Action Learning in Higher Education: an investigation of its potential to develop professional capability

Abstract

This study investigated the extent to which a course, designed using peer and action learning principles to function as an ‘on campus practicum’, can develop the professional capabilities of students. As part of their formal coursework, third year behavioural science students, functioning as ‘student consultants’, entered into a ‘client–consultant’ relationship with first and second year ‘student client’ groups. Both groups of students reported positive learning outcomes. Third year student consultants reported using less surface and more deep approaches to their learning in this course design than in concurrent courses taught along more conventional (i.e. lecture and tutorial) lines. Students also reported significantly greater development of meta‐adaptive skills (e.g. learning to learn) than in conventional teaching designs.