Peer Coaching: A Tool for Affectively-Driven Experiential Learning in Undergraduate Education

Abstract

Contemporary Business School education is increasingly being scrutinized for its functionalist knowledge generation. In consequence, critics have proposed several ways that can better prepare graduates for their future, including Experiential Learning. While the place of emotion has been thoughtfully considered in the workplace, we lack systematic, empirically-grounded studies on affective capability generation in undergraduate Business School programmes. With data drawn from 16 semi-structured undergraduate student interviews and 30 student reflective essays, we contribute to this shortcoming in existing literature by empirically exploring the study of coaching and practice of peer coaching in an interdisciplinary, undergraduate Business School module. We propose a peer coaching model of relational, affectively-driven experiential learning, where both cognition and emotion impact knowledge generation equally. This paper therefore stands to make three central contributions to the management learning literature: Firstly, that the study and practice of peer coaching amongst students can enhance learning by raising emotional awareness and is, thus, a privileged site for affectively-driven experiential learning; secondly, that peer coaching has the potential to foster affectively-driven managerial mindsets for students in their future careers; and thirdly, we offer a reconceptualization of Kolb’s experiential learning model that incorporates the affective and relational components of learning through experience.