact that its results acquire a certain endurance and autonomy with respect to both the context in which they have been realized in the first place and later developments. In this vein, Davis Baird [ 24 ] offers an account of 'objective thing knowledge', the knowledge encapsulated in material things, such as Watson and Crick's material double helix model or the Indicator of Watt and Southern's steam engine.

Another relevant feature of experimental science is the distinction between the working of an apparatus and its theoretical accounts. In actual practice it is often the case that experimental devices work well, even if scientists disagree on how they work. This fact supports the claim that variety and variability at the theoretical level may well go together with a considerable stability at the level of the material realization of experiments. This claim can then be exploited for philosophical purposes, for example to vindicate entity realism [ 14 ] or referential realism [ 8 ].

The relationship between (experimental) science and technology

Traditionally, philosophers of science have defined the aim of science as, roughly, the generation of reliable knowledge of the world. Moreover, as a consequence of explicit or implicit empiricist influences, there has been a strong tendency to take the production of experimental knowledge for granted and to focus on theoretical knowledge. However, if one takes a more empirical look at the sciences, both at their historical development and at their current condition, this approach must be qualified as one-sided. After all, from Archimedes' lever-and-pulley systems to the cloned sheep Dolly, the development of (experimental) science has been intricately interwoven with the development of technology ([ 25 , 26 ]). Experiments make essential use of (often specifically designed) technological devices, and, conversely, experimental research often contributes to technological innovations. Moreover, there are substantial conceptual similarities between the realization of experimental and that of technological processes, most significantly the implied possibility and necessity of the manipulation and control of nature. Taken together, these facts justify the claim that the science-technology relationship ought to be a central topic for the study of scientific experimentation.

One obvious way to study the role of technology in science is to focus on the instruments and equipment employed in experimental practice. Many studies have shown that the investigation of scientific instruments is a rich source of insights for a philosophy of scientific experimentation (see, e.g. [ 15 , 17 , 18 ] and [ 27 ]). One may, for example, focus on the role of visual images in experimental design and explore the wider problem of the relationship between thought and vision. Or one may investigate the problem of how the cognitive function of an intended experiment can be materially realized, and what this implies for the relationship between technological functions and material structures. Or one may study the modes of representation of instrumentally mediated experimental outcomes and discuss the question of the epistemic or social appraisal of qualitative versus quantitative results.

In addition to such studies, several authors have proposed classifications of scientific instruments or apparatus. One suggested distinction is that between instruments that represent a property by measuring its value (e.g., a device that registers blood pressure), instruments that create phenomena that do not exist in nature (e.g., a laser), and instruments that closely imitate natural processes in the laboratory (e.g., an Atwood machine, which mimics processes and properties of falling objects).

Such classifications form an excellent starting point for investigating further philosophical questions on the nature and function of scientific instrumentation. They demonstrate, for example, the inadequacy of the empiricist view of instruments as mere enhancers of human sensory capacities. Yet, an exclusive focus on the instruments as such may tend to ignore two things. First, an experimental setup often includes various 'devices', such as a concrete wall to shield off dangerous radiation, a support to hold a thermometer, a spoon to stir a liquid, curtains to darken a room, and so on. Such devices are usually not called instruments, but they are equally crucial to a successful performance and interpretation of the experiment and hence should be taken into account. Second, a strong emphasis on instruments may lead to a neglect of the environment of the experimental system, especially of the requirement to control the interactions between the experimental system and its environment. Thus, a comprehensive view of scientific experimentation needs to go beyond an analysis of the instrument as such by taking full account of the specific setting in which this instrument needs to function.

Finally, there is the issue of the general philosophical significance of the experiment-technology relationship. Some of the philosophers who emphasize the importance of technology for science endorse a 'science-as-technology' account. That is to say, they advocate an overall interpretation in which the nature of science--not just experimental but also theoretical science--is seen as basically or primarily technological (see for instance, [ 5 , 7 ] and [ 11 ]). Other authors, however, take a less radical view by criticizing the implied reduction of science to technology and by arguing for the sui generis character of theoretical-conceptual and formal-mathematical work. Thus, while stressing the significance of the technological--or perhaps, more precisely, the intervention and production dimension of science--these views nevertheless see this dimension as complementary to a theoretical dimension (see, e.g., [ 8 , 24 ] and [ 28 ]).

The role of theory in experimentation

This brings us to a further central theme in the study of scientific experimentation, namely the relationship between experiment and theory. The theme can be approached in two ways. One approach addresses the question of how theories or theoretical knowledge may arise from experimental practices. Thus, Franklin [ 21 ] has provided detailed descriptions and analyses of experimental confirmations and refutations of theories in twentieth century physics. Giora Hon [ 28 ] has put forward a classification of experimental error, and has argued that the notion of error may be exploited to elucidate the transition from the material, experimental processes to propositional, theoretical knowledge (see also [ 29 ]).

A second approach to the experiment-theory relationship examines the question of the role of existing theories, or theoretical knowledge, within experimental practices. Over the last 25 years, this question has been debated in detail. Are experiments, factually or logically, dependent on prior theories, and if so, in which respects and to what extent? The remainder of this section reviews some of the debates on this question.

The strongest version of the claim that experimentation is theory dependent says that all experiments are planned, designed, performed, and used from the perspective of one or more theories about the objects under investigation. In this spirit, Justus von Liebig and Karl Popper, among others, advocated the view that all experiments are explicit tests of existing theories. This view completely subordinates experimental research to theoretical inquiry. However, on the basis of many studies of experimentation published during the last 25 years, it can be safely concluded that this claim is false. For one thing, quite frequently the aim of experiments is just to realize a stable phenomenon or a working device. Yet, the fact that experimentation involves much more than theory testing does not, of course, mean that testing a theory may not be an important goal in particular scientific settings.

At the other extreme, there is the claim that, basically, experimentation is theory-free. The older German school of 'methodical constructivism' (see [ 6 ]) came close to this position. A somewhat more moderate view is that, in important cases, theory-free experiments are possible and do occur in scientific practice. This view admits that performing such 'exploratory' experiments does require some ideas about nature and apparatus, but not a well-developed theory about the phenomena under scrutiny. Ian Hacking [ 14 ] and Friedrich Steinle [ 22 ] make this claim primarily on the basis of case studies from the history of experimental science. Michael Heidelberger [ 30 ] aims at a more systematic underpinning of this view. He distinguishes between theory-laden and causally-based instruments and claims that experiments employing the latter type of instruments are basically theory-free.

Another view admits that not all concrete activities that can be observed in scientific practice are guided by theories. Yet, according to this view, if certain activities are to count as a genuine experiment, they require a theoretical interpretation (see [ 8 , 9 , 28 ] and [ 31 ]). More specifically, performing and understanding an experiment depends on a theoretical interpretation of what happens in materially realizing the experimental process. In general, quite different kinds of theory may be involved, such as general background theories, theories or theoretical models of the (material, mathematical, or computational) instruments, and theories or theoretical models of the phenomena under investigation.

One argument for such claims derives from the fact that an experiment aims to realize a reproducible correlation between an observable feature of the apparatus and a feature of the object under investigation. The point is that materially realizing this correlation and knowing what can be learned about the object from inspecting the apparatus depends on theoretical insights about the experimental system and its environment. Thus, these insights pertain to those aspects of the experiment that are relevant to obtaining a reproducible correlation. It is not necessary, and in practice it will usually not be the case, that the theoretical interpretation offers a full understanding of any detail of the experimental process.

A further argument for the significance of theory in experimentation notes that a single experimental run is not enough to establish a stable result. A set of different runs, however, will almost always produce values that are, more or less, variable. The questions then are: What does this fact tell us about the nature of the property that has been measured? Does the property vary within the fixed interval? Is it a probabilistic property? Or is its real value constant and are the variations due to random fluctuations? In experimental practice, answers to such questions are based on an antecedent theoretical interpretation of the nature of the property that has been measured.

Regarding these claims, it is important to note that, in actual practice, the theoretical interpretation of an experiment will not always be explicit and the experimenters will not always be aware of its use and significance. Once the performance of a particular experiment or experimental procedure becomes routine, the theoretical assumptions drop out of sight: they become like an (invisible) 'window to the world'. Yet, in a context of learning to perform and understand the experiment or in a situation where its result is very consequential or controversial, the implicit interpretation will be made explicit and subjected to empirical and theoretical scrutiny. This means that the primary locus of the theoretical interpretation is the relevant scientific community and not the individual experimenter.

In conclusion: further issues in scientific experimentation

As we have seen, the systematic philosophical study of scientific experimentation is a relatively recent phenomenon. Hence, there are a number of further issues that have received some attention but merit a much more detailed account. In concluding this review paper, three such issues will be briefly discussed.

First, recent scientific practice shows an ever-increasing use of 'computer experiments'. These involve various sorts of hybrids of material intervention, computer simulation, and theoretical and mathematical modeling techniques (see [ 32 ]). Often, more traditional experimental approaches are challenged and replaced by approaches resting fully or primarily on computer simulations (sometimes this replacement is based on budgetary considerations only). More generally, there is a large variety of uses of computer science and technology in performing, analyzing and interpreting experiments and in visualizing, storing and disseminating their results. Automated experimentation constitutes a significant part of these developments.

These new developments raise important questions for the scholarly study of scientific experimentation. First, although some pioneering work has been done (see, for instance, [ 33 ] about the role of databases, and, more generally, bioinformatics in research in the life sciences), we need many more empirical studies that chart this new terrain. Furthermore, new methodological questions arise about how to do this automated experimentation in innovative, yet plausible, ways. As the history of Artificial Intelligence teaches us, expectations about automation can sometimes be overenthusiastic and unfounded ([ 34 , 35 ]). For this reason, a critical assessment of what can, and what cannot, be achieved through automation is particularly important (for the cases of formal symbol manipulation and neural network approaches to AI, see [ 36 ], chaps. 5 and 12). Related to this is the epistemological question of the justifiability of the results of the new approaches. Should experiments always involve a substantial material component or are simulated experiments equally reliable and useful (see [ 37 ])? Finally, computer experiments are regularly applied to complex and large-scale systems, for instance in climate science. Often, in such contexts, scientific and policy problems are intimately connected. This connection also constitutes an important topic for the study of scientific experimentation (see, e.g., [ 38 ]).

A second issue that merits more attention is the nature and role of experimentation in the social and human sciences, such as economics, sociology, medicine, and psychology. Practitioners of those sciences often label substantial, or even large, parts of their activities as 'experimental'. So far, this fact is not reflected in the philosophical literature on experimentation, which has primarily focused on the natural sciences. Thus, a challenge for future research is to connect the primarily methodological literature on experimenting in economics, sociology, medicine, and psychology with the philosophy of science literature on experimentation in natural science (see, e.g., [ 39 ] and [ 40 ]).

One subject that will naturally arise in philosophical reflection upon the similarities and dissimilarities of natural and social or human sciences is this: In experiments on human beings, the experimental subjects will often have their own interpretation of what is going on in these trials, and this interpretation may influence their responses over and above the behavior intended by the experimenters. As a methodological problem (of how to avoid 'biased' responses) this is of course well known to practitioners of the human and social sciences. However, from a broader philosophical or socio-cultural perspective the problem is not necessarily one of bias. It may also reflect a clash between a scientific and a common-sense interpretation of human beings. In case of such a clash, social and ethical issues are at stake, since the basic question is who is entitled to define the nature of human beings: the scientists or the people themselves? The methodological, ethical, and social issues springing from this question will continue to be a significant theme for the study of experimentation in the human and social sciences.

This brings us to a last issue. The older German tradition explicitly addressed wider normative questions surrounding experimental science and technology. The views of Habermas, for example, have had a big impact on broader conceptualizations of the position of science and technology in society. Thus far, the more recent Anglophone approaches within the philosophy of scientific experimentation have primarily dealt with more narrowly circumscribed scholarly topics. In so far as normative questions have been taken into account, they have been mostly limited to epistemic normativity, for instance to questions of the proper functioning of instruments or the justification of experimental evidence. Questions regarding the connections between epistemic and social or ethical normativity are hardly addressed.

Yet, posing such questions is not far-fetched. For instance, those experiments that use animals or humans as experimental subjects are confronted with a variety of normative issues, often in the form of a tension between methodological and ethical requirements [ 41 ]. Other normatively relevant questions relate to the issue of the artificial and the natural in experimental science and science-based technology. Consider, for example, the question of whether experimentally isolated genes are natural or artificial entities. This question is often discussed in environmental philosophy, and different answers to it entail a different environmental ethics and politics. More specifically, the issue of the contrast between the artificial and the natural is crucial to debates about patenting, in particular the patenting of genes and other parts of organisms. The reason is that discoveries of natural phenomena are not patentable while inventions of artificial phenomena are [ 42 ].

Although philosophers of experiment cannot be expected to solve all of those broader social and normative problems, they may be legitimately asked to contribute to the debate on possible approaches and solutions. In this respect, the philosophy of scientific experimentation could profit from its kinship to the philosophy of technology, which has always shown a keen sensitivity to the interconnectedness between technological and social or normative issues.

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This article draws on material from an earlier publication. Copyright ( © 2006) From The Philosophy of Science. An Encyclopedia , edited by Sahotra Sarkar and Jessica Pfeifer. Reproduced by permission of Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, a division of Informa plc.

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Reflections on the Ethics of Social Experimentation

Social scientists are increasingly engaging in experimental research projects of importance for public policy in developing areas. While this research holds the possibility of producing major social benefits, it may also involve manipulating populations, often without consent, sometimes with potentially adverse effects, and often in settings with obvious power differentials between researcher and subject. Such research is currently conducted with few clear ethical guidelines. In this paper I discuss research ethics as currently understood in this field, highlighting the limitations of standard procedures and the need for the construction of appropriate ethics, focusing on the problems of determining responsibility for interventions and assessing appropriate forms of consent.

