There is a correlation between the use of these methods and how much is remembered, as experience provides a resource for learning that helps students understand and retain knowledge (Dewey 1938; Santi 2000).
In ethics education these methods allow students to draw on their own immediate personal experience around the subject as a focal point for ‘giving life, texture and subjective personal meaning’ to the seemingly abstract concepts of ethical theories and principles (Smart and Csapo 2007).
The ‘here and now’ concrete experience also provides a publically shareable reference point for testing the implications and validity of ideas created during the learning process, leading to more effective understanding of theories.
Engineering students in particular learn effectively when they are able to relate material to their own personal experience; and experiential learning methods are valuable for engineering students who are more likely to be ‘sensing, inductive and active’ learners who are likely to forget something that is ‘just said to them’ (Felder and Silverman 1998).