Experience-Based Training Management: Experiential Learning for Improving Hairdressing Trainees' Skills in a Course Institution

This study aims to describe experience-based training management through the application of an experiential learning strategy to improve hairdressing trainees' skills at LKP Widhi Jember. Experiential learning is a learning strategy oriented toward real experience through a cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation, and active experimentation. The study used a descriptive qualitative approach, and the research site was purposively selected because LKP Widhi is a nonformal education institution that has implemented experiential learning in its hairdressing training. Purposive sampling selected the instructor and trainees as key informants and the institution manager as a supporting informant. Data were collected through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and documentation, analysed using the Miles and Huberman interactive model, and validated through prolonged engagement, persistent observation, and source and technique triangulation. The results show that experience-based training management was implemented systematically through the four stages of Kolb's cycle, which were repeated in every practice session. The strategy supported the development of trainees' psychomotor skills from guided response to mechanism and complex overt response in hair washing and blow-drying. The main constraints were limited instructor mentoring time and the trainees' lack of prior experience. Training institutions are recommended to design repeated practice–reflection cycles supported by structured feedback and an adequate instructor–trainee ratio.