Lessons about action learning from undergraduate students in Budapest

ABSTRACT

Action Learning (AL) in higher education has been mainly used at the postgraduate level so far. In this article, we contribute to deepening the academic conversation about the adaptation of AL at the undergraduate level. Building upon our own personal experiences as teachers and insider researchers we analyse 53 learning diaries of undergraduate students. First, we present the tensions and contradictions that have arisen from using AL in a traditional educational environment with students having less professional experience compared to postgraduate students. Second, we uncovered that students used the flexible framework of AL to solve problems related to roles where they are underprivileged (e.g. the post-adolescent child, the overladen student and the precarious worker). Lastly, we discuss AL flexibility from the aspect of COVID 19, presenting the impact of adapting AL to a digital learning environment and how it has helped to cope with the wicked problems evoked due to the crisis situation. These findings touch upon the emancipatory potential of AL for less-experienced students.

KEYWORDS:

• Action learning
• undergraduate students
• contradictions
• flexibility
• digital learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Sara Csillag, Ph.D. is Dean of the Faculty of Finance and Accountancy at Budapest Business School, Hungary. Her main research interests are ethical and responsible HRM, participatory methods and disability issues at the workplace. She published several journal articles in Human Resource Development International, Action Learning: Research and Practice Journal of Future Studies and Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy. She is member of the editorial board of Journal of Business Ethics, Advances in Developing Human Resources, Action Learning: Research and Practice and Human Resource Development International.

Anna Laura Hidegh, Ph.D. is associate professor at Budapest Business School, Hungary. She wrote her dissertation in critical human resource management, analysing corporate Christmas from a Habermasian perspective. Her main research interest is critical management studies, gender and diversity, disability studies and participatory methods. She published articles in Human Resource Development International, and a book chapter on corporate Christmas published by Routledge.