The pedagogy of action learning facilitation – a critique of the role of the facilitator in an organisational leadership programme

This thesis presents professional practice research into Action Learning (AL) facilitation. Motivated by a combination of my formative years of cultural transmission and my enduring interest in learning and how it is facilitated, I have explored the professional practice of the AL facilitator. This was achieved through a process of critical inquiry, self-reflection and evaluation of action learning practice within a Higher Education Post Graduate Programme, commissioned by an English NHS Mental Health Trust. I adopted action research as my overarching research approach which I built into the one-year post graduate programme for the purpose of my research. This enabled planning, fact-finding, taking actions and analysing actions with my co-facilitators as an iterative process to explore the practice of action learning facilitation. Thematic analysis, which involves a 5-step process, was used to collate and investigate the research data.
Results from this research reinforce the significance of the role of the AL facilitator in the learning process and offer a model of pedagogy of AL facilitation presented here as the art, craft and apparatus of AL facilitation practice. The ‘art’ of AL facilitation relates to the underpinning commitment and values of the facilitator which inform responses to participants in the sets. The ‘craft’ of AL facilitation encompasses facilitator knowledge, skills and experience and the ‘apparatus’ is the structures and systems that support the facilitation processes.
This work contributes to the current literature on action learning and the practice of AL facilitation by offering a framework which visualises the pedagogy of action learning facilitation as a holistic point of reference for the learning and practice of AL facilitation.
Key words: Action learning, action learning facilitation, facilitation pedagogy and frameworks.