Abstract
Experiential activities are a powerful pedagogical tool that have grown in popularity. But there are a series of ethical issues (the “shadow side”) that such activities raises. These include (a) inadequate (informed) student choice, (b) bias in what is covered, (c) lack of adequate debriefing, (d) personal exposure in class and community, (e) issues of deception, (f) role behavior being personalized (by self and others), (g) the negative impact of feedback (planned or spontaneous), and (h) the degree of “boundedness” of experiential activities These problems are not inevitable, but with instructor awareness can be lessened. This article also suggests other ways to address these issues.
Experiential education has played an increasingly important role in management education. Just about every issue of the Journal of Management Education includes articles dealing with that topic as well as comprising a majority of the sessions at the annual Management & Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (MOBTS) conference meetings. But before exploring some of the ethical concerns with this form of pedagogy, it is important to understand what is behind its popularity.
Hoover and Whitehead’s (1975) definition of experiential activities helps explain why it can be such a powerful pedagogical tool. The learner moves from the passive stance found in most traditional classrooms to more active engagement on the emotional and behavioral as well as conceptual levels. This fuller involvement can provide a richer array of outcomes than commonly possible in a lecture classroom. These advantages include the following:
Deeper understanding of the phenomenon being studied. One can hear a talk on individual versus group problem solving, but being part of one of the survival exercises (e.g., Desert Survival, Sub-Artic Survival 1 ) can illustrate the more complex individual and group factors that are at work.
Greater personal learning. Because the learner is behaviorally and emotionally engaged, she/he is more likely to identify the assumptions (and biases) as well as their behaviors that influenced the outcome.
Enhanced skill/competence development. When placed in a new situation or when there are similar follow-up activities, the learner can practice new approaches that expand their mental models and behavioral competencies.
Learn how to learn. One constantly has new experiences. But to learn, one has to be able to accurately observe and reflect and then make sense out of the experience. (This might be one of the most important outcomes from experiential activities.)
It is important to conceptualize the area as experiential learning because an activity in and of itself is insufficient. Kolb’s seminal work, Experiential Learning (1984), describes a four-part circular model. Concrete Experiences can lead into Reflective Observation. Such observations can serve as the basis for Abstract Conceptualization. However, these three areas have most value when applied to related situations in Active Experimentation.
Activities that provide such concrete experiences can range from the highly structured (with prescribed roles that instruct what participants should do and sometimes how they should act) to more emergent, unstructured events. Cohen (1976) argues that in teaching management and organizational behavior, one does not need simulations exercises because “the classroom is an organization.” Embedded are issues of leadership and membership, power and influence, norms and formal rules, collaboration and competition, and the like. Thus, there are a multitude of potential concrete experiences that could be utilized. A discussion of “how subordinates give away their power” becomes real if there has been an aborted attempt by students to influence the instructor.
Experiential activities provide benefits for the instructor as well. How discouraging to have covered a concept in detail through lectures only to find that a large part of the class missed the message on the exam. Conversely, the satisfaction produced when alumni talk about how much they have used what they learned from a class exercise is tremendous. For instructors who place great value on their teaching, using experiential methods can be highly attractive. In fact, it can be so seductive that faculty can ignore the potential shadow-side that raise ethical issues in using this form of pedagogy. Lectures and discussions may produce far less benefit, but also have far fewer potential problems.
The following represents what I have observed and experienced in over 50 years of using experiential methods. It also captures numerous conversations with colleagues who also make frequent use of this pedagogy as well as my disturbing conclusions from attending MOBTS conference sessions. The purpose of this article is less to “give answers” and more to raise a series of ethical questions. Even though these issues could apply to other forms of pedagogy, because experiential exercises can influence the learner more deeply and more personally than other teaching approaches, I am arguing that they deal with the instructor’s ethical behavior. In lectures, discussions, or case analysis, students can withdraw in ways less possible with experiential activities.
