TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AND COMPLEX PROBLEM-SOLVING AMONG HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM STUDENTS

Abstract

The hospitality industry and even more so tourism (H&T), has become enmeshed in issues of increasing proportion, complexity and social, cultural, environmental and political importance. This highlights the importance of hospitality educators who are being asked to prepare graduates for roles in which they will need to „solve problems that don?t exist yet? (McLeod, 2009: 33). Transformative learning has been defined as the "epistemology of how adults learn to think for themselves rather than act upon the assimilated beliefs, values, feelings and judgements of others" (Mezirow, 2003:1). The benefits of transformative learning are proposed as moving "the individual toward a more inclusive, differentiated, permeable (open to other points of view), and integrated meaning perspective..." (Mezirow, 1991:7).Triggering incidents catalyse transformative learning, which promotes critical reflection on past experiences, and influences the individuals? construction of knowledge through the surfacing of unchallenged assumptions and deeply held beliefs. Until now few quantitative studies exist within H&T and even more so within transformative learning, that capture the influence of triggering incidents and their effects on academic performance. In this dual-phase research, the initial pilot survey establishes the contribution of transformative learning on how students construct solutions and contextualise complex problems. Data collected informed the design of the Triggering Incident Student Survey (TISS), where effects of triggering incidents are measured in their ability to foster individual critical reflection, measure changes in the construction of knowledge, and how these may benefit or detract from student learning. The contribution of this research is that it pioneers the measurement of significant elements of the transformative learning process and secondly, assists in capturing meaningful experiences that promote deep learning among H&T students.