Abstract
Civilization is in the midst of a profound historical transformation: technological advances, globalization, and shifting worldviews are bringing multiple, often conflicting points of view into conversation with one another, and these trends are exposing the influence of culture, language, and thought processes on the construction of our perceptions, beliefs, and ideologies. Transformative learning, psychological development, and spiritual growth can help us to better understand and survive in this increasingly more complex and rapidly changing world.
This study examined how a group of adult students experienced and utilized learning from a five-day residential seminar designed to foster transformative learning and development. Fourteen white, adult (25+) American male and female graduate students were observed in the learning environment and interviewed over the eight month period following the seminar to assess whether the seminar was successful in fostering enduring perspective transformation and developmental growth.
The study examined subjects' experiences of the seminar; identified what dimensions of the experience were considered by participants to be of most and least value; and assessed the impact of the seminar on participants' ways of seeing and being over the eight month period following it. Specifically, the study evaluated whether the seminar appeared to foster transformative learning, developmental growth, increased spiritual intelligence, or Appreciative Knowing.
Findings identified educational approaches and teaching practices that appear to be highly effective in promoting transformative learning and developmental growth; revealed the mutual interdependence of intellect, emotion, and spirituality and education's potential to foster these multiple dimensions of learning and development simultaneously; and affirmed the power of education to trigger significant and enduring change.
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