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Action learning: history and evolution

Article  in  Action Learning Research and Practice · July 2011

DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2011.581029

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Clare Rigg
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Action Learning - Reach, Range and Evolution
As a mode of inquiry with particular value for situations where people want to
change something about their situation at the same time gaining greater
insight into both the issue and their own practice, action learning is employed
for a variety of individual and organizational development purposes as well as
to address broad systemic and societal problems. Action learning has
eschewed simple definition and has come to take a variety of meanings in
practice, though it is not a simplistic “learning by doing” as sometimes mis-
characterised. Though arguing that definition was counter-productive,
Revans, the originator of the term, nevertheless offered the following
elaboration:

Action learning is a means of development, intellectual, emotional or physical

that requires its subjects, through responsible involvement in some real,
complex and stressful problem, to achieve intended change to improve their
observable behaviour henceforth in the problem field. (Revans, 1982: 626-7)

Many of the original applications of action learning were for large system
change, and Revans’ original ideas spread internationally, for example
through his 1978 invitation to speak to 100 senior officers of the Indian
government’s Department of Personnel and Administrative Reform. In more
recent decades action learning has had considerable application for individual
and team development. Internationally, there are now a wealth of examples
of the use of action learning approaches in public as well as private and
voluntary/community sector development. Excluding this specialist journal
Action Learning: Research and Practice, a Boolean search of the journal
databases, Emerald Full-text and Business Source Premier, with the key
words action AND learning within journal abstracts, reveals a growing trend in
numbers of articles published on action learning in the period 2000-2010. This
search encompasses a wide range of journals beyond the specialist
education, training and development journals, ranging from hospitality
management to construction and manufacturing systems. In the years 2001-
11 a total of 422 articles are listed in Emerald Full-text and 282 in Business
Source Premier1. Figure 1 illustrates the steady increase in articles p.a. during
the period 2000-2011, whilst Figure 2 tracks the exponential growth in number
of articles published per decade from 1961-1970 up to 2001-2010.

1
Because the databases partially overlap in their journal listings, to avoid
double-counting the figures have not been collated.
 Fig. 1. No. of Action Learning articles published annually 2000-10

70

60

50
no. articles p.a

40

Emerald
Series1
30

20 Business
Series2
Source
Premier

10

0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

year

Fig. 2 Growth of Action Learning journal articles published by decade

450

400

350

300
no. articles p.a

250 Emerald
Series1
200 Business
Series2
Source
150 Premier

100

50

0
1961-1970 1971-1980 1981-1990 1991-2000 2001-10
decade

Whilst not an exhaustive scientific study, these figures give insight into the
spread of action learning’s application. The diversity of journals and article
themes also illustrates the reach and range, varying as it does from individual
development to concerns with organisation performance, such as operational
improvement, business value, quality management and knowledge
management.
 It is time to more systematically take stock of this reach and range of
applications of action learning, as well as to capture the ways in which it is
evolving. Four articles in this issue contribute to this. First, is a paper by
Sun-Young Park ‘Why are we using Action Learning and in what contexts?’, in
which she presents the results of a content analysis of 127 articles in this
journal, Action Learning: research and practice. Conducted to investigate the
contexts in which action learning is used, the paper discusses location,
sectors, purposes, and distinctive features in the cases examined. The
second paper by Julia Calver, Jeff Gold and Jim Stewart illustrates action
learning’s application within the creative industries, a sector constituted by
complex networks of micro and small enterprises, through partnership with a
local university. Annie Yeadon-Lee’s paper problematizes the traditional
action learning principle of participants as peers, by her discussion of
research into hierarchy in action learning sets. The fourth paper in this edition
which adds further contribution to exemplifying the evolution of action learning
comes from David Coghlan, ‘Action Learning Research? Reflections from the
Colloquium at the Third International Conference on Action Learning’ held at
Ashridge in March 2012. He collates the contrasting and conflicting arguments
on how and if action learning research is something distinctive posed to this
colloquium by David himself along with other contributors Joe Raelin, Clare
Rigg, Jeff Gold, Mike Pedler, Aileen Lawless and Elaine Allison.

References

Revans, R. (1982). The ABC of Action Learning. Chartwell-Bratt, Bromley

Clare Rigg
Kiran Trehan

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