Action learning over time: an ipsative enquiry

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore several decades of experience of action learning and to distil lessons from that experience that are worth sharing with other practitioners. The method is to systematically collect the experiential data within three categories (sense-based, affective and cognitive data), interrogate them to draw out lessons and report those conclusions that have broader significance. The main conclusions are about (1) participants' readiness for action learning, (2) the development of people's abilities to self-facilitate and self-manage action learning and (3) the role of action learning in universities.

Keywords:

• action learning
• experiential data
• reflective learning
• self-facilitation
• self-managed action learning

Notes

Very few of the members of the CMD were research-active when it was formed. Most saw research as a means of advancing mode 1 knowledge whereas they were mostly interested in Mode 2 knowledge.

Largely, the time commitment, inconvenience of attendance and the implications of absences from work.

The ‘Learning Curve', Developing Skills and Knowledge for Neighbourhood Renewal, Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (2002).

Which I think would now be recognised as a professional doctorate focused on the development of Mode 2 knowledge.