1 Introduction

Social science researchers are increasingly using field experimental methods to try to answer all kinds of questions about political processes and public policies. Unlike traditional “observational” methods, in which you observe the world as it comes to you, the idea right at the heart of the experimental approach is that you learn about the world by seeing how it reacts to interventions. In international development research these interventions can sometimes take the form of researchers from wealthy institutions manipulating citizens from poorer populations to answer questions of little interest to those populations.

These studies raise a host of ethical concerns that social scientists are not well equipped to deal with. US based social science researchers rely on principles such as respect for persons, justice, and beneficence that have been adopted by health researchers and institutionalized through formal review processes but that do not always do the work asked of them by social scientists.

Consider one example where many of the points of tension come to a head. Say a researcher is contacted by a set of community organizations that want to figure out whether placing street lights in slums will reduce violent crime. In this research the subjects are the criminals: seeking informed consent of the criminals would likely compromise the research and it would likely not be forthcoming anyhow (violation of respect for persons); the criminals will likely bear the costs of the research without benefitting (violation of justice); and there will be disagreement regarding the benefits of the research – if it is effective, the criminals in particular will not value it (producing a difficulty for assessing benevolence). There is no pretense at neutrality in this research since assessing the effectiveness of the lamps is taking sides, but despite the absence of neutrality no implicit contract between researchers and subjects is broken. The special issues here are not just around the subjects however. Here there are also risks that obtain to non-subjects, if for example criminals retaliate against the organizations putting the lamps in place. The organization may be very aware of these risks but be willing to bear them because they erroneously put faith in the ill-founded expectations of researchers from wealthy universities who are themselves motivated in part to publish.

The example raises a lot of issues. It is chosen because despite the many issues raised, the principles that are currently employed provide almost no guidance to deal with the issues raised. It is not however a particularly unusual case and many of the features of the case are shared by other projects including work in spheres such as reduction of violence against women, efforts to introduce democratic institutions in rural communities, job training programs for ex combatants, efforts to alter electoral behaviour of constituents, and efforts to stamp out corruption by politicians [for a discussion of many relevant cases see Baele (2013)]. Unlike classic health and education interventions, these projects routinely deal with interventions that have winners and losers, create risks for some, and are done without the consent of all parties affected by them.

The absence of clear principles to handle these issues leaves individuals and the professions in a difficult situation, at least if they care about the ethical implications of their research designs above and beyond whether they receive formal research approval.

So how should researchers proceed in these cases? At present there are no satisfactory answers. To make progress I discuss three sets of problems raised by research designs like this, which I call the problem of audience , the problem of agency , and the problem of consent .

The audience question is about determining what the professional ethical issues are. My focus throughout will be on professional ethics rather than more metaphysical questions of what is right or wrong in some objective sense. Thus in Section 2, I highlight a conceptualization of the problem not as a problem of normative ethics – whether any of these designs are right or wrong in any fundamental sense – but as a question of audience. A key purpose of professional ethics is to clarify expectations of members of a profession for relevant groups that are important to their work. For medical ethics the key audience is patients, or particularly subjects: those patients with which medical professionals engage. The current guidelines used by social scientists are inherited from medical ethics, which place a primary focus on human subjects. While subjects perhaps represent the primary audience for medical interventions, this may not be the case for social science interventions for which the key audience can be the general public or policy. This section highlights the need for the construction of an ethics that addresses the preoccupations of social scientists engaging in this type of research. It also highlights the more thorny nature of this problem for interventions in which there are winners and losers, as in the motivating example above.

The agency problem is the problem of determining who is responsible for manipulations. I discuss this in Section 3, describing an argument – which I call the “spheres of ethics” argument – that researchers sometimes employ as grounds for collaborating in partnerships in which subjects are exposed to risks to an extent not normally admissible in the course of research projects. The key idea is that if an intervention is ethical for implementing agencies with respect to the ethical standards of their sphere – which may differ from the ethical standards of researchers – then responsibility may be divided between researchers and implementers, with research ethics standards applied to research components and partner standards applied to manipulations. Put crudely this approach can be considered a way of passing the buck, but in fact the arguments for employing it are much more subtle than that. In a way, the buck-passing interpretation fundamentally misses the point of professional ethics. Even still, this argument is subject to abuse and so this section outlines protections related to agency autonomy and legitimacy which in turn depend on the conceptualization of professional ethics described in Section 2.

The third problem is the critical problem of consent . The bulk of this essay focuses on consent and the role it plays in research ethics. Current norms for informed consent are again inherited from medical ethics and reflect answers in the medical community to the first two questions. Yet alternative conceptualizations of consent are possible, and may be more appropriate for social scientists, given the different answers to questions of audience and agency in social science research. I outline a range of these in Section 4.

I close with reflections on implications for practice and for the development of ethical standards that can address the issues raised by experimental research in social science.

2 Problem 1: Audience

What are we worrying about when we worry about whether implementing experiments like that described above is ethical? It often seems as though we are worrying about whether in some fundamental sense these research activities are right or wrong. But framing the question in that way renders it largely unanswerable. The more practical approach of professional ethics is to determine whether one or another action is more or less consistent with the expectations of a relevant “audience” regarding the behaviour of the members of the profession. [1]

While the response that ethical action is action that is in line with expectations of a relevant audience is not technically question begging, it does require the existence of some recognized set of norms for a profession. In practice, social scientists largely work within the ethical framework provided by the human subjects protection system. [2] The systems was devised primarily with a view to regulating medical research, but now covers all research involving human subjects, at least for US based researchers or researchers receiving federal funding.

The principles embedded in the Belmont report [3] and that permeate the work of Institutional Review Boards in the United States self-consciously seek to prescribe a set of common expectations for a community of researchers and their patients and clients. Indeed, sidestepping the question of ethical foundations seems to have been a strategy of the US Commission that produced these reports. [4] The pragmatic approach adopted by the commission is a strength. As argued by Jonsen (1983), medical ethics, as captured by the documents produced by the Commission, is “a Concord in Medical Ethics,” a concord “reached by a responsible group drawn from the profession and from the public.”

But this pragmatic approach also limits the pretensions to universality of research ethics in an obvious way. The principles of the Belmont report were developed to address particular problems confronting the medical profession that carry authority because they were developed through a deliberative process that sought to reach consensus in the profession around conventions of behaviour. The result is both elegant in sidestepping the unanswerable questions and messy in its result. The final principles are a mixture of deontological and consequentialist principles, with no overarching principle to refer to to determine what kinds of tradeoffs should be made in cases where interventions that benefit one group harm another. The practical solution is to outsource the problem of making these determinations to the judgments of individuals placed on university institutional review boards. While effective for some purposes, there is ex ante no reason to expect that the principles developed provide the appropriate guidelines for social science. [5]

The poor fit stems in part from the fact that medical research differs from social science research in various ways.

researchers are interested in the behaviour of institutions or groups, whether governmental, private sector, or nongovernmental, and do not require information about individuals (for example if you want to figure out if a government licensing agency processes applications faster from high caste applicants than from low caste applicants)

those most likely to be harmed by an intervention are not the subjects (for example when researchers are interested in the behaviour of bureaucrats whose decisions affects citizens, or in the behaviour of pivotal voters, which in turn can affect the outcome of elections)

subjects are not potential beneficiaries of the research and may even oppose it (for example for studies of interventions seeking to reduce corruption in which the corrupt bureaucrats are the subjects)

consent processes can compromise the research (for example for studies that seek to measure gender or race based discrimination by landlords or employers)

there is disagreement over whether the outcomes are valuable (compare finding a cure for a disease to finding out that patronage politics is an effective electoral strategy); indeed some social scientific interventions are centered on the distributive implications of interventions: when different outcomes benefit some and hurt others, the desideratum of benefitting all that are implicated by an intervention is unobtainable

there is no expectation of care between the research subjects and the researcher

These features can sometimes make the standard procedures used by Institutional Review Boards for approving social science research irrelevant or unworkable.

The first two differences mean that formal reviews, as currently set up, can ignore the full range of benefits and harms of research or do not cover the research at all. Formal reviews focus on human subjects: living individuals about whom investigators obtain data through intervention or interaction or obtain identifiable private information.

The third and fourth, which again focus on subjects rather than broader populations, can quickly put the principles of justice and respect for persons – two of the core principles elaborated in the Belmont report (upon which standard review processes are based) at odds with research that may seem justifiable on other grounds.

The fifth difference can make the third Belmont principle, beneficence, unworkable, at least in the absence of some formula for comparing the benefits to some against the costs for others (see Baele 2013 on the difficulties of applying beneficence arguments).

The sixth difference means that the stakes are different. If a health researcher fails to provide care for an individual in a control group, this may violate their duty of care and break the public trust in their professions. This may not be true for social scientists however.

Thus, standard considerations inherited from the human subjects protection system can be blind to the salient considerations for social science researchers and their primary audiences. The focus on private data and the protection of subjects may sometimes seem excessive; but the blindness to the risks for non-subjects may be more costly. Specific risks, beyond welfare costs, are that researchers gain a reputation for providing unsound advice to government officials on sensitive issues, encourage the withholding of benefits from the public, interfere with judicial processes, or put vulnerable (non-subject) populations at risk, in order to further research agendas.

Refocussing on the question of audience however can give some guidance here. A preoccupation of medical ethics is the maintenance of relations of trust between medical professionals and patients. In this sense, patients are a key audience for medical ethics. [6] Patients can expect care from medical professionals no matter who they are. But the nature of social science questions puts researchers in different relations with subjects, most obviously when interventions are interventions aimed against subjects. It seems improbable that social scientists can maintain relations of trust with corrupt politicians, human rights abusers, and perpetrators of violence when the interventions they are examining are designed precisely to confront these groups.

What audiences are most critical for social scientists? Subjects are of course a key audience for social scientists also, not least because for much data collection depends on the trust, generosity, and goodwill of subjects. But two wider audiences are also critical and the fashioning of social science research ethics for field experimentation should focus closely on these. The first are research partners and the second are research consumers.

2.1 Partner Matters

As in the example above, much field experimentation can involve partnerships with local governmental or nongovernmental groups. Partnering in experimental research can be very costly for partners however. And if they do not have a full understanding of the research design, partners can be convinced to do things not in their interests which is a risk when the interests of partners and researchers diverge. One point of divergence is with respect to statistical power. For a partner, an underpowered study can mean costly investments that result in ambiguous findings. Underpowered studies are in general a problem for researchers too with the difference that they can still be useful if their findings can be incorporated into metaanalyses. Researchers may also be more willing to accept underpowered studies if they are less risk averse than partners and if they discount the costs of the interventions. Thus to account for global beneficence, researchers need to establish some form of informed consent with partners . At a minimum this requires establishing that partners really understand the limitations and the costs of an experiment.

One useful practice is to sign a formal Memorandum of Understanding between the researcher and the partner organization at the beginning of a project laying out the roles and responsibilities of both parties. However, even when they exist, these rarely include many of the most important elements that researchers are required to provide to subjects during the informed consent process, such as the potential risks or alternatives to experimentation. These documents could even include discussions of the power of a study to ensure that partners are aware of the probability that their experiment will result in unfavourable findings, even if their program has a positive impact. Having clearer standards for what information should be required before a partner consents to an experiment could facilitate continued positive relationships between researchers and partners.

In addition, concern must be given to how researchers explain technical information to partners. The informed consent process with research subjects defines additional precautions that must be taken to obtain consent from people with limited autonomy. Similarly, there is a burden on researchers to explain the risks and benefits of technical choices to partners in layman’s terms. Alderman et al. (2013) highlight the false expectations that subjects can have when they engage with researchers coming from privileged institutions and the responsibilities that this can produce. A similar logic can be in operation for partner organizations. Sharing (and explaining) statistical power calculations is one way of ensuring understanding. Another is to generate “mock” tables of results in advance so that partners can see exactly what is being tested and how those tests will be interpreted. [7]

A second concern relates to the researchers’ independence from partners. The concern is simple, that in the social sciences, as in medical sciences, partnering induces pressures on researchers to produce results that make the partner happy. These concerns relate to the credibility of results, a problem I return to below. The problems are especially obvious when researchers receive remuneration; but they apply more generally and may put the quality of the research at risk. But the lack of independence cuts the other way also: if staff in partner organizations depend on researchers for access to expertise or funding, this may generate conflicts of interest for them in agreeing to implement some kind of research or other.

One way that independence can be increased is through separation of funding: when researchers are not remunerated for conducting experimental evaluations, they may be freer to report negative results. Another is to clarify from the outset that researchers have the right to the data and the right to publish the results no matter what the findings are. However, even when these measures are taken, there may be psychological or ideological reasons that researchers might still not be fully independent from partners.

2.2 Users: Quality of Research Findings

Given the fact that field experiments can impose costs on some groups, including subjects, assessing the beneficence of a study is especially tricky. A part of the consideration of beneficence however involves an assessment of the quality of the work and the lessons that can be drawn from it. If an argument in favor of a research design is that the lessons from the research produce positive effects, for example by providing answers to normatively important questions, then an assessment of beneficence requires an expectation that the design is capable of generating credible results (Baele 2013). [8] In practice though researchers sometimes defend research that involves potential risks on the basis of the gains from knowledge there is rarely any kind of systematic accounting for such gains and rarely a treatment of how to assess these gains when there are value disagreements. Moreover researchers, given their interests in the research, are likely the wrong people to try to make this determination. Nevertheless, any claim based on the value of the findings needs to assume that the findings are credible.

The credibility of research depends on many features. I would like to draw attention to one which is the loss in credibility that can arise from weak analytic transparency. Post hoc analysis is still the norm in much of political science and economics. Until recently it has been almost impossible to find a registered design of any experiment in the political economy of development (in the first draft of this paper I pointed to one study; there are now close to 200 pre-registered designs housed on the EGAP registry (109), RIDIE (37), and AEA registry (49)). When experiments are not pre-registered there may be concerns that results are selected based on their statistical significance or the substantive claims they make, with serious implications for bias (Gerber and Malhotra 2008; Casey et al. 2012) .

