Measuring the Effect of Experiential Education Using the Perry Model

Abstract This paper reports data on how well one engineering curriculum with extensive experiential components helps students mature toward more complex thinking; toward being better able to make good decisions on ambiguous, real‐world, engineering problems. Hour‐long, structured interviews were used to assess students' thinking based on William Perry's Model of Intellectual Development. These cross‐sectional data show Colorado School of Mines students progressing an average of 1.0 Positions during their undergraduate years. This may be an unusually high achievement. If so, the data speak to the value of experiential education in a curriculum. However, the data are disturbing in that only one quarter of graduating seniors show progression to the level needed in their professions (above Position 5), while one third of them still fall below Position 4. We argue that, to get more students to progress above Position 5, professors teaching experiential engineering courses need to be knowledgeable about developmental models like Perry's and need to use those insights proactively in mentoring their students.