Ethical Issues With Experiential Education
Whether the activity is highly structured or emergent, the following are eight areas that raise ethical questions with experiential learning: (a) inadequate (informed) student choice, (b) bias in what is covered, (c) lack of adequate debriefing, (d) personal exposure in class and community, (e) issues of deception, (f) Role-behavior being personalized (by self and others), (g) the negative impact of feedback (planned and spontaneous), and (h) the degree of “boundedness” of experiential activities.
Inadequate Informed Student Choice
What is “informed consent” in an experientially based course? Even if the syllabus mentions such activities, can these ever be adequately explained? The course outline describes The Power Game (Bolman & Deal, 1979) where students are divided into high-, medium-, and low-power groups and attempt to influence each other. But can any description convey the feeling of disempowerment felt by members in the low-power group? Even with a more complete explanation, what choice is there in a required course?
When enrolled, do students have a real option about whether to engage or not in a particular experiential activity? The instructor may announce that students can opt out of a specific exercise, but how realistic does that choice feels given the tendency to acquiesce to authority (Milgram, 1963)? And is this further compounded if part of the grade is on “class participation” or “risk-taking” (as is true with the Interpersonal Dynamics [T-group] course at Stanford University; Bradford & Robin, 2019)? Paradoxically, is it a greater risk for the student to engage in what she/he thinks is a stressful exercise or to refuse? And more important, what conclusion will the instructor draw when grading?
Bias in What Is Covered
One of the “agreements” that instructors might convey is that they will present objective information (and that any results from exercises are also not slanted). But, is not bias inevitable? Part may come from the teacher’s personal values and part is embedded in the field. In Management and Organizational Behavior, does not there tend to be a preference for collaboration over coercion, group over the individual, openness and transparency over guardedness and opacity. But are not there times in interpersonal relations and organizational life when the second options might be more appropriate? Do these personal and professional value preferences influence the instructor’s choice of what experiential activities to select?
Using the above-mentioned example of a survival exercises, could the student walk away concluding that group decisions are always superior to individual ones? But that is not always the case. There are conditions where group decisions might be flawed (Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa, 1998). Does the instructor add those caveats in the debriefing of the exercise?
Bias can come through the debriefing questions the instructor asks or the line of inquiry being followed. When students are asked for examples from their experience, is the question likely to be about when groups produced a superior outcome? But does the instructor ask for counter-examples?
Sometimes, the faculty’s expectation of what “should be” overrides what actually occurs. An (experienced) professor of my acquaintance was conducting an executive training program and used the Desert Survival exercise to demonstrate the superiority of group decision making. But this time, to his surprise, two participants had higher scores than the group. The instructor interjected, “This is the wrong outcome; let me tell you what the result should be.”
But in experiential learning, there are never “wrong outcomes.” What occurs is what occurs. If this professor truly held an experiential mind-set, would more learning have occurred if he had said, “This is interesting—and different from what usually occurs—but let’s explore why it turned out that way?” Then he would have fully used the second and third components of the Kolb model. If we want students to use all four of the parts, does it not behoove us to do the same?
Lack of Adequate Debriefing
As the Kolb model illustrates, the experiential activity by itself is rarely enough. There needs to be time for the learner to adequately observe what went on in the situation and in their behavior, to reflect on how that person felt about it and then derive conclusions. But that takes time. Can these three aspects of the Kolb cycle be accomplished in a 60-minute class and or even in 90 minutes? Is it not likely that most of class time will be spent on the exercise itself with the consequence being that the instructor fulfills those functions or gives it as an assignment for students to complete after class? The former can deprive students of developing their competencies in observation, reflection, and concept development and the latter is problematic in terms of what the students conclude.
Personal Exposure in Class and Community
There are many forms of exposure in experiential learning. One is how a person performs. Another is how they interpret the role they play. But a third is the subtle, and not so subtle, encouragement for self-disclosure. Imagine an exercise on “being an ‘only’” (the only woman, the only person of color, the only international). The instructions are, “Think of a time when you have been an ‘only’ and share what that was like.” As the disclosure grows, the group pressure builds so that students think they need to meet (or exceed) what previous students shared. Will there be disclosures (such as sexual abuse) that the student will later regret sharing?