As research of this form increases in prominence, there will be a need to develop principles to address these questions of audience. For this, social scientists might follow the lead of the National Commission that established the principles for health research and seek not to root assessments of what is or is not ethical research in conflicting moral intuitions or on normative theories that may or may not be broadly shared. Instead in response to the issues raised by field experiments, social scientists could initiate a public process to decide what should constitute expected practice in this field in light of the interests of the audiences specific to their research – notably partners, governments, and the general public. [9]

3 Problem 2: Agency

In the example above of an experiment on street-lighting the intervention was initiated and implemented by a local organization and not by the researchers. Is this fact of ethical relevance for researchers taking part in the experiment?

Currently many social science experiments are implemented in this way by political actors of various forms such as a government, an NGO or a development agency. In these cases, and unlike many medical trials, research often only exists because of the intervention rather than the other way round. [10] This approach can be contrasted with a “framed field experiment” in which the intervention is established by researchers for the purpose of addressing a research question and done in a way in which participants know that they are part of a research experiment. [11] In practice, of course, the distinction between these two types of experiment is often not clear, [12] even still it raises an important point of principle: can things be arranged such that the ethical responsibility for experiments can be shared with partners?

Assume heroically that there is agreement among researchers about appropriate standards of research. Say now, still more heroically, that there are other standards of behaviour for other actors in other spheres that are also generally accepted. For NGOs for example we might think of the INGO Accountability Charter; for governments we might think of international treaty obligations. One might think of these ethical principles in different spheres as stemming from a single theory of ethics, or simply as the possibly incompatible principles adopted by different communities. In either case, these different standards may specify different behaviours for different actors. Thus for example by the ethical principles of research, a researcher interviewing a genocidaire in Rwanda should seek fully informed consent prior to questioning and stop questioning when asked by the subject or if they sense discomfort on the part of the subject. However, a government interrogator might not, but still act ethically according to the principles adopted by governments by eschewing other behaviour, such as torture. In this example, the ethical constraints on the researcher seem more demanding. There may be more intractable incompatibilities if constraints are not “nested.” For example a researcher may think it unethical to give over information about a subject suspected of criminal activities while a government official may think it unethical not to.

The question then is whose ethical principles to follow when there are collaborations? One possibility is to adhere to the most stringent principle of the partners. Thus researchers working in partnerships with governments may expect governments to follow principles of research ethics when engaging with subjects. In some situations, discussed below, this may be a fruitful approach. But as a general principle it suffers from two flaws. The first is that in making these requirements the researcher is altering the behaviour of partners in ways that may limit their effectiveness. The second is that, as noted above, the constraints may be non-nested: the ethical position for a government may be to prosecute a criminal; but the researcher wants to minimize harm to subjects. In practice this might rule out appending research components to interventions that would have happened without the researcher and that are ethical from the perspective of implementers; it could for example prevent the use of experimental approaches to study a large range of government strategies without any gain, and possibly some loss, to affected populations.

An alternative approach is to divide responsibilities: to make implementers responsible for implementation and researchers responsible for the research. This is what I call above the “spheres of ethics” argument. The principle of allocating responsibility of implementation to partners may then be justified on the grounds that in the absence of researchers, partners would be implementing (or, more weakly, that they could implement) such interventions anyhow, and are capable of bearing ethical responsibility for the interventions outside of the research context.

Quite distinct rationales for this approach are that partner organizations may be better placed to make decisions in the relevant areas and may be more effectively held to account if things go wrong. In addition partners may be seen by others as having legitimacy to take actions which might (correctly) be seen as meddling by outsiders (see Baele (2013) on the “Foreign Intervention problem”).

As a practical matter researchers can do this in an underhand way by advising on interventions qua consultants and then returning to analyse data qua researchers; or by setting up an NGO to implement an intervention qua activist and then return for the data qua researcher. But this approach risks creating a backdoor for simply avoiding researcher responsibilities altogether.

Instead, by appealing to spheres of ethics, researchers collaborating with autonomous partners can do something like this in a transparent way by formally dividing responsibility. Although researchers play a role in the design of interventions it may still be possible to draw a line between responsibility for design and responsibility for implementation. Here, responsibility is understood not in the causal sense of who contributed to the intervention, but formally as who shoulders moral and legal responsibility for the intervention.

An argument against the spheres of ethics approach is that it is simply passing the buck and not engaging with the ethical issues at all. But this response misses the point of professional ethics; professional ethics is not about what outcomes should obtain in the world but about who should do what. Allocating responsibility to partners is no more buck-passing than calling on police to intervene in a threatening situation rather than relying on self-help.

The sphere of ethics approach is consistent with ideas in medical research for assessing non-validated practice. On this issue the Belmont report notes: “Research and practice may be carried on together when research is designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a therapy. This need not cause any confusion regarding whether or not the activity requires review; the general rule is that if there is any element of research in an activity, that activity should undergo review for the protection of human subjects.” In terms of the standards to be applied in such a review, however, Levine (1988) notes: “the ethical norms and procedures that apply to non-validated practice are complex. Use of a modality that has been classified as non-validated practice is justified according to the norms of practice. However, the research designed to develop information about the safety and efficacy of the practice is conducted according to the norms of research.”

Levine’s interpretation of the division of labour appears consistent with the spheres of ethics approach. But the approach raises at least two critical difficulties. The first is a problem of implementer autonomy . In practice implementers may not be so autonomous from the researchers, in which case the spheres of ethics argument may simply serve as a cover for avoiding researcher responsibilities. The second is deeper: the argument is incomplete insofar as it depends on an unanswered normative question: it requires that the researcher have grounds to deem actions that are ethical from the partner’s perspective are indeed ethical – perhaps in terms of content or on the grounds of the process used by partners to construct them. This is the partner legitimacy concern. A researcher adopting a spheres of ethics argument may reasonably be challenged for endorsing or benefitting from weak ethical standards of partners. Indeed without an answer to this question, any collection of people could engage in any action which they claim to be ethical with respect to their “sphere;” a version of this argument could for example serve as grounds for doctors participating in medical experimentation in partnership with the Nazi government.

In line with the principle of socially constructed professional ethics, described in Section 2, a solution might be the formal recognition by the professions of classes of legitimate partners for various spheres – such as all governments, or all governments satisfying some particular criteria. The incompleteness of the spheres of ethics argument then adds urgency to the need for an answer to the problem of audience.

4 Problem 3: Consent

Medical ethics places considerable focus on the principle of informed consent, and indeed consent can in principle allay the twin concerns of audience and agency discussed in Sections 2 and 3: If the relevant audience provides consent then the expectations of the audience are arguably met and there is also a clearer allocation of responsibility for action. Both of these arguments confront difficulties however. Moreover different conceptualizations of audience and agency have different implications for consent.

The US National Commission motivated the principle of consent as follows:

Respect for persons requires that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them… there is widespread agreement that the consent process can be analyzed as containing three elements: information, comprehension and voluntariness.

In promoting the concept of consent, the commission also sought to produce definitional clarity around it. Whereas the terms can mean many things in different settings, as described by Levine (1988), “the Commission […] abandoned the use of the word “consent,” except in situations in which an individual can provide “legally effective consent” on his or her own behalf.” [13]

In practice however in many social experiments, consent is very imperfect. imperfect consent is routinely sought for measurement purposes, for example when survey data is collected. It is sometimes sought at least implicitly for interventions, although individual subjects may often not be consulted on whether for example they are to be exposed to particular ads or whether a school is to be built in their town. But even if consent for exposure to a treatment is sought, individual level consent may not be sought for participation in the experiment per se, for example subjects are often not informed that they were randomly assigned to receive (or not receive) a treatment for research purposes. [14]

To assess how great a problem this is, it is useful to consider the rationales for informed consent that inspired medical professionals and other rationales that may be relevant for social scientists.

4.1 The Argument from Respect of Persons

The argument provided for informed consent in the Belmont report and related documents is the principle of “respect for persons.” Manipulating subjects without their consent diminishes their autonomy and instantiates a lack of respect. Consent, conversely, can serve two functions.

The first is diagnostic : that consent can provide a test of whether people are in fact being used “merely as ends.” [15] Critically, this diagnostic function of consent can in principle be achieved without actual consent; though actual consent eliminates the need for guesswork.

The second is effective : that consent may enhance autonomy (or conversely, forgoing consent reduces autonomy). Thus the Belmont report advises the importance of maximizing the autonomy of subjects: “Respect for persons requires that subjects, to the degree that they are capable, be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them.” There are multiple aspects of autonomy that may be affected by engagement with an experiment, with somewhat different implications for what is required of consent. I distinguish here between three: participation autonomy , behaviour autonomy , and product autonomy . [16]

The first, participation autonomy , relates to the decision of whether or not to be involved with the research. The absence of choice reduces subject autonomy at least with respect to the decision to take part. Behavioural autonomy may be compromised due to lack of consent because of information deficits (see example below) resulting in subjects making decisions that they would not otherwise make, given the options available to them. Behavioural autonomy can also be compromised if individuals’ choice sets are constrained because of the manipulation. Third, as a subject’s actions yield a research product, a lack of consent means that the subject loses control over how their labour is to be used, or a loss of product autonomy . [17] To illustrate: say an intervention broadcasts information about political performance on the radio in order to assess how the information alters voting behaviour by the politician’s constituents. Done without consent, the listeners had no option but to take part in the study (participation autonomy), their subsequent actions are affected by the treatment and might have been different had they known the information was provided for research purposes (behavioural autonomy) and they will have no say in the publication of knowledge that is derived from their actions (product autonomy).

A problem with this formulation is that consent, or even notional consent, is not clearly either a necessary or sufficient condition for respect for persons. That is, unless respect for persons is defined in terms of consent (rather than, for example, a concern with the welfare or capabilities of others), the diagnostic function of consent as described above faces difficulties. There is a logical disconnect between consent and respect since determining respect requires information about the disposition of the researcher but consent provides information on the disposition of the subject. Consent might not be a necessary condition for establishing respect for persons since it is possible that the subject would never consent to an action that is nevertheless taken by a researcher with a view to enhancing their welfare or their capabilities. And of course, subjects may consent to actions not in their interests and not consent to other actions that are, or they may unknowingly take actions that limit their autonomy. The specific markers sometimes invoked to indicate that respect for persons is violated, such as the use of deceit or force, also suffer difficulties since one can construct instances in which a deceived person can recognize that deceit was necessary to achieve a good in question. [18] In addition, consent might not be sufficient since it is possible that a subject consents to an action that is not being done because it is in their interest, but nevertheless has their welfare as a byproduct.

Consider again the three types of autonomy that are threatened by an incomplete consent process. Loss in participation autonomy does not necessarily imply that individuals are treated simply as ends. Holding a surprise birthday for a friend deliberately compromises participation autonomy in order to provide a benefit for the friend – one that they might consent to if only the consent did not destroy the surprise. [19] In some situations, where providing consent may put individuals at risk, not seeking consent may even increase participation autonomy by providing the choice to participate de facto or not even if risks make formal consent impossible. Even in the absence of consent however it is possible that participation in an experiment enhances behaviour autonomy either by expanding information or by expanding choice sets. Product autonomy can be restored by ex post consent, for example allowing a subject to determine whether they want data collected from them to be used in an analysis. Thus consent, as currently required, does not seem to be necessary or sufficient for the work asked of it.

4.2 Other rationales for Consent

Legal protection from charges of abuse : A nonethical reason for seeking consent is to protect researchers from civil or criminal charges of abuse. For medical trials, the need for protection is obvious since actions as simple as providing an injection involve physical injury, which would under normal circumstance have criminal implications. [20] Consent clarifies that the action is non-criminal in nature (although this depends on the action – consent to be killed does not generally protect the killer). The rationale for documenting consent is primarily legal. As noted by Levine, HEW regulations “require that if there are risks associated with research then ‘legally effective informed consent will be obtained… The purpose of documenting consent on a consent form is […] to protect the investigator and the institution against legal liability” (Levine 1979).

Information aggregation/subject filtering : Consent may also provide researchers with information regarding the relative costs or benefits of an intervention. If a researcher discovers that an individual is unwilling to take part in a study, this provides information on the perceived benefits of the study. In such cases there are double grounds not to proceed, not just because it compromises autonomy but also because it violates beneficence. As discussed below however, this goal of information aggregation may be met at a population level by seeking consent from a subset of potential subjects.

Maintaining the reputation of the academy : A third rationale for consent is that consent preserves the reputation of the academy. It clarifies to the public the nature of relations between researchers and populations, that this relation is based on respect, and that populations should not expect that their trust in researchers will be abused or that they will be put at risk without consent. Though clearly of pragmatic benefit to the academy this argument is ethical insofar as it reflects a standard of behaviour that is expected of a particular group. Note that this argument, more than any of the others, provides a rationale for ethical standards specific to researcher-subject relations that maintain higher standards than is expected of general interactions.

In the context of naturally occurring field experiments, there are also arguments for why consent might not be sought.

One is that because the intervention is naturally occurring, an attempt to gain consent would be intrusive for subjects and especially damaging for research. Consider for example an experiment that focuses on the effects of billboard ads. In this experiment it is precisely because seeing government ads is a routine event that preceding (if that is possible) viewing of the ad with an announcement that the ad is being posted to understand such and such an effect will have particularly adverse consequences. Preceding the ad with a disclaimer may moreover falsely suggest to subjects that some unusual participation or measurement is taking place, even if a purpose of the disclaimer is to deny it.

A second, more difficult reason is that the withholding of consent may not be within the rights of the subjects. Consider for example a case where a police force seeks to understand the effects of patrols on reducing crime. The force could argue that the consent of possible criminals (the subjects in this case) is not required, and indeed is undesirable, for the force to decide where to place police. This argument is the most challenging since it highlights the fact that consent is not even notionally required by all actors for all interventions, even if it is generally always required of researchers for subjects. In this example the police can argue that the subject has no rights over whether or how the intervention is administered (participation autonomy). One might counter that even if that is correct, the subject may still have rights regarding whether his responses to the interventions can be used for research purposes (product autonomy). However, one might in turn counter that even these concerns might be discounted if the actions are public information.

