The University of Kentucky’s (UK) Center for Leadership Development will launch a six-month pilot study in May to assess if Equine Guided Leadership Education (EGLE) is effective at developing the emotional intelligence of nurses at UK’s Chandler Hospital. The study is a collaborative endeavor between social science researchers from UK’s Center for Leadership Development and nursing researchers from UK Chandler Hospital.

Equine-assisted learning experiences are professionally-facilitated horse-human interactions and exercises (not horseback riding) geared to helping people develop insights that can be applied in the workplace and in their personal lives.

"There is an abundance of anecdotal evidence that keeps piling up in dusty files of those who provide equine-assisted learning services, which suggests that experiential learning with horses is effective at building competencies," said co-investigator and project lead Lissa Pohl, MA, from the Center for Leadership Development. "However, for this promising field to become even more credible in the eyes of individuals and organizations who want to utilize this powerful way of learning, there needs to be academic research conducted and published in peer-reviewed journals that shows this to be the case