ABSTRACT
The search for new learning contexts as a way of characterizing adult learning reached a highly sophisticated stage with Kolb’s 1984 book on experiential learning. Kolb is often misinterpreted as having identified four different adult learning styles: Divergers (those who learn through feeling and thinking) learn from open-minded, active reflection on concrete experience; Assimilators (those who learn through thinking and watching) learn from building models and testing these models against experience; Convergers (those who learn through thinking and doing) learn by experimenting by applying ideas to experience; and Accommodators (those who learn through feeling and doing) learn by applying feeling to experience. In fact, Kolb does not see these as separate kinds of learners, but rather as separate phases in a developmental process that all adults cycle through when learning from experience. He understands experiential learning contexts in ways that are very similar to Lewin (1951), Dewey (1938), and Piaget (1970)—namely, as an interaction between reflection and concrete experience that is mediated by emotions.