In Section 2, I noted that maintaining the trust of subjects is of paramount concern to medical researchers. This provides a basis for insisting on informed consent by subjects. As argued in Section 2, for social scientists, the confidence of the general public and of policy makers in particular are also critical. Moreover the welfare of non-subjects may be of critical importance. These considerations have two implications: first that depending on the treatment of the problem of audience, the form of consent needed may differ from the current standard; second that depending on the population affected, the focus on subjects as the locus of consent may not be appropriate: the informed consent of practitioner partners and affected third parties may be just, or perhaps more, critical.

4.3 Varieties of Consent

Given the multiple desiderata associated with consent we may expect that variations of the informed consent process might succeed in meeting some or other of these.

For example, if what is valued is participation autonomy , then this seems to require actual ex ante consent. The loss in autonomy consists of the absence of choice to be subjected to a treatment. The demands of product autonomy , unlike participation or behaviour autonomy, can be met with ex post consent. The demands of the diagnostic test can in principle be met by notional consent, and so on.

With this in mind, Table 1 , considers how eight approaches to the consent process fare on different desiderata. [21]

Consent Strategies.

	Strategy
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
	Informed consent	Implied consent	Proxy (delegated) consent	Superset consent	Package consent	Deferred (ex post) consent	Inferred (surrogate) consent	Spheres of ethics: (compartmentalized consent)

Illustration/description:	Subject provided intelligible information and asked for consent before implementation	Patient holds arm out to doctor to provide injection	[Statistical] Subject asked to appoint someone who they trust to receive information about experiment A and provide consent on their behalf [Authoritative] : representative used that is not specifically appointed by subject for this purpose	Subject asked in advance of experiment A if they would be willing to take part in of experiments A, B, C	Subject asked in advance of experiment A if they would be willing to be assigned to take part in one of a set of experiments	Subject unwittingly takes part in study and asked after the fact if data may be used	Sample of nonsubjects that are “like” the subject are asked if they would be willing to take part in experiment A. Inferences on hypothetical consent of subject are drawn	A researcher partners with a practitioner to implement a study. The practitioner is responsible for the intervention and the researcher for measurement
Consideration
Application of diagnostic test	++	+	+	++	+	–	+	–
Individual participation autonomy	++	+	+	++	+	–	–	–
Individual behaviour autonomy	++	+	+	++	+	–	–	–
Individual product autonomy	++	+	+	++	+	++	–	–
Researcher gains knowledge about likely felt costs of intervention	++	+	+	++	+	++	++	–
Researcher gain prior knowledge about particular risks facing individual	++	+	+	++	+	–	–	–
Legal protection of researchers (assuming documentation)	++	+	+	++	++	–	–	+
Reputation of discipline	++	+	+	++	++	–	+	+
Beneficence (towards subjects)	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Avoids Hawthorne and related biases	?	?	+	+	+	++	++	++
Low cost	?	+	–	–	–	?	+	+

Source: Author.

Ex ante informed consent : Ex ante informed consent fares well on autonomy principles as well as on legal protection of researchers (if documented) and the reputation of the discipline. As argued above however it is not a necessary or sufficient condition for respect for persons, in addition it may impose costs on subjects, weaken the quality of some kinds of research, and be costly to achieve.

Implied consent: An alternative is implied consent which arises when there are grounds to think that consent is given even if consent is not formally given or elicited. Implied consent might include cases in which voluntary participation is itself considered evidence of consent to be in a study. Implied consent can reduce costs to subjects and researchers but may leave researchers in a legally weaker position and may put their reputation more into question.

Proxy (delegated) consent : Both ex ante consent and implied consent suppose that subjects are informed of the purpose of the experiment ex ante . In some settings, this can threaten the validity of the research. An approach to maintain a form of participation autonomy but keep subjects blind to treatment is to ask subjects to delegate someone who will be given full information and determine on their behalf whether to give consent. [22] Insofar as the subject sees the delegate as their agent in the matter, proxy consent inherits the benefits of ex ante informed consent, but with reduced risks to the research. A weaker alternative – the “ authoritative ” approach – is to seek consent from a proxy that is not specifically delegated for the purpose by a subject. In some settings for example the consent of community leaders is sought for interventions that take place at a community level; this procedure invokes the principles of proxy consent but assumes that individuals that are delegated for one purpose inherit the authority to be delegates for the consent process. Baele (2013) for example recommends this form of consent.

Superset (Blanket) Consent : Another way to protect research integrity while preserving subject autonomy is to seek what might be called “Superset consent.” Say a researcher identifies set X of possible experiments, including the experiment of interest. The researcher then asks subject to identify set C ∩ X of interventions for which the subject is willing to take part. [23] Given this procedure, if set C includes the experiment of interest, a researcher can conclude that consent has been given for the experiment of interest even though the experiment has not been specified as being the one of interest. In practice, abstract descriptions may suffice to generate consent for large classes of experiments (for example a subject may consent to any experiment that seeks to answer some question in some class for which there is no more than minimal harm); greater coarsening of this form implies less specific information (see Easton on waived consent). [24]

Package consent : An alternative to superset consent is a process in which subjects are asked whether they are willing to take part in an experiment that will involve some intervention in set X , including the intervention of interest. If the subject agrees, then consent for the intervention is assumed. This differs from superset consent insofar as it is possible that a subject would be willing to accept the package but not accept the individual component if offered that component alone. For example if X contained experiment A in which I could expect to win $1000 and experiment B in which I expect to lose US$10 I might consent to set X, but only in the hope that I will be assigned to experiment A . To enhance informedness, the subject may be provided with the probabilities associated with the implementation of each possible experiment. Critically, this approach may be inconsistent with a desire to have continuous consent – in the sense of consent not just at study outset but in the course of the study also. In a sense under this design a deal is struck between researcher and subject and the subject is expected to follow through on their side of the deal; this limitation runs counter to common practice but is not inconsistent with respect for persons.

Deferred (retrospective, ex post) consent : When consent is not sought before the fact, it is common to provide a debriefing after the fact. In some cases this might be important to avoid harm. In the Milgrom experiments debriefing could help remove guilt, if subjects find out that they did not in fact torture the confederates. But beyond debriefing it is possible to seek consent after the fact (Fost and Robertson 1980). For some purposes this is too late: it does not restore participation or behaviour autonomy, [25] but it does provide product autonomy and it does satisfy the diagnostic test. In some situations, retrospective consent might impose costs on subjects however and generate a sense of lost autonomy.

Inferred (surrogate) consent: [26] Consent is inferred (sometimes, “presumed”) if there are empirical grounds to expect that consent would be given were it elicited. As described above, the diagnostic test for respect for person is not that consent has been obtained but that it would not be refused if sought. This question is partly answerable. A number of different approaches might be used. For example one might describe an experiment to a random subset of subjects and ask them if they would be happy to take part in this experiment, or if they would be happy to take part in this experiment, even if their consent were not sought . One could also combine this with ex post consent by implementing the experiment with a subset of actors and then ask them if they are happy that they took part, even though they were not told the purpose; or alternatively if, knowing what they know now, would they have been willing to give their consent to take part ex ante ? Inferences may then be made to the willingness of the larger population to provide consent. This might be called the statistical approach. [27] Again a weaker, authoritative alternative may be invoked by seeking consent from a third person that does not have legitimacy to speak on behalf of the subject but who is believed to have insight into the subject’s disposition.

The final approach marked in column 8 Table 1 , is the spheres of ethics approach, described in Section 3.

Thus although currently researchers use a very narrow operationalization of the principle of consent the broader menu of possibilities is quite large. As of now, researchers could test and develop these in settings in which consent is not routinely sought. Though most of these fall short of fully informed consent, many meet the principles of respect for persons more effectively than consent as sometimes practiced. Looking forward, collective answers to the question of audience and agency can help determine which type of consent is optimal when.

5 Conclusion

I have described the primary problem of assessing the ethical implications of social experiments as a problem of audience. Medical ethics have been developed in large part to regulate relations between medical researchers and patients. Social scientists have adopted the framework created for medical researchers but their audiences are different: at least in the area of experimental research on public policy, relations with policy makers, practitioner organizations, and the general public can be just as important as the relationship with research subjects. Moreover the interests of these different groups often diverge, making the problem of constructing ethics more obviously political.

These considerations suggest two conclusions.

First, rather than seeking some fundamental answer to ethical dilemmas or seeking to address the practical problems facing social scientists using the tools generated for another discipline, there is a need for a social process of construction of ethical principles that address the preoccupations of social scientists in this field, especially in settings in which there are power imbalances between lead researchers and research partners and in which there are value disagreements regarding what constitutes beneficent outcomes. Such a process will be inherently political. Just as social scientific interventions are more likely to have distributive implications – generating costs for some and benefits for others – so ethical principles of engagement, if there is to be engagement at all, may require the principled taking of sides, that is, the choice of an audience. The importance of constructing an appropriate ethics for this field is of some urgency since there is no reason to expect that all researchers working in this domain will independently converge on consistent standards for experimental research in grey areas.

Second, depending on answers to the problem of audience, it may turn out that answers to the questions of agency (Section 3) and consent (Section 4) will be different for social scientists than for medical researchers. I have sketched some possible answers to the questions of agency and consent that diverge somewhat from standard practice. Currently when researchers engage in studies that generate risks, they defend the research on the basis of its social value. But they do so often as interested researchers and without equipment to weigh benefits in the presence of value disagreements. Greater efforts to share the responsibility of research, whether through more carefully crafted relations of agency with developing country actors or more diligent focus on consent may reduce these pressures on value assessments and may also reduce risks to both populations and the professions.

Acknowledgments

Warm thanks to the WIDER research group on Experimental and Non-Experimental Methods in the Study of Government Performance. Earlier version presented at UCSD conference on ethics and experiments in comparative politics. My thanks to Jasper Cooper and Lauren Young for very generous comments on this manuscript. This paper draws on previous work titled “Ethical Challenges of Embedded Experimentation.”

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Article contents

Experiential learning and learning styles.

Eric Cox Eric Cox Department of Political Science, Texas Christian University
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.175
Published in print: 01 March 2010
Published online: 22 December 2017
This version: 29 July 2019
Previous version

The intellectual foundation of modern experiential learning theory owes much of its roots to John Dewey’s educational philosophy. In his seminal 1916 work, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education , Dewey argued that human knowledge and education are rooted in inquiry, which in turn is rooted in human experience. His ideas, along with those of Jean Piaget, formed the basis of D. A. Kolb’s 1984 book Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development . Kolb’s theory of learning, which he formulated to better understand student learning styles, became the starting point for the debate on the use of experiential learning. Kolb introduced a four-stage cycle to explain learning: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. His framework has been adopted to investigate how learning occurs inside the classroom. However, numerous criticisms have been leveled against Kolb’s learning styles approach. One type of criticism focuses on the importance of learning style on student learning, and another focuses on the construct validity, internal validity, and reliability of Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI). There are several avenues for improving the use of experiential learning techniques, such as the integration of service-learning into the classroom and an institutional commitment to designing a complete curriculum.

experiential learning
concrete experience
reflective observation
abstract conceptualization
active experimentation
theory of learning
learning styles
curriculum design

Updated in this version

Revised with particular attention to new works in Political Science, including new sources critical of Kolb’s learning styles approach and discussion of recently published works on learning styles and techniques; updated references and digital materials.

Introduction

This article focuses on the educational theory behind experiential learning and the related concept of learning styles. Rather than providing a comprehensive review of particular active learning techniques or an overall picture of the active learning literature, the article focuses on experiential learning and the related concept of learning styles as theories of learning. At its core, this educational theory and philosophy focuses more on the process of education than it does on content. For a more comprehensive review of the existing active learning literature in International Studies, see Lantis, Kille, and Krain ( 2018 ), in addition to the more technique-specific entries in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies : Lantis, Kille, and Krain, 2018 ; Carter, 2017 , Kuzma, 2017 ; Shaw, 2017 ; and Van Dyke, 2017 . The article by Lantis et al. ( 2018 ) provides an introduction to experiential learning theory, tracing its early intellectual roots and applications of it in the first half of the 20th century , then moves to a discussion of the more modern development of experiential learning theory and learning styles, focusing on Kolb’s 1984 work Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development , the starting point of much of the debate on the use of experiential learning. The article also looks at applications of Kolb and his critics, as well as the use of experiential learning in the teaching of political science and international studies, including a review of efforts to more thoroughly assess the effectiveness of active learning in the international studies classroom. It concludes with a discussion of possible avenues of future research into the uses of experiential learning and Kolb’s learning styles and implications of experiential learning theory on curricular design.

Experiential Education: Definition and Philosophy

The educational philosophy of John Dewey provides the intellectual foundation of much modern experiential learning theory. Dewey’s approach to education is summarized in his seminal work Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education ( 1916 ). This work, along with other of his writings on education, was rooted in the progressive political era of the time and largely formed the philosophical basis of progressive educational reforms in the United States in the first half of the 20th century . Dewey argues that human knowledge and education are rooted in inquiry, which is itself rooted in human experience. He states: “To ‘learn from experience’ is to make a backward and forward connection between what we do to things and what we enjoy or suffer from things in consequence. Under such conditions, doing becomes a trying; an experiment with the world to find out what it is like” (Dewey, 1916 , p. 164). Using this concept, Dewey argued that humans are always learning through their interactions with the world around them, suggesting that the best form of education will be one that emphasizes creating meaningful experiences for learners in recognition of the natural way in which individuals learn. Doing so not only helps the acquisition of knowledge and skills in particular areas, but enables individuals to apply the concepts of learning from experience to other areas of their life, creating, in effect, lifelong learners who are able intentionally to shape their life experiences into continual educational moments.

Dewey’s educational philosophy took direct aim at traditional education in two ways. First, his emphasis on the importance of individual experience and inquiry meant that drilling students on reading, math, and language might enable them to repeat back rote knowledge, but did little to help them develop their minds and become effective at applying important concepts. In essence, his theory of learning called for an overhaul of how schools should be operated by de-emphasizing both traditional techniques and traditional content. Second, he argued that schools had an important social purpose to play in a democratic society by improving the prospects of social progress for students across the socioeconomic spectrum by instructing students to shape their experiences more intentionally, to improve their understanding of the world around them. Importantly, Dewey did not advocate on behalf of any one type of experience, but rather emphasized that experience is the key to learning.

