Do We See the Way What the Students See?

Two-year college students want to have academic learning which is relevant and can facilitate their articulation to the senior year of a university to finish a major specific bachelor's degree. This session will explore the value and implementation of experiential learning by action research in a two-year college setting and share the successful project results. A research only semester long project in a marketing discipline is redesigned to be experiential for increased real-world connections to improve student engagement, reflections and self-confidence that leading towards increased student competitiveness for senior year academic articulation and future employment opportunities in the 21st Century. However, what we see from the good side of the project results, are they all representative to each of the individual students involved? The results from 441 participating students are not one sided. It implies that students’ responses are varied towards the intended learning outcomes of the project and the minority feedback has its significance. I will illustrate the answers through the data and comments collected from the student feedback forms, formal and informal qualitative interviews, and discussion meetings. Based on those data to summarize the insights or implications on how students can learn the general education requirements at the same time be able to discover their major study interest and develop their competitiveness in a two-year community college setting. In addition, the presentation provides whether high technology, low technology, and no technology can bring up the project result insights, or the interpretation of the findings that matters.