This is where the instructor’s experience (and needs?) can confound the situation. In previous occasions when this exercise has been used, it has produced positive outcomes where students find they are not alone in feeling like “an only” and feel supported by the class. And perhaps that instructor gains personal satisfaction from releasing students’ inhibitions. Does that faculty member, overtly and indirectly, reward the students’ revelations, thus increasing the pressure for deeper self-disclosure?
Even if the instructor has stressed “confidentiality,” will such disclosures “leak out?” A classmate is asked by a friend (not in the course), “You are taking ‘Personal Empowerment’ and I hear there are some powerful revelations. What is talked about?” The student does not have to divulge the name of the individual who has disclosed, but only the content of sexual abuse. However, how will the original student feel upon hearing that her self-disclosure is part of the student grapevine?
Issues of Deception
To varying degrees, many experiential activities contain deception. In a structured exercise with role assignments, sometimes the different role sheets may contain different (and contradictory) information. In other situations, how an exercise is structured can “rig” the outcome (e.g., The Power Game by Bolman & Deal, 1979). At times, deception is necessary. Barkacs and Barkacs (2017), in their gender-based negotiation exercise, point out that the exercise would not work if participants knew the real purpose. Taras and Steel (2007) build their exercise around a major manipulation, but argue that the immediate student frustration and temporary loss of trust may be worth it for the learning outcomes achieved.
Faculty work hard to build trust with students and develop a safe learning environment (Kisfalvi & Oliver, 2015). To have that compromised with deception can significantly impair future learning. The instructor should weigh carefully the benefits against potential costs and, at the least, allow sufficient debriefing time for any needed repair in the student–faculty relationship.
Role-Driven Behavior Being Personalized
Many structured exercises have explicit role instructions (such as, “You are to take this position and work hard to convince others”). There are some activities (such as negotiation exercises) where the task and role strongly drive behavior. Is Joe really a hard-bargaining, coercive individual or is he responding to the situation that rewards the person who achieves the best payoff? Irrespective of how Joe sees himself, how will others evaluate him? And is there the possibility that Joe will blame himself for actions taken? In the debriefing of the activity, is the focus only on the task outcome or does the instructor pay attention to students personalizing what is actually role-driven behavior?
The Impact of Feedback
Feedback can come in many forms. A major benefit of experiential activities is the opportunity to learn how one tends to respond to various situations. Is there a tendency to become overly aggressive in a conflict situation or too quickly acquiesce? However, it is one thing to observe one’s behavior and another the conclusions the person draws from it. Will the students in the first case just decide to “dial it back a bit” or conclude that they need to suppress any signs of anger? Will the participants in the latter situation just realize that they can stick it out a little longer or conclude that they lack backbone to be a leader?
Part of the problem is that often such feedback is given by peers either one-on-one or in teams when the instructor is not present. Most people don’t know how to provide behaviorally specific feedback and instead make attributions about the other’s motivations and personality (Bradford & Cohen, 1998). The latter tends to create the defensiveness that blocks learning and can cause pain and damaged relationships. Therefore, is it not a bit cavalier (and unethical) for the instructor to say, at the end of an exercise, “Give each other feedback about what each person did that was useful and less than fully useful” when students have not been trained in behavioral feedback? But receiving feedback on the impact of one’s behavior can be valuable information and necessary for personal development.
The Degree of “Boundedness” of Activities
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, experiential activities can range from highly structured to more emergent. Given that “the classroom is an organization,” there are many opportunities to link the course material on management and organizational behavior with what occurs in class. The instructor oriented to that view has many opportunities to use classroom experiences for learning. These spontaneous issues can often be the most potent because they are real behavior happening in real time. Students sometimes criticize structured exercises for their artificiality, which can lead them to discount what occurred (and subsequent feedback) because “I was only playing a role.” These limitations are less likely with emergent in-the-minute experiences.