Though Dewey would later argue that educational practitioners had gone too far in removing traditional subjects from the classroom, his ideas, along with those of other progressive education reformers such as William Heard Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, and Ann Shumaker, proved to be quite influential in American education for quite some time (Ravitch, 1983 , pp. 58–59). Educational practitioners began to redesign curricula around the country to emphasize classes based on projects and life skills while de-emphasizing the classic liberal arts, including the teaching of foreign languages. A related development was the evolution of admissions requirements at the most prestigious universities away from the liberal arts to more standardized examinations of student aptitude, eventually including the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Such tests paved the way for students who did not attend prestigious preparatory academies to gain admission to top tier educational institutions (Ravitch, 1983 , p. 69). While this era of education reform did have lasting effects, the launching of Sputnik in 1957 helped lead to a reevaluation of American education and led to a new emphasis on science and math education that de-emphasized the experiential reforms of the first half of the 20th century .

Education reform became a central topic again, in 1983 , with the publication of A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, which emphasized the decline in American education and called for comprehensive changes in American schools. This call for reform coincided with a new focus on how students learn and a revisiting of the most appropriate instructional methods. It was in this reform context that Kolb released Experiential Learning .

Kolb’s work is primarily an explanation of how individuals learn, not a set of guidelines on how to construct educational experiences, though he does argue for the adoption of new instructional techniques. Drawing primarily on the work of Dewey and Jean Piaget, Kolb’s theory of learning is based at least in part on the idea that learning should be understood as “development toward a life of purpose and self-direction” (Kolb, 1984 , p. 18). Kolb contrasted his theory of learning with traditional “competence based education,” arguing that experiential learning is a “program for profoundly re-creating our personal lives and social systems” ( 1984 , p. 18), recalling the earlier areas of emphasis of Dewey. To Kolb, the evolution of experiential learning since 1984 , in colleges and universities, was best understood as part of a broader effort to improve higher education, with a focus on supplanting the traditional notion of higher education as an enterprise focused primarily on a knowledge-transfer model (Kolb & Kolb, 2006 ). The breadth of the secondary literature that has grown around Kolb’s work, both in developing teaching techniques and in understanding the importance of learning styles, requires a more comprehensive examination of the core of Kolb’s work.

Kolb’s broad theory is based on six central premises (all paraphrased and quoted from Kolb & Kolb, 2006 ):

Learning is a process. Students will learn best when the focus is on the learning process rather than specific outcomes.

“All learning is relearning.” In effect, this observation suggests that a modified version of the scientific method is central to all learning. It recognizes that students bring preconceptions to each topic based on existing knowledge and beliefs. Learning is the process of testing those preconceptions and replacing them with more refined beliefs and conceptions.

Learning requires recognition of conflicting ways of interacting and adapting to the world. “Conflict, differences, and disagreement are what drive the learning process.”

Learning is about adaptation to the world. It requires recognition of the totality of an individual’s functioning, including thinking, perceiving, and acting in and about the world.

Learning occurs as a result of “transactions between the person and the environment.” New interactions with the world (experiences) help to modify old conceptions about the world, while existing conceptions help to explain one’s experiences in the world.

“Learning is the process of creating knowledge . . . social knowledge is created and recreated in the personal knowledge of the learner. This stands in contrast to the ‘transmission’ model.”

Based on this underlying argument, Kolb developed a four-stage cycle to explain learning. The cycle includes concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. Both concrete experience and abstract conceptualization are about acquiring information about the world, but through different mechanisms. Using Kolb’s example, in learning about a chair, concrete experience would be sitting in a chair and gaining a tactile understanding of the chair, while abstract conceptualization would be the use of other concepts, to provide some understanding of what a chair is.

The other two phases of the cycle, reflective observation and active experimentation, are both about taking information gained through direct observation or abstract conceptualization and transforming it so that it has greater use. In reflection, one contemplates all aspects of information gained and its implications, while in active experimentation, one extends the breadth of information by actively seeking to acquire new and different input upon which to reflect (Kolb, 1984 ).

Kolb’s major application of his particular theory was to better understand student learning styles. Using his cyclical explanation of learning, he developed a typology of learning styles based on which phases of the cycle students are most likely to engage in and find stimulating. Kolb’s four primary learning styles are diverging, assimilating, converging , and accommodating (Kolb, 1984 ). Each of the styles is best understood as some combination of the manner in which the individual acquires and uses information about the world. In addition, each of these learning styles also has certain attitudes and abilities in regard to the learning process. The learning styles have the following attributes:

Diverging : The Diverging style’s dominant learning abilities are Concrete Experience (CE) and Reflective Observation (RO). People with this learning style are best at viewing concrete situations from many different points of view. The style is labeled “Diverging” because a person with it performs better in situations that call for generation of ideas, such as “brainstorming” sessions. People with a Diverging learning style have broad cultural interests and like to gather information. Research shows that they are interested in people, tend to be imaginative and emotional, have broad cultural interests, and tend to specialize in the arts. In formal learning situations, people with the Diverging style prefer to work in groups, listening with an open mind and receiving personalized feedback.

Assimilating : The Assimilating style’s dominant learning abilities are Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Reflective Observation (RO). People with this learning style are best at understanding a wide range of information and putting it into concise, logical form. Individuals with an Assimilating style are less focused on people and more interested in ideas and abstract concepts. Generally, people with this style find it more important that a theory have logical soundness than practical value. The Assimilating learning style is important for effectiveness in information and science careers. In formal learning situations, people with this style prefer readings, lectures, exploring analytical models, and having time to think things through.

Converging : The Converging style’s dominant learning abilities are Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE). People with this learning style are best at finding practical uses for ideas and theories. They have the ability to solve problems and make decisions based on finding solutions to questions or problems. Individuals with a Converging learning style prefer to deal with technical tasks and problems rather than with social issues and interpersonal issues. These learning skills are important for effectiveness in specialist and technology careers. In formal learning situations, people with this style prefer to experiment with new ideas, simulations, laboratory assignments, and practical applications.

Accommodating : The Accommodating style’s dominant learning abilities are Concrete Experience (CE) and Active Experimentation (AE). People with this learning style have the ability to learn from primarily hands-on experience. They enjoy carrying out plans and involving themselves in new and challenging experiences. Their tendency may be to act on gut feelings rather than on logical analysis. In solving problems, individuals with an Accommodating learning style rely more heavily on people for information than on their own technical analysis. This learning style is important for effectiveness in action-oriented careers such as marketing or sales. In formal learning situations, people with the Accommodating learning style prefer to work with others to get assignments done, to set goals, to do fieldwork, and to test out different approaches to completing a project. (Quoted from Kolb, 1984 ; Kolb, Boyatzis, & Mainemelis, 2001 ; Kolb & Kolb, 2006 )

Kolb further argued that students with certain learning styles are often attracted to certain majors or career paths. Importantly, though Kolb suggested that students interested in social science will often have the greatest strengths in concrete experience and reflective observation, or a Diverging style (Kolb & Kolb, 2006 ). The only research specifically looking at political science majors, according to Kolb’s framework, found that all learning styles were represented, with more assimilators than any other category (Fox & Ronkowski, 1997 ). This study found that, out of 132 political science students, 21 were accommodators, 22 were convergers, 33 were assimilators, and 24 were divergers ( 1997 , p. 735).

Application of Learning Styles to the Classroom

Learning styles are very important to classroom instruction in that different students find different types of material engaging. The same type of classroom activity or learning method may work better with some students than others. Research in a variety of fields has indicated that learning style has an influence on a student’s performance in certain types of settings, a student’s preferred path of study (and career), and even on the interaction between faculty and staff. One of the first studies using Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI) studied students in an introductory management course and found that students with different learning styles performed differently on a common assessment depending on the type of discussion section (experiential, discussion, or simulation) to which they were assigned. Learning style did affect the level of learning that occurred in each type of section. In fact, the study also showed that certain types of learners even had higher attendance (Brenenstuhl & Catalanello, 1979 ). This finding was supported by a smaller test conducted using marketing students (Coulter, Coulter, Widing, & Rowe, 1990 ). Similarly, research conducted in a financial services company that had to participate in continuing education classes found significant differences in preferred types of learning delivery methods among the different learning types (Buch & Bartley, 2002 ).

Similar research conducted in the health sciences has generated similar conclusions. In particular, Kosower and Berman ( 1996 ) found that different types of residents receiving medical training have different preferred learning styles, finding that those with more generalist areas of focus preferred concrete experience and active experimentation, while more specialist -oriented residents preferred abstract conceptualization. Interestingly, faculty differed significantly from residents by being far less likely than residents to favor concrete experience or active experimentation. Further, the authors find a similar difference in elementary school teachers, who are typically more generalist in approach, and secondary school teachers, who tend to be more specialized (Kosower & Berman, 1996 ). Their research is supported by findings by White and Anderson ( 1995 ) on effective learning techniques in residency programs. Based on a series of interviews between residents and attending physicians, they concluded that faculty expectations on when learning occurs often differ from those of their residents.

Several other studies have demonstrated the importance of the learning cycle and learning styles. Studies involving engineering students (Stice, 1987 ), social work field instruction (Rashick, Maypole, & Day, 1998 ), student performance on exams (Lynch, Woelfl, Steele, & Hansen, 1998 ), student “enjoyment” of online courses (Richmond & Cummings, 2005 ; Simpson & Du, 2004 ), and retention (Kalsbeek, 1986 ) all have shown that learning style has a significant effect on student enjoyment and outcomes. Some research indicates that offering a variety of learning methods to accommodate different styles can lead to improved outcomes and higher student satisfaction (Lengnick-Hall & Sanders, 1997 ).

One common thread in many of these studies outside of political science is the emphasis on out-of-classroom experiences as educational experiences, not terribly surprising given that many of the fields of study that have conducted the most research using Kolb’s framework, such as medical education, business, teacher education, social work, and distance learning, have significant out of classroom components that are central to their educational missions. In doing so, they highlight the importance of works like those of Dewey and Kolb in bringing work outside the classroom and inside the classroom into the same broad explanation of how learning occurs.

Criticism of the Learning Styles Approach

Kolb’s work is not without its critics. The first type of criticism centers on the importance of learning style on student learning, arguing either that learning style does not affect outcomes, or that different learning styles can be taught. Terrell and Dringus ( 2000 ) found no significant effect of learning style on student retention in online learning courses. Kolb himself argued that different individuals can exhibit different learning styles in different situations and that learning style can evolve over time (Kolb, 1984 , pp. 78–98). Indeed, several authors (including Kolb) encourage the development of skills from each of the learning styles in order to facilitate learning (cf. Cornett, 1983 ). Moreover, Jones, Reichard, and Mokhtari ( 2003 ) specifically argue that students, while having a dominant learning style, are able to use different learning styles depending on the discipline being studied, particularly when they are trained to do so. Their study also indicated that males and females may have different preferences, not in abstract learning styles, but in specific instructional methods. In particular, men tend to prefer traditional classroom learning styles, while women exhibit a preference for less traditional, less formal learning settings.

A second set of learning style criticism focuses more on the construct validity, internal validity, and reliability of Kolb’s learning style assessment instrument, the LSI. Studying an earlier version of the LSI, Cornwell and Manfredo ( 1994 ), for example, did not find support for Kolb’s learning style types. A separate study similarly found that differences in learning style do exist, but that an analysis of differences does not necessarily support Kolb’s learning styles or his four primary learning abilities (Geiger, Boyle, & Pinto, 1992 ). Koob and Funk ( 2002 ) summarized additional findings that criticize the use of the LSI, particularly in its ability to replicate results. Importantly, however, Koob and Funk did note that many of the authors who criticize Kolb “did support the general concept that individuals use different learning strategies” ( 2002 , p. 303). Hickcox ( 2006 ) provided a review of several other indices that measure different learning types that serve as alternatives to Kolb’s LSI. Additionally, in examining a revised version of Kolb’s LSI, Kayes ( 2005 ) summarized research in support of and opposed to the LSI and, in a study of 221 graduate and undergraduate business students, largely supports Kolb’s approach.

Subsequent scholarship that criticizes the use of learning styles argues that even in the face of significant psychological research that calls the approach into question, the use of learning styles is still widespread in educational literature. Riener and Wllingham ( 2010 ) argued that, while evidence supports the idea that students have different preferences in how they learn, and that different students do excel in different areas, less evidence suggests that learning style exists independent of subject matter or that matching testing and instructional methods to learning outcomes leads to different outcomes. Willingham, Hughes, and Dobolyi ( 2015 ) further argued that little-to-no scientific evidence exists to base instructional strategies on learning styles, while Newton ( 2015 ) conducted a meta-analysis of research on learning styles and finds that, while it has little scientific support, a significant majority of papers referencing learning styles endorses there use in instruction.

Other Approaches to Learning Styles

Written in the same reform context as Kolb, Howard Gardner’s ( 1983 ) work Frames of Mind provided a comprehensive introduction to his theory of multiple intelligences, which emphasized that human intelligence is not a singular construct, but rather is composed of different innate abilities, with most individuals being stronger in certain areas than others. Using an analytical framework defining the characteristics of individual intelligences, he originally identified seven distinct intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal; in a later work, he expanded the list to include a naturalist intelligence (Gardner, 1999 ).

