Reflecting on Experiential Learning in Marketing Education

Experiential learning methods have become increasingly popular in marketing education. Factors underlying this trend are: the desire to respond to the changing higher education environment (the student-customer); to endow students with employability skills; the common sense assumption that since marketing is a practical activity learning from experience makes sense; and, pedagogic methods designed around experiential learning theory, which has been widely influential in recent decades. While not seeking to argue that experiential learning methods are ineffective in marketing education, this article argues that they should be used thoughtfully and where the learning goals and the cohort of students are likely to benefit from them. In particular, marketing educators should be wary of imposing an excessively high cognitive load on their students by expecting them to learn complex concepts from experiential learning methods that themselves have an intrinsically sharp learning curve, such as client consultancy projects.