However, there is less predictability about where these less-bounded activities may lead. Imagine that the instructor has, in previous classes, pointed out events in the classroom that paralleled course material and had students reflect on their behavior at those times. This establishes a norm legitimizing such exploration. Then in a class discussing issues of gender and power, a student points out that the male students have been dominating the conversation and interrupting the women. This could lead to a rich exploration of the effect of gender/power dynamics in real time. Were the men aware of this? How did it affect the type and amount of female participation? Were there times when some women did not let themselves be interrupted?
But then, imagine that a women takes this opportunity to confront a fellow-student whom she thinks is the most egregious offender. This ups the ante. But again, if handled well, this could lead to learning about how peers can productively raise interpersonal concerns. But what if the accused male responds with a sexist put-down? Now there has to be some repair work as well as discussion of what norms the class wants on interpersonal issues. If the instructor encourages such emergent learning, does not she/he have an ethical responsibility to be able to turn them into learning?
Minimizing Problems
One obvious way is to be conscious of these potential ethical issues; “forewarned is forearmed.” In developing a course, instructors should consider whether there is adequate pre-enrollment information so that students are informed of what they might be getting into and what choices they really have about how much they participate. In planning (and conducting) classes, how balanced is the content? Are there strong norms of confidentiality and are pressures for conformity minimized? Is there sufficient time for full debriefing of the experience? If feedback is coupled with the exercise, do students know how to give behaviorally specific comments? And how much should boundaries be set about what can be said and what can’t, both in class and in work teams?
In addition to these points, there are two other important areas.
Building a supportive learning environment. Kisfalvi and Oliver (2015) stress the importance of creating a “safe space” for experiential learning. Their suggestions have value, especially the emphasis that this is not a onetime event, but an ongoing effort. 2 Moving toward greater safety is not just building norms of confidentiality (and enforcing them), but other actions such as students being able to “opt out” of an activity. In situations where that might be hard for a student to do, in potentially stressful activities, could a safer role be offered such as coaches to some of the key players or being observers (who could lead the debriefing)? Then there is the value of inquiry and curiosity in exploring not only what has occurred, but why. Doing so turns almost any situation into a potential learning experience. Even “mistakes” made by students (or the instructor) have the possibility of providing important learning. Inquiry and curiosity are core to an experiential (and experimental) mind-set.
Monitoring personal impact. Even with the best of debriefing, the instructor never completely knows what students take away from an activity. Their conceptual understanding is important, but as crucial are personal feelings and the conclusions they make about themselves. As noted above, are they drawing a negative self-assessment about their skills and abilities—or the sort of person they are? Are they excited about what they learned or deeply disturbed?
But how to assess this? One option is a personal journal that is regularly read by the instructor (or TA) to identify students who are troubled by the experience. In the Stanford T-group based Interpersonal Dynamics course, the faculty send out, each week, a short questionnaire that asks students how stressed they are. And if the student reports being upset, that faculty then reaches out with an offer to meet. Faculty send signals about how accessible they are outside of class. Do students believe that it is only appropriate to use office hours for formal course work? Or can they also come to raise personal concerns about what has happened to them from class? These informal conversations can be some of the most impactful experiences a student can have.
Conclusion
The intent of this article is not to discourage use of experiential activities; they are a powerful part of an instructor’s repertoire. Furthermore, the problems raised are not inevitable because with careful thought the probability can be decreased (but probably never entirely removed). However, the potential negative “shadow side” that these activities can have demands that the instructor consider the ethical implications that are raised.
An important part of that consideration is for the instructor to reflect. “Why am I doing these (specific) activities?” Does it meet pedagogical needs or is it for more personal reasons (to entertain, to force students to confront certain issues that the instructor values, or to raise student evaluations)? Finally, “Do I have the requisite skills to set up the activity, to fully debrief it, and to handle unforeseen issues that might arise?” This is especially relevant as the degree of challenge in the activity and the lack of boundedness increases. Spontaneous activities can be fruitful if it is handled well. As we want students to reflect on their actions, should we not first do the same?
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.