Heutagogy as a principle in teaching study skills: skills tutors and meta reflexivity through the lens of action learning

Jane Neal-Smith, Gillian Bishop and Bob Townley

Action Learning: Research and Practice, 2025, vol. 22, issue 1, 41-54

Abstract: This paper explores the experiences of six Academic Skills Tutors (AST) responsible for facilitating action learning sets (ALS) on a postgraduate module. Our research focused on two elements: first, what did the tutors understand by the term critically reflexive practice in the context of business and management? Second, what has supported the understanding of critically reflexive practice amongst PGT students? Specifically, were the module’s action learning sets successful in doing this?. We distributed an online survey and held focus groups to gather qualitative data. We found that the AST’s developed their own practices and strategies in facilitating action learning sets, beyond the guidance they were originally given. Specifically, we argue that the tutors improved their ability to facilitate the action-learning sets by engaging with the module content and trying it out for themselves in their own action-learning set. When we asked the ASTs about their overall experiences in facilitating the sets, they described themselves as being more critically reflexive as a result of this practice. We argue, as we have previously, that in order to guide others on their journey to praxis, we must also be engaged in our own learning journeys (Neal-Smith, Bishop, and Townley 2023).

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2025.2457738

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