Collaboration between universities and industries is critical for developing practical skills, generating knowledge, and connecting to the real-world experiences. Universities often design courses to strategically create opportunities for students in the form of internships, faculty exchanges, or collaboration partnerships [1]. Such collaborations have been designed as courses in many universities worldwide because the rapidly changing business environment demands industries to continuously enhance their efficiency and productivity [2], [3], and collaborations between the two worlds have shown great results. For instance, important outcomes of internships have shown to enhance communication, time management, self-confidence, and self-motivation [4]. Experience-based learning, in which students are engaged in learning activities that mimic real world scenarios, has been applied as the foundation of designing courses with internship opportunities, industry collaborations, case studies, involvement in extracurricular activities, study abroad, and comprehensive course projects [5]. Furthermore, experience-based learning approach is common in fashion business programs because putting students’ learned knowledge into practice is particularly important for fashion business students given the nature of the rapidly changing fashion industry. In Kolb’s [6] experience-based learning theory, learning has been identified as a holistic and integrative experience, perception, cognition, and behavior. Therefore, it is important to explore and understand the perspectives, thoughts, and reflections on their experience in experience-based learning courses. However, there remains little understanding of the specific professional outcomes of experience-based learning from the fashion business students’ personal perspective, specifically with industry-university collaboration in Taiwan. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how universities can connect students and the industry with a course design that is especially focused on building relationships.

Author: Wendy Hsiao Chun Chou

Published in: Canada International Conference on Education, 2022

• Date of Conference: 21-23 June, 2022
• DOI: 10.20533/CICE.2022.0021
• Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-49-5
• Conference Location: Virtual (Mississauga, Canada)