Gardner’s work helped to explain why certain individuals could excel in one area of education while struggling in others. It also suggested that one could tailor learning experiences to the individual learner, so that individuals could enhance areas of strength (such as musical intelligence) while using those strengths to better learn other subject areas. By way of example, individuals with different dominant intelligences may learn to read in different ways (Gardner, 1983 , pp. 388–392). The implications that follow are similar to those of Kolb’s work: that multiple instructional methods may be required to help students with different areas of strength to succeed. Gardner summarizes:

First, it is necessary to spend significant time on a topic. Second, it is essential to portray the topic in a number of ways, both to illustrate its intricacies and to reach the various students. Third, it is highly desirable if the multiple approaches explicitly call on a range of intelligences, skills and interests. (Gardner, 1999 , p. 176)

Like Kolb, a significant secondary literature has grown around Gardner, arguing for the general efficacy of using multiple intelligences in the classroom as an effective learning tool (cf. Boatman, Courtney, & Lee, 2008 ; Schrand, 2008 ; Williams, 2007 ). More importantly, however, both approaches are part of a larger body of theory on effective education. The American Psychological Association has endorsed a learner-centered approach to education at all levels, including higher education, that relies on the same central point pressed by Kolb, Gardner, and other researchers—that effective instruction requires “an understanding of the nature of the individual learner (his or her characteristics, cultural and family background, experiences, and needs)” and that “educational programs must be concerned with all of the unique individual differences of each learner” (Lambert & McCombs, 1998 , p. 12).

Experiential Learning in the Political Science Literature

It was once true that less attention has been paid to experiential learning in the political science literature than in other fields such as medicine and health sciences, business management, computer science, and education (Kolb et al., 2001 ). A robust pedagogical literature in political science and international relations has begun to form since the early 2000s, though it does not always use an explicit framework such as Kolb’s. An examination of bibliographies on experiential learning and a search of the political science pedagogical literature for works explicitly applying Kolb’s learning types reveal that, although political scientists have written a great deal about specific active learning techniques and have undertaken more systematic assessment of those techniques, few have written on the comprehensive use of Kolb’s theories specifically or learning styles more generally. Two articles specifically look at Kolb’s experiential learning theory and learning styles. Fox and Ronkowski ( 1997 ) completed a study of students at Union College enrolled in political science classes in spring 1995 . Their research found strong representation of all of Kolb’s learning types, and further found some difference in junior/senior students versus freshmen/sophomores, with the latter having a preference for concrete experience over abstraction, though the result was not statistically significant. Based on their findings, they recommend using a number of different teaching methods in each course. In this way, focus would not be on one method or one learning style, but rather would offer something different to each learning style.

Brock and Cameron ( 1999 ) focused less on the types of students that are in political science classes and more on the types of activities that can be used to engage each type of the learning cycle. Importantly, they noted that different exercises can be used to stimulate different parts of the learning cycle depending on how they are used. This article provides some guidance for designing activities to appeal to different types of learners; it does not actually assess the use of these techniques on different learning types.

Subsequent work by Leithner ( 2011 ) used an alternative conception of learning styles based on the Solomon and Felder Learning Style Index to conduct an experiment to match two sections of students, one control group with a specified exam format and one experimental group in which students could select a format. The study finds that students with different learning styles perform at different levels depending on the exam format. Moreover, when given a choice in exam style, students who choose the correct format for their particular learning style perform better than students choosing the incorrect format. In the experimental group, this matching of learning style to exam format even lessens the importance of GPA in predicting exam performance.

Moving away from learning styles in particular, political scientists have written fairly extensively on a variety of active learning techniques that have been and can be used in the classroom. The availability of outlets, including journals such as PS: Political Science and Politics, International Studies Perspectives, and The Journal of Political Science Education, books such as The New International Studies Classroom (Lantis, Kuzma, & Boehrer, 2000 ), APSA’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference, and online resources, such as ISA’s teaching and learning Professional Resource Center , has eased the distribution of material on teaching. The article titled “ Active Teaching and Learning: The State of the Literature ” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies , in addition to the topic-specific entries, does an excellent job in reviewing the general literature on a variety of active learning techniques, so that review will not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that, though less work may have been done on active learning in international relations than in other fields in the past, international relations professors do have an increasing number of resources to which they can turn to find new techniques and exercises to use in their classroom.

Political scientists have begun taking a greater interest in assessing the impact of alternative learning techniques as well. Assessment of active learning techniques is important for several reasons. First, effective assessment instruments to measure student learning are needed not only to assign student grades, but also to determine if students are, in fact, achieving the desired learning outcomes. Second, from a strategic standpoint, assessment of non-traditional instructional techniques is important to demonstrate that they are effective at achieving desired outcomes in order to gain continued support for their use (Gardner, 1999 , pp. 148–149; Kolb & Kolb, 2006 , p. 81). Third, assessing student learning and student reaction to learning experiences is a necessary part of improving instructional techniques. If an exercise does not achieve its desired objectives, effective assessment can provide valuable insight into where the exercise went wrong.

Early works assessing active learning and experiential learning techniques relied more heavily on student responses. Many of these reported positive student responses to a variety of activities, including service-learning, simulations, and class discussion (cf. Chasek, 2005 ; Krain & Nurse, 2004 ; Patterson, 2000 ; Shellman, 2001 ). Shellman and Turan ( 2006 ) found that students participating in a simulation in their international relations classes enjoyed the activity, ranking it favorably compared to other college learning experiences, and believed that they learned a great deal from it. This study, however, did not use a control group or an independent assessment of student knowledge, but rather relied on student surveys.

Additional works have expanded on this approach, using a variety of in-class assessments to measure student progress and satisfaction. For example, Pettenger, West, and Young ( 2014 ) developed a framework based on Anderson and Krathwohl’s learning taxonomy (discussed in Anderson, Krathwohl, & Bloom, 2001 ) to assess student learning on exams at multiple universities. They found that, in a climate change simulation, among other things, students from Canada and the United States had different views regarding the simulation. Burrell Storms, Labonte, Siscar, and Martin ( 2015 ) developed an overall assessment approach to measuring learning in global humanitarian programs that are part of the Jesuit Universities Humanitarian Action Network. In a cross-campus comparison that utilized pre and post-tests, Zapille, Beers, and Raymond ( 2017 ) argued that using real-time, problem-based simulations increase student empathy and political engagement under certain conditions, while Lorenzini ( 2013 ) found that direct engagement of student constituencies in planning of the Atlas Program at St. Louis University improved self-reported student knowledge and awareness of global issues. Horn et al. ( 2016 ) used a zombie epidemic simulation to improve student knowledge of international relations theory, finding that the simulation improved student understanding of certain theoretical concepts. Saiya ( 2016 ) used the Statecraft simulation as a supplemental assignment and tested whether or not student attitudes on foreign policy shifted as a result of the simulation. The article finds that while attitudes did not change tremendously, students that were the furthest to the left and the right both moved toward the center. Rothman ( 2012 ) argued that the use of a negotiating simulation helped students to improve their understanding of game theoretic concepts, though the article acknowledges that the lack of a comparative design limits the claims that the authors are able to make.

Rothman’s ( 2012 ) insight, that his study lacked a true comparative element (p. 449), highlighted an issue that continues to be problematic for much of the literature regarding student learning in international studies: we lack a clear comparison. Some studies have attempted to address this issue. Krain and Lantis ( 2006 ) used an experimental design to test the effectiveness of the Global Problems simulation. To complete their study, one section of Introduction to International Relations was exposed to the simulation, while a different section during the same semester received the same material through lecture. Each section was taught by one of the co-authors. To control for instructor effects, one instructor used a simulation negotiating a global non-proliferation treaty while the other lectured over the same material. The two then reversed roles, with the instructor who lectured over proliferation conducting a simulation of negotiations for the Convention Against Torture, while the other lectured over the material. For both simulations, the students completed a pre- and post-test quiz that contained both factual questions and student self-assessments of knowledge over the subjects. In both tests, the study found that both active learning techniques and traditional teaching methods had similar effects on acquisition of knowledge. Student responses on perceptions of knowledge gained differed in the two experiments, but not in a statistically significant manner. The authors concluded that their evidence does suggest that students learn differently and may take different lessons away from active learning techniques. In particular, they stated:

the Global Problems Summit helped boost student understanding of some of the broader dimensions of international cooperation. This finding adds empirical evidence to bolster claims made by proponents of active and experiential learning. Not only did students enjoy the simulation and believe that it helped them to relate better to what otherwise might feel like distant and abstract global problems, but they also gained knowledge as demonstrated by rigorous and objective assessment techniques. (Krain & Lantis, 2006 , p. 405)

A similar study by Krain and Shadle ( 2006 ) compared students who chose to attend a Hunger Banquet on campus with students in two international politics classes who did not attend the banquet, but received instruction on the problems of world hunger. The two groups of students had similar levels of knowledge and perceptions of their level of knowledge in pre-test, and both did make significant gains in both categories upon treatment. The group that attended the Hunger Banquet, however, had a statistically significant greater gain than the control group both on a pre/post-test quiz and in a pre/post-test assessment of perceived knowledge. Though the students attending the Hunger Banquet did self-select, Krain and Shadle argued that the Banquet helped improve knowledge acquisition when compared to a normal classroom format, but also that “[a]ctive learning at its best is empowering to students, because they participate more directly in their own education, and learn that they can be both recipients of and generators of knowledge” (Krain & Shadle, 2006 , p. 63).

Powner and Allendoerfer ( 2008 ) built upon these studies with an experimental design testing the use of active learning techniques at the University of Michigan. The authors used discussion sections of Introduction to World Politics at the University of Michigan to compare the use of a role-playing simulation with traditional discussion. In the design, two graduate student instructors (GSI) taught one section using the role-playing simulation and one section using traditional discussion methods. At the end of the sessions, students completed a brief assessment containing five multiple choice questions and one short answer question. All assessments were scored by the authors, not the students’ GSIs. As an additional control, two sections were given the assessment before participating in any discussion of the material beyond the lecture. Not surprisingly, they found that participation in both traditional discussion and role-play improved student performance, compared to traditional lectures. The findings were surprising in another regard, however. Contrary to expectations, students in the traditional discussion group experienced greater gains than the lecture-only group on the short answer question, while the role-playing groups did better on the multiple choice portion. Differences between the role-play and discussion groups were not statistically significant, but the sign was not in the expected direction; that is, the discussion groups performed better than the role-play groups, but the difference was not significant.

Leithner’s ( 2011 ) work on learning styles discussed in the previous section “ Experiential Learning in the Political Science Literature ” used an experimental design to assess whether or not learning styles affect performance on exams. Sjöstedt ( 2015 ) used a quasi-experimental design to compare student learning outcomes in an introductory international relations course. Students taking the course in the first of the three-year study took a traditional course, while students taking the class over the next two years took a class that used a variety of techniques, including smaller seminar discussions, the use of film, and simulations. Students in the courses using active learning techniques did perform better overall than students in the traditional course. The students enjoyed the active learning techniques and believed they were helpful in learning material, though overall course evaluations were not higher for the courses using more learning techniques. This study, however, did not control for many factors outside of participation in the active learning versus more traditional course.

Future Avenues for Research

These studies and similar exercises done in simulating the activities of American political institutions (Baranowski, 2006 ; Lay & Smarick, 2006 ) do show some benefit to using active learning techniques in the classroom, though the benefit is not as great as expected in some cases and cannot be shown through traditional assessment in others. These studies are an important step in evaluating the use of experiential techniques in the classroom, but each also points the way to future directions for the assessment and a more systematic use of experiential learning theory and learning styles in the classroom.

The first area for improvement in the use of experiential learning techniques is suggested by Krain and Lantis ( 2006 ) and Krain and Shadle ( 2006 ): students may gain something qualitatively different from active learning than they do from traditional classroom learning. Though traditional lecture is effective at increasing student knowledge, as noted earlier the theory behind experiential learning is as much about learning process as it is about material. By engaging in active learning techniques, students become more active participants in the learning process and gain new skills to acquire future knowledge to go along with the increased knowledge from the particular lesson. This seems to be a key insight from Lorenzini ( 2013 ): students gain something by being part of the learning process. Smith noted that “I have many more students return a year or two or three after the service-learning experience to tell me . . . about the impact of the service work on their worldviews . . . than I do students telling me of the same long-term impact of a research paper I assigned” (Smith, 2006 , p. 164). Saiya ( 2016 ) may be another example of this kind of work by measuring the effect of the Statecraft simulation on foreign policy attitudes, while Zappile et al. ( 2017 ) explicitly set out to affect student empathy with their simulation.

Nonetheless, the teaching and learning literature specific to the study of international relations for the most part does not sufficiently address a comparison between traditional and experiential learning. Neither comparisons of, nor perceptions about knowledge gained will reveal the true benefit of experiential learning techniques in the classroom. Kolb and Kolb ( 2006 ) share this concern, arguing that, though experiential learning must prove its effectiveness to be adopted in a more widespread fashion, “the current evaluation methods favored by most institutions of higher education are not only deficient in responding to the experiential learning pedagogy, they are inadequate in measuring learning outcomes of any educational pedagogy currently in practice” (Kolb & Kolb, 2006 , p. 81). This concern suggests that as we move forward in our studies of experiential learning methods, we need to devise new methods of assessment that can meaningfully measure the differential effects of experiential learning techniques. As reflected in Powner and Allendoerfer’s critique of assessment efforts, one such approach may simply be to include more longitudinal studies of learning outcomes. Another may be to complete more detailed assessment of knowledge gained through active learning techniques, compared to other techniques, to better measure whether certain types of knowledge are more easily taught through experience. Burrell Storms et al. ( 2015 ) provided one example of this; education for humanitarian aid workers often relies on both the classroom and experience. This study’s effort to develop a common assessment for humanitarian aid programs provides an interesting model for those using experiential techniques. Pettinger et al. ( 2014 ) may also point a way forward by developing an assessment strategy to examine outcomes in simulations, while works such as Rothman ( 2012 ) and Asal, Sin, Fahrenkopf, and She ( 2014 ) may suggest ways that simulations and games can be used to teach process in a way that traditional learning methods do not.

An additional flaw in the experiential learning literature in international politics as of this writing is that controlled comparisons have, by and large, treated traditional learning and experiential learning in opposition to one another by asking the question: which students learned more—those engaged in traditional classroom learning or those exposed to experiential design? If the above insight is correct, that students may learn differently from different learning techniques, active learning components of courses should not be seen as discrete units in a class replacing traditional teaching, but rather as integrated parts of a classroom that combines traditional teaching methods with alternative teaching approaches.

