Abstract In Ethiopia, before implementing the PGDT programme, teacher education was characterized by theoretical quality of courses, teacher-centered method of teaching and very basic teaching skills and techniques. It produced teachers with deficient professional competence and unsatisfactory content knowledge. To alleviate such problems facing the pre-service secondary school teacher education, the PGDT programme that acclaimed utilization of experiential approaches to learning has been implemented. Accordingly, the study was carried out in three public universities to investigate the subjects’ perception toward the status of the trainees’ experiential learning practice and the impact of the dimensions of learning experience on their experiential learning practice. The research was done employing the parallel mixed methods design. The quantitative data were collected from 311 trainees utilizing questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test, correlation, one way ANOVA and standard multiple regression). Alternatively, the qualitative data were collected from 9 interviewees and 30 focus group discussants and analyzed employing deductive thematic analysis. The quantitative results indicated that the trainees had a statistically significantly low experiential learning practice. The trainees’ experiential learning practice did not show a statistically significant difference across gender, teaching experience and CGPA. Similarly, the qualitative results uncovered that the low experiential learning practice resulted from the trainees’ low practice of learning by immersion, cooperative learning, practical learning, assessment for learning and learning from direct source of learning. The trainees’ experiential learning practice had weak to strong positive significant associations with the dimensions of learning experience. The dimensions of learning experience jointly predicted 33.30 % of the variance in the trainees’ experiential learning practice. Although the classroom place and space, learning activity and sense engagement dimensions of learning experience significantly predicted the trainees’ experiential learning, the instructor role, emotional engagement and mind engagement dimensions of learning experience did not significantly predict it. Gender and teaching experience did not have a statistically significant impact on the contribution of the dimensions of learning experience to the trainees’ experiential learning. But, the trainees with lesser CGPA than those with greater CGPA had better support to their experiential learning from the sense and emotional engagement dimensions of learning experience. Furthermore, the qualitative results informed that the dimensions of learning experience had limitation in providing adequate support to the trainees’ experiential learning. Therefore, strong action that improves the contribution of the dimensions of learning experience to the trainees’ experiential learning should be taken.