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This study explores the impact of an embodied learning strategy, Acting Experiencing (AE), on university students' ability to memorize and understand course content. While research in cognitive psychology has identified optimal learning strategies, particularly embodied strategies, they are rarely taught in universities. Embodied and situated learning is a characteristic of learning a text performed by a theater actor. AE integrates verbal, motor, and emotional components, aligning with an embodied and situated approach to cognition. Studies suggest that AE enhances recall more effectively than the strategies commonly used by students. This study investigates whether applying AE, based on embodied cognition, to university course content can improve learning outcomes.
A three-hour workshop, led by a professional actor, was conducted with 28 third-year psychology students. It included embodiment exercises and application to cognitive psychology course content. Three similar texts from a cognitive psychology course were used—one for the workshop, and the others for the pre-test and post-test, conducted six days after the workshop. For each text, participants memorized the content and then completed a fill-in-the-blank task using the same text. A control group of 61 students completed the same tests without attending the workshop. It was expected that the theater group would outperform the control group on the post-test and exam scores.
The workshop’s effect on learning proficiency was not statistically significant, as theater-trained students did not differ from the control group in any of the tests. Exploratory analyses indicated that the theater group showed a lower correlation between pre-test and post-test scores than the control group, suggesting that the workshop induced a shift in learning strategy. However, the short duration of the workshop may have been insufficient for full integration. Future research should incorporate longer training sessions and larger samples to further assess AE’s potential as an effective embodied learning strategy.