Learning through breakdown in higher education: a process framework for system-level experiential learning in a student-led project

Experiential, project-based, and work-integrated learning are widely embedded in higher education, yet the mechanisms through which learning unfolds within complex student-led projects remain under-theorised. This study examines a large-scale university event project embedded in a credit-bearing course, Introduction to Event (GHZAK1113), at Universiti Utara Malaysia, delivered across a fourteen-week semester with 41 students organised across Top Management and twelve interdependent functional departments. Using a qualitative longitudinal design, the study analyses weekly reports and post-mortem reports through a Gioia-informed inductive process analysis of documentary data. The findings reveal a recurring four-stage pattern comprising coordination breakdown, collective sensemaking, procedural repair, and post-mortem consolidation, consistent with learning processes that extend beyond authentic participation alone. The study contributes an integrative process account of system-level experiential learning, extending the application of experiential learning theory to explain how collective coordination and workflow redesign produce learning in authentic student-led projects.