Finally, related to the need to treat discrete active learning activities as parts of a holistic learning experience, only one of the aforementioned studies examined the impact of active teaching techniques on different learning styles, an issue acknowledged by Powner and Allendoerfer ( 2008 , p. 86) in regard to their own study. This insight is particularly important in that the learning styles approach suggests that different students will be stimulated by different types of activities. In this regard, we should not be surprised that some students do better when exposed to active learning activities than others, or that some students will do better in traditional classroom settings than others. Even if we do not fully accept that learning styles can be effectively measured, even critics of the approach argue that varied teaching techniques may improve learning experiences.

Attention to learning styles and mixed teaching methods presents two additional challenges. First, due attention should be paid to including multiple learning styles not only in each course, but often in regard to the same lesson (Fox & Ronkowski, 1997 ; Kneale, Bradbeer, & Healey, 2006 ). Sjöstedt ( 2015 ) demonstrated improved learning outcomes and student engagement when employing multiple techniques. When one teaching technique is used to the exclusion of others for a major portion of the class, instructors should also take care to provide sufficient guidance to learners who may not be as engaged by that particular technique. In other disciplines, particularly the sciences, frequent use of lab sessions to build upon classroom knowledge is a good example of the application of multiple techniques being used to better educate students. In international politics, one possible example of using multiple methods to teach the same material without taking too much time is the teaching of the prisoner’s dilemma through classroom instruction about what it is, what each actor’s incentive is, how it has been used in the literature; and about its weaknesses, followed by the use of some form of a prisoner’s dilemma simulation (cf. Asal et al., 2014 ; Ehrhardt, 2008 ).

A second example of using multiple methods in the teaching of international politics could be the expanded use of out-of-classroom experiences, as exemplified by the use of service-learning and internships. Service-learning has as its goal not only promotion of student learning, but also improving college engagement with the community and promoting greater civic participation and awareness by students upon graduation. These goals are in line with the experiential approach to education in that they reflect both a concern with student knowledge acquisition gained through interaction with their environment, and Dewey’s concern with promoting lifelong learning and positive social development. Service-learning has, among other benefits, the additional benefit of already being supported by a strong body of literature demonstrating its effectiveness at improving student performance in the classroom, and in promoting better awareness of diversity and greater community involvement by students after college than among peers who did not engage in similar experiences (cf. Astin & Sax, 1998 ; Astin, Sax, & Avalos, 1999 ; Eyler & Giles, 1999 ).

Little work has been done in political science examining the inclusion of service-learning into the classroom. Works describing service-learning in international politics include working with refugees (Patterson, 2000 ), teaching human rights (Krain & Nurse, 2004 ), and promoting civic engagement (Raymond, 2017 ). There are multiple keys to creating an effective service-learning experience. Among those are: (a) having clearly defined educational objectives and identifying a project that will allow students to explore issues related to those objectives; (b) relating the service experience closely to classroom content, the two should be reinforcing of one another; (c) incorporating in-class discussions of students’ experiences, so that they can reflect on the meaning of the service project and so that they can draw the connections between the course and the project itself; and (d) to develop effective assessment techniques both of student learning and of the service-learning experience itself. For the instructor interested in using service-learning in the classroom, there are a number of convenient resources on both its effectiveness and how to incorporate it into a range of different classes (cf. Jacoby, 1996 ; Kenny, 2002 ; Stoecker, 2016 ; Welch & Billig, 2004 ). Depending on the chosen service activities and classroom assignments related to the activities, service-learning has tremendous potential to use an array of student skills and appeal to a wide array of learning types.

Like service-learning, internships provide students with an out of classroom educational experience. The literature concerning internships is not as well developed as that surrounding service-learning, but the limited literature from a variety of fields does agree on several basic points concerning internships. First, though internships are often perceived as separate from classroom experiences, they are most effective when carefully integrated into an overall curricular experience (Ciofalo, 1992 , p. 5; Colby et al., 2007 ; Garrison, 1992 , p. 32; Honan & Day, 1984 , p. 222). Integration is important, as internships should not be seen as an opportunity simply to apply classroom knowledge, obtain work experience, or sample possible professions, but also to gain new knowledge and understandings that contribute in a meaningful way to the educational experience. Second, internship experiences and programs can be greatly varied, including part-time internships that are offered in conjunction with a class, or full-time internships done over a summer or semester either in the surrounding community or off-site (such as in Washington, DC). Third, internships may be done for government offices, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, businesses, or campaigns. The key, whatever the setting, is to help students put their experience in proper context through some sort of guided reflection and application process, whether it be through reflective journaling, the completion of research papers related to the internship, or group discussions, among other approaches (Colby, Beaumont, Ehrlich, & Corngold, 2007 , pp. 223–224; Garrison, 1992 ). In summation, like other types of active learning and experiential education, internships work best when they are part of a systematic learning experience, with well-designed learning objectives and due attention paid to helping students make the connections between their in, and out of, classroom experiences. Though the academic literature surrounding internships is not extensive, significant resources exist to help students secure internships. Often, organizations offering internship placement either provide or coordinate classes with local universities to help students ground their internship experience in an academic setting. The annotated list of Online Resources at the end of this article provides links to some of these programs.

From an assessment perspective, testing the effectiveness of the use of multiple methods to address different learning styles would require a very different approach than past assessment efforts. First, such an approach would need to begin by having the students complete one of the assessments available for identifying learning styles. Second, the course would need to be designed to incorporate techniques that appeal to each of the different learning types. Third, student perceptions of the use of each technique would need to be compared according to their learning types. Fourth, knowledge assessments could be broken down to see if different learning types performed differently according to the dominant teaching technique used for a particular subject or issue. Finally, new assessment techniques that rely, at least in part, on free response exercises to determine if students are learning something other than what was intended or what is being measured by more traditional techniques may be an integral part of demonstrating the importance of a focus on the learning process and active learning techniques (cf. Leithner, 2011 ; Willingham et al., 2015 ). The holistic design of a course, built around different methods, appealing to different learning types, and testing the effect of that design, is a daunting task, but it is an appropriate next step in assessing the applicability of experiential learning theory.

Beyond the Classroom: Considering the Curriculum

A final area for development in the application of experiential learning theory is that of curriculum design. Kolb and Kolb ( 2006 ) stressed that the proper application of experiential learning theory requires an institutional commitment to designing a complete curriculum, assessing the short-term and long-term effects of the chosen curricular design, and considering the role of each component of the curriculum in the overall development of the student.

Some evidence does exist that the design of the political science curriculum can have a substantial effect on college graduates. Ishiyama and Hartlaub ( 2003 ) compared students in the political science programs at Truman State and Frostburg State Universities. Using a formulation recommended by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU), the authors asked whether a political science curriculum, in which student majors are fairly structured and courses are designed to build sequentially on one another, would lead students to think differently than students completing a major with much looser requirements. In particular, the AACU recommends that majors should be constructed to encourage abstract thinking and critical analysis. The study found that though there was little difference between underclass majors at the two universities, among upperclassmen, students in the more structured Truman State political science major made much larger gains in abstract conceptualization than their counterparts at Frostburg State. This finding suggests that the more structured program at Truman State is conducive to teaching the sort of abstract conceptualization skills encouraged by AACU. This particular study was not large, consisting of a total of 93 undergraduate students, but it is suggestive of the importance of overall curricular design in addition to the importance of single course design. Later work by Blanton and Breuning ( 2016 ) undertook a comprehensive survey of interdisciplinary international studies programs; after identifying 403 programs, they received responses from 140 programs. Their study examined the size, curriculum, and administrative structure of the programs.

Concluding Thoughts

Much progress has been made in the international studies literature concerning the use and effectiveness of techniques in the experiential learning tradition. Studies have shown that, at worst, students exposed to active learning techniques learn just as much as those exposed to traditional techniques, while, at best, active learning techniques may give students other types of skills and knowledge that they cannot gain through traditional classroom settings. The literature is full of valuable contributions providing suggestions on innovative learning exercises that can be incorporated into a wide range of international politics courses. Nonetheless, there are numerous avenues for improving existing research and curricular design. Few works referencing the use of active learning techniques have delved deeply into learning styles or the combination of multiple techniques in the same class in a rigorous, comparative way. Those works that have done so have prioritized direct assessment of the activity itself without a clear comparison to a control group. Even studies using a pre-/post-test model may show the effectiveness of a particular technique, but not in comparison to traditional learning methods. Those studies that have been rigorous about assessment have, typically, studied shorter-duration active learning exercises in comparison to traditional learning techniques. The more extensive research needed to truly test a holistic course design may prove daunting, and this suggests the need for additional incentives for faculty to redesign and study the effectiveness of their courses. Finally, taking seriously the educational philosophy behind active and experiential learning may require members of the discipline to take a serious look at curricular design to ensure that students are engaged in a learning enterprise in which courses build logically upon one another and teach students important skills to conduct political science.

Links to Digital Materials

Best Delegate . Best Delegate is an online resource that provides information about Model UN conferences around the world and provides resources on how to begin a Model UN program.

Campus Compact . Campus Compact is an organization dedicated to promoting service-learning and community involvement in education. The website contains sample syllabi, lists of participating campuses, and other resources to help professors begin to integrate service-learning into their classes.

DC Internships . DC Internships provides information regarding a variety of internships in Washington, DC, including international affairs focused internships. It also provides resources for housing and support for students.

Experience Based Learning Systems, Inc . This is David Kolb’s website. It contains a useful reference library and bibliography of experiential learning techniques in addition to information about using the Kolb Learning Styles Inventory.

United Nations Association for the United States of America . This website contains useful information and resources for participating in and conducting Model United Nations Simulations.

Washington Internship Institute . One of many internship organizations in the Washington, DC area. This organization helps to arrange internships and offers classes that accompany internships, to help students place their internship experiences in appropriate context.

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Assessment of Active Learning
Civic Engagement
Designing and Using Simulations and Role-Play Exercises
Model UN and Model EU Programs
Teaching International Relations with Case Studies
Active Teaching and Learning: The State of the Literature

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J Med Educ Curric Dev
v.9; Jan-Dec 2022

Implementing Kolb´s Experiential Learning Cycle by Linking Real Experience, Case-Based Discussion and Simulation

M. wijnen-meijer.

1 Technical University of Munich, School of Medicine, TUM Medical Education Center, Munich, Germany

T. Brandhuber

2 Technical University of Munich, School of Medicine, Institute of General Practice and Health Services Research, Munich, Germany

A. Schneider

P.o. berberat, associated data.

Background: To prepare medical students for their future, they must become acquainted with clinical practice, for example by means of simulations, clerkships and discussing patient cases. By connecting these different approaches, according to Kolb´s experiential learning cycle, the learning effect can be strengthened.

Methodology

In the development of a didactical program for students who are being prepared for their role as general practitioners, we have adopted a new didactic approach, in which educational formats are interlinked, according to Kolb´s experiential learning cycle. The content of these courses is determined by the Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for the clerkship in family medicine, combined with the most common chief complaints of patients in the GP's practice. In 2019, the first course was implemented at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, with 6 medical students. A first seminar discusses patients who the students have seen for themselves during their clerkship in family medicine. In addition, matching theory is discussed and skills are practiced. In the next seminar, students apply the acquired knowledge and skills in scenarios with standardized patients. Students evaluated the courses as positive. The evaluations show they find discussing personally experienced patient cases and the opportunity to practice very valuable.

Conclusions

A course design according to Kolb's Experiential learning cycle, which integrates experience, theory and simulation, is a valuable addition to existing forms of teaching in medical education. Students appreciated both discussing personally experienced patient cases and the opportunity to re-practice similar cases in a simulated environment. To gain more insight into the learning effects, it is recommended to further explore this approach in a different context.

1. Background

In order to prepare medical students for their future work, several didactic settings are used to integrate clinical practice into medical school. Besides direct clinical exposure discussing patient cases in seminars, which enable students to learn clinical reasoning and simulation-based training, where students can practice skills such as communication and physical examination are frequently used methods. 1 – 3 Courses encouraging clinical reasoning, decision-making and problem-solving are of great importance for medical students to apply their knowledge expanding beyond the medical facts. 4 For example, the clinical reasoning mapping exercise (CResME) discussed by Torre et al in 2019 uses clinical information for multiple disease entities as nodes in different domains (history, physical exam, imaging, laboratory results, etc) and allows students to connect these nodes of information developing accurate differential diagnoses and/or management plans. 5 Simulation tools in medical education such as simulated patients or task trainers, provide the students with experiences of patients in controlled setting and allow students to experiment, make mistakes, get feedback and acquire clinical skills without putting patients at risk. 6 Moreover, a simulation-based training in handling critically ill patients was shown to improve not only diagnostic and medical expertise skills but also non-technical skills, such as situation awareness, decision-making, communication, teamwork and leadership. 7 Finally, there are various forms of education in clinical practice, ranging from one-day observations to carrying out medical tasks under supervision during longer clerkships. 8 , 9

Furthermore, in order to strengthen the link with and preparation for clinical practice, the concept of Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) is increasingly used in the clinical phase of medical school and residency. 10 – 13 EPAs are defined as essential elements of a physician's daily work that can be assigned to a trainee once sufficient competences have been acquired. As the amount of supervision is gradually reduced, students are given increasing responsibility for performing medical tasks. 10 , 11 As a result, students and residents grow incrementally in their (future) roles, facilitating the transition to the next phase. Although the EPA concept was originally developed for residency, it has been implemented in medical schools as well. 10 – 12 An important prerequisite for the successful implementation of this method is that trainees are regularly observed performing the tasks, so that the amount of required supervision can be estimated. In addition, it is necessary for the development of the trainee that he/she receives targeted feedback on a regular basis. 11 , 13

Although all three, the discussion of patient cases, simulation and learning in clinical practice are part of most medical curricula, they are usually not directly didactically linked in one single course. There are various chief complaints in family medicine, which differ greatly. It is different whether one treats abdominal pain or a common cold. The students cannot simply extrapolate from cause A to cause B. Moreover, there is no standardised training for these clearly defined chief complaints.

This lack of integration makes it more difficult for the students to connect the knowledge and skills they have learned in a coherent way. 14 This program aims to create a standardisation of training in relation to the chief complaints.

