Lecture Versus Experiential Learning: Their Differential Effects On Long-Term Memory

In a more primitive fashion I’ve wondered about the same thing: six months after the end of an introductory class, will students remember more, more thoroughly, and with more ability to put the material to use if one adopted a seminar-based experiential approach and covered, say, 25 percent less text material than a straight lecture approach would allow (Greaves, 1986)? Our colleague certainly was not the first person to ponder the issue of which teaching technique, lecture or experiential learning, results in better learning. When students have some degree of familiarity with the topic, experiential learning appears to be more involving, more intrinsically motivating, and almost always more fun for students than lecture (Coleman, 1976; Friedman & Yarbrough, 1985; Spencer & Van Eynde, 1986). A