Promoting Learners’ Autonomy at Elementary Level through Experiential Learning: A Quantitative Study
Abstract
This research aims to ascertain Learners’ Autonomy through Experiential Learning of elementary students at class 8 level in a role play activity conducted at a private sector English Medium School. Experiential Learning could be a learner-friendly apparatus that has not been enough investigated at the basic level. Most writings and researches are recognized the significance of “learning through doing”, “hands-on approaches” or “Experiential Learning”. Experiential Learning has developed in notoriety with grown-up learners since Dewey and a number of researches examining the potential benefits of utilizing Experiential Learning Strategies. It plays vital role in educational institutions. In depth, analysis of the literature review was done. Hypothesis was formulated, the strategy of the research was survey. The population of the study was the students of elementary private schools of Karachi. Simple random sampling design was adopted. The sample size is consisted of118 students as participants respectively. Two questionnaires were adopted; Experiential Learning Scale (ELS) by Clem & Beasley and Learner Autonomous Scale (LAS) by Fletcher & Averill for data collection. Data was analyzed by applying inferential statistics with the correlation and linear regression through SPSS. It was found that the value of “r” between the Experiential Learning and Learner Autonomous is .989, it indicates high correlation exists between (EL) and (LA) variables. Overall relation of all the categories of Experiential Learning and Learner Autonomous were found moderate at 0.05 level of significance. The overall linear regression model suggests that there is only R2 =.331, P < .05 variation on Learner Autonomous because of Experiential Learning. Based on finding of this research, practitioners and instructors can utilize Experiential Learning as a part of their own teaching methodologies. It is also recommended that through this process, the concept of Autonomous Learning be observed further; while a comparative study can also be initiated to ascertain how the process affects students’ involvement in differing curricula.
Keywords: Collaboration, experiential learning, learner autonomy, learning environment.
References
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