Combining and integrating explicitly all these three didactic settings can be seen as an implementation of Kolb’s learning cycle which postulates that effective learning is ideally achieved by progressing through a cycle of four stages (see Figure 1 ): having an experience (“concrete experience”), reflecting on the experience (“reflective observation”), learning from the experience (“abstract conceptualization” and trying out what you have learned (“active experimentation”) . 16 Additionally the EPA concept may build a coherent guiding base through the cycle and emphasizes the targeted final competence.

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Object name is 10.1177_23821205221091511-fig1.jpg

Adapted kolb´s experiential learning cycle.

In Kolb's learning theory, which fits the constructivist approach, the learned knowledge is mentally anchored by a concrete experience, corresponding to this knowledge. This means that the different didactic methods must be logically linked to each other on the same subject. 15

We made the connection between these didactic approaches in a program for students who are preparing for their future role as general practitioners. In addition to the regular medical school program, these students receive additional courses on topics that are especially relevant to general practice. 16 The content of these courses is determined on the basis of EPAs for the final yeaŕs clerkship in family medicine, combined with the most common chief complaints of patients in the GP's practice. After the cognitive case-based confrontation with personally experienced cases, they faced matching simulated cases and finally focused und reflected on follow-up experiences of the same cases in general practice reality.

This article discusses the methodology and the first experiences with this didactic approach.

2. Course Design

2.1. context.

From 2019 a special track has been developed at the medical school of the Technical University of Munich, in addition to the regular curriculum, to prepare students to work as general practitioners in rural areas of Bavaria. All students of the clinical phase of medical school can apply. The participating students receive a stipend and mentoring by experienced GPs. Participation in the additional educational program is compulsory. In this context, this course, based on Kolb´s experiential learning cycle was introduced.

2.2. Course

Selected chief complaints (based on a high frequency and relevance in general practice) were linked to specific EPAs (for example the chief complaint "acute abdominal pain" for the EPA “Consultation with a patient with acute symptoms”) and consists of the following components:

During a clerkship in family medicine, two students are given the assignment to select a patient that fits the selected chief complaint. They describe the symptoms of this patient, anamnesis, physical examination, additional examinations, differential diagnosis, treatment and further course ( Kolb’s “concrete experience” & “reflective observation”) . 15
During a following seminar (3 hours) with a focus on clinical reasoning, these students present these patient cases and discuss them with other students and teachers (who are experienced GPs). Furthermore, a short knowledge test on the subject, an in-depth input by the teachers and repetition of relevant skills, for example, the anamnesis and physical examination in case of acute abdominal pain, is included in this seminar. Therefore the students elaborate the experienced cases and gain further specific and structured knowledge and skills (Kolb’s “abstract conceptualization ”) . 15
Consequently in a simulation training session (3 hours) the students practice anamnesis and physical examination with standardized patients. The cases fit the same chief complaint, but the students do not know the details beforehand. The other students and the teachers watch the consultation on a video screen in a different room and give feedback afterwards. During the feedback session, certain parts of the video recordings can be viewed and, if desired, the respective students can view the entire video recording later themselves. By means of this simulation session, the students can immediately transfer the newly gained insights to a practice situation and this in a highly structured and protected learning environment (Kolb’s “active experimentation”) . 15
Finally, the students reflect in the upcoming clerkships on the renewed experience with similar cases in a portfolio-based matter. Thus, the cycle closes on a higher level as it started in the clinical reality (Kolb’s “concrete experience” & “reflective observation”). 15

During the whole course (consisting of 6 hours of seminars, combined with at least four weeks of education in clinical practice) the specific EPA is the guiding concept that helps teachers and students align during all the different didactic settings to the aimed at final competency.

A total of 10 such courses have been developed, based on the 10 chief complaints. In each course, 2–3 students prepared the cases for the first seminar and did the simulations in the second seminar. The other students actively participated in the discussion, observed the simulations and provided feedback. Consequently, all students have learned about all 10 chief complaints.

2.3. Evaluation

The students were asked to rate the seminars as a whole with a score

In order to evaluate the usefulness of this didactic method, the students who took part in the first two series of the course completed an evaluation form consisting of quantitative questions, supplemented with the questions for qualitative explanations. The six students (4 female) were asked to rate the seminars as a whole using a score from 1 ( = very good) to 6 ( = very bad). The average grade for the first seminar (discussion of patient cases, content presentation and training skills) was 1.4 and for the simulation training (anamnesis and physical examination with standardized patients, followed by feedback) 1.6. This shows that the students appreciated the overall design of the course. This is also shown by the scores on the different items, which the students have rated with “ + +”, “ + ”, “ + /-“, “-“ or “- -“ (see Tables 1 and and2 2 and Supplemental material). Most students found the seminars to be instructive, appropriate to their prior knowledge and coherent. All students also indicate that the learning goals are (very) well achieved with this course.

Evaluation results in % of the seminar (discussion of patient cases, content presentation and training skills) -average evaluation scores of two sessions (N = 6 for both sessions).

N = 6	+ +	+	+ /-	N.A.
The information on the seminar was clear and concise.	58	42
I found the seminar instructive.	58	42
I found the self-study assignments instructive.	50			50
I feel that I have achieved the learning goals.	92	8
I found the coherence between the parts of this seminar good.	75	17		8
The contents of the seminar corresponded to my previous knowledge.	83		17
I found the guidance from the teachers stimulating.	100

Evaluation results in % of the simulation training (anamnesis and physical examination with standardized patients) - average evaluation scores of two sessions (N = 6 for both sessions).

N = 6	+ +	+	+ /-	-	N.A.
The information on the seminar was clear and concise.	50	25	17		8
I found the seminar instructive.	50	25	17	8
I found the self-study assignments instructive.	50	8			42
I feel that I have achieved the learning goals.	42	50		8
I found the coherence between the parts of this seminar good.	50	25			25
The contents of the seminar corresponded to my previous knowledge.	75			8	17
I found the guidance from the teachers stimulating.	75	25

Note: + + = very good; + = good; + /- = satisfactory; - = sufficient; -- = insufficient; N.A. = not applicable.

All students substantiated their scores with short explanations. The comments on the first seminars show that the students found the level appropriate, also because of the combination of "basics" and more profound knowledge. Discussing real-life patient cases was seen as a good way to introduce the frequent chief complaints and made the clinical relevance clear. Finally, repeating the skills was considered very valuable.

For the simulation training session, the opportunity to practice with standardized patients, the extensive debriefing and the honest feedback from other students and teachers were especially appreciated. The combination with the first seminar, where the required knowledge and skills were addressed, was also well appreciated. The students who were more advanced in their studies found the simulated cases a little too easy. Opinions were divided about the video recordings: some found it unpleasant, others liked the fact that they could re-watch the consultation with the patient.

3. Discussion

By combining and coherently integrating different learning methods, such as clinical experience, case-based discussions and simulation, continually based on the EPA framework, the learning effect can be enhanced. The design of the course program described in this article fits well with Kolb´s Experiential Learning Cycle (see Figure 1 ) that is widely accepted as an effective model for learning. 15 This model is based on the assumption that there are four phases in a learning process, which students ideally all go through. The first phase is the phase of concrete experience . In our course, these are the real patients, who the students encounter in practice. The second phase concerns the phase of reflective observation , which happens when the students describe the patient cases in preparation for the seminar. In the third phase, abstract conceptualization takes place. This is done in the first seminar where the patient cases are discussed and theory is presented by the teachers, matching the chief complaint and a specific EPA. The fourth phase is the phase of active experimentation , in which students apply what they have learned in an exercise situation. This takes place during the simulation session, in which students practice the anamnesis and physical examination with standardized patients, which represent similar cases, as experienced before in reality, and get feedback on it from teachers, other students and standardized patients. Finally, the students take these experiences with them when they meet similar patients in the next clinical situation (concrete experience) and the Kolb´s Experiential Learning Cycle restarts on a higher level. 15

The method described also aligns with the ALACT model, developed by Korthagen et al in 2001, 17 for cyclic professional development, focused on stimulating reflection. The acronym refers to the five phases in this model, which are: Action, Looking back on action, Awareness of essential aspects, Creating alternative methods of action and Trial. In particular, the phases “looking back on action” and “Awareness of essential aspects” (in our case, describing patient cases and discussing them in the seminar) would stimulate reflection.

In other fields, such as engineering and laboratory education, the didactic approach, according to Kolb, has been applied before. Studies in those areas show that the students are more positive and learn more when compared to a combination of teaching methods that are less interrelated. In addition, the students were able to recall the knowledge learned over a longer period of time. 18 , 19 Our experience shows that the method is also suitable for less technical studies, such as medicine.

Our evaluations show that students find discussing personally experienced patient cases and the opportunity to practice very valuable. The evaluations also make clear that the interaction with and feedback from the teachers is experienced as very useful. This is in line with the literature on simulations: both good guidance by teachers and getting feedback are important for the learning effect. 3 This is consistent with the results of a comprehensive meta-analysis by Hattie (2008) into what factors produce a learning effect. He found that both teachers and getting good feedback have a major impact on student learning. 20

The special context in which these courses took place, with a small group of students and teachers, who know each other well, probably plays a positive role and may be the main limitation of this evaluation concerning intended transfer to other curricula. It is therefore recommended to implement and evaluate such a course in another context, with more students and teachers involved. An important next step would be a larger study with more participants, comparing the learning outcomes with the students who do not take part in this training. The participating students themselves indicate that they were able to achieve the learning goals with this training method, but it is recommended that this be investigated objectively in a follow-up study. Because the didactic formats and therefore the materials needed, such as rooms and equipment for simulations, this approach can be implemented well more broadly. In addition, the workload per student would be reduced with a rollout for more students.

There are a number of open questions that deserve attention in follow-up research. First, the direct link between theory, simulation and practice, probably stimulates the transfer of the learned knowledge and skills. 21 It would be very useful to examine what students do better next time they see similar patients, in practice or in a simulated environment.

The second question concerns the connection with the EPAs. These EPAs have been developed for the final year of medical school. Through these seminars, students already encounter these EPAs earlier and get feedback on them. It would be interesting to explore whether these students need less supervision to perform these activities during their final year, or whether the amount of supervision can be reduced more quickly.

Finally, it will be interesting to investigate whether students who complete such courses also reflect more actively on their actions afterwards, as the ALACT model suggests. 17

4. Conclusion

The described course design, which is designed according to Kolb´s experiential learning cycle, is a valuable addition to existing learning formats in medical education. This method makes a strong link between theory, simulation training and clinical practice.

Supplementary Material

Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical Approval: Not applicable, because this article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

Informed Consent: Not applicable, because this article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

Trial Registration: Not applicable, because this article does not contain any clinical trials.

Supplemental material: Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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An experimental test: Using rubrics for reflective writing to develop reflection

2019, Studies in Educational Evaluation

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Click here to enlarge figure

Elastic Modulus/GPa	Poisson’s Ratio	Yield Stress/MPa	Ultimate Tensile Strength/MPa
206	0.3	434.94	548.91

Specimen Number	P /kN	R = P /P	Nominal Stress/MPa	Crack Location	Stiffener Height
P1	84.24	−1	120	single-edge crack	30 mm
P2	90.72	−1	130	single-edge crack	30 mm
P3	97.20	−1	140	single-edge crack	30 mm
P4	384.00	0.031	280	central crack	30 mm
P5	420.00	0.2	300	central crack	30 mm
P6	420.00	0.2	300	central crack	0 mm

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Dong, Q.; Xu, G.; Chen, W. Experimental Research on the Low-Cycle Fatigue Crack Growth Rate for a Stiffened Plate of EH36 Steel for Use in Ship Structures. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024 , 12 , 1365. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081365

Dong Q, Xu G, Chen W. Experimental Research on the Low-Cycle Fatigue Crack Growth Rate for a Stiffened Plate of EH36 Steel for Use in Ship Structures. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering . 2024; 12(8):1365. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081365

Dong, Qin, Geng Xu, and Wei Chen. 2024. "Experimental Research on the Low-Cycle Fatigue Crack Growth Rate for a Stiffened Plate of EH36 Steel for Use in Ship Structures" Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 12, no. 8: 1365. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12081365

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Title: imagen 3.

Abstract: We introduce Imagen 3, a latent diffusion model that generates high quality images from text prompts. We describe our quality and responsibility evaluations. Imagen 3 is preferred over other state-of-the-art (SOTA) models at the time of evaluation. In addition, we discuss issues around safety and representation, as well as methods we used to minimize the potential harm of our models.

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The philosophy of scientific experimentation: a review

The rise of experimental science

The rise of the philosophy of scientific experimentation

Intervention and production, and their philosophical implications

The relationship between (experimental) science and technology

The role of theory in experimentation

In conclusion: further issues in scientific experimentation

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Automated Experimentation

Reflections on the Ethics of Social Experimentation

1 Introduction

2 Problem 1: Audience

2.1 Partner Matters

2.2 Users: Quality of Research Findings

3 Problem 2: Agency

4 Problem 3: Consent

4.1 The Argument from Respect of Persons

4.2 Other rationales for Consent

4.3 Varieties of Consent

5 Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Supplementary Materials

Journal and Issue

APA Sample Paper: Experimental Psychology

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

Article contents

Updated in this version

Introduction

Experiential Education: Definition and Philosophy

Application of Learning Styles to the Classroom

Criticism of the Learning Styles Approach

Other Approaches to Learning Styles

Experiential Learning in the Political Science Literature

Future Avenues for Research

Beyond the Classroom: Considering the Curriculum

Concluding Thoughts

Links to Digital Materials

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Implementing Kolb´s Experiential Learning Cycle by Linking Real Experience, Case-Based Discussion and Simulation

T. Brandhuber

A. Schneider

Methodology

Conclusions

1. Background

2. Course Design

2.2. Course

2.3. Evaluation

3. Discussion

4. Conclusion

Supplementary Material

An experimental test: Using rubrics for reflective writing to develop reflection

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Ideology, Motivated Reasoning, and Cognitive Reflection: An Experimental Study