An EEG Study on Students' Learning in Practical and Theory-Based Hospitality Courses

Abstract

This study investigates neural activities of hospitality students when they are in practical and theoretical classes. This study involved 33 freshmen in a hospitality program, who underwent 420 minutes of brainwave data collection using an electroencephalographic (EEG) headset; 831,600 brainwave data points were gathered in seconds. The results show that participants' level of meditation was significantly higher than their level of attention in both classes. Among the five brainwaves, delta, theta, alpha, and beta waves (but not gamma waves) demonstrated significant differences in power spectra of students' brains between practical and theoretical classes. The relevance of learning outcomes to brain activity was also different between the two classes, which suggests that teachers must use different strategies to stimulate students' learning. From the perspective of educational neuroscience, this study produces more empirical evidence on and understanding of the neural nature of hospitality learning and general learning, with implications for teaching.