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In the context of increasingly complex challenges facing 21st century school systems, action research has incredible potential to help leaders address persistent problems and implement context-specific, sustainable solutions. Just as powerful, the action research process can be transformative for the individuals, groups, and organization involved. The authors, a doctoral candidate and associate professor, illustrate these concepts by sharing experiences leading an action research study that tackled the problem of high teacher turnover in a school-university partnership context. The article focuses primarily on the constructing phase of the action research cycle, in which the school-university partnership action research team becomes a learning community. The authors offer practical advice for building trusting relationships and share the story of how this team experienced individual and group transformation while designing innovative new teacher support through the action research process.

This paper uses Vygotsky's cultural-historical development theory to examine the theoretical lineages that influenced Marsick and Watkins’ (1990) model of informal and incidental learning. After discussing the context of each influence, the paper applies cultural-historical development theory to the many updates that Marsick, Watkins, and collaborators have contributed, moving the model into a theory. In 1990, Marsick and Watkins named the work of Dewey, Lindeman, Lewin, Knowles, Polanyi, and Argyris and Schön as primary influences for the formation of their informal and incidental learning model. By focusing on the context of each of the theorists who influenced the original Marsick and Watkins model and sketching the connections between the theorists' ideas and experiences, this paper fulfills the twofold purpose of exploring the context of Marsick and Watkins' model-turned-theory and providing a model for Vygotsky-informed literature reviews.

The purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Transformative Learning Outcomes and Processes Survey (TROPOS) in the workplace context. The results of a confirmatory factor analysis of the data gathered from 132 employees of a steel manufacturing company in the United States have shown that the TROPOS is an appropriate instrument for measuring transformative learning in the workplace context. Implications for transformative learning research and practice will be discussed.

The involvement of artificial intelligence in manufacturing settings has revolutionized the relationship between humans, computers, and workforce environments. The prior cyber-physical systems are developing rapidly due to advances in technology. However, human consideration has not advanced at the same rate. Only highlighting technology advancement is not sufficient, given the high interconnectivity between human-technology in Industry 4.0. Integrating the human factor in design and implementation of cyber-physical technology leads to the holistic development of cyber-physical-social systems (CPSS). Nonetheless, little is known regarding workers’ behavior and ethics that mainly pertain to the human factors of CPSSs. Also, little effort is given to seek a methodologically rigorous way to investigate human factors in CPSS. To fill the gap, this paper proposes a research framework that aims to explore the interaction between humans and AI agents in manufacturing setting. Incorporating human considerations properly can enhanced the development of an integrated cyber-physical-social system. The goal of the research methodology presented here is to fundamentally understand a common dimension in CPSS. The objective of the proposed study is to determine how nudging impacts user response on a manufacturing line, both in terms of manufacturing performance and human response. To do so, we introduced the concept of nudging, which can come in the form of audio, visual, and haptic, refers to signals sent by a cyber-physical device to humans to illicit a performance related response. The design of an experiment is discussed in this paper. Quantitative data (assembly time, quality, and assembly errors) and qualitative data (recorded video, pre-experiment questionnaire, and post-experiment interviews) will be used for analysis to determine if and how the types of nudging are observed in cyber-physical-social environments that we see today can impact human response. The results of this research methodology will help inform engineers how cyber physical systems should be implemented in manufacturing environments while considering the impact it has on the human.

Within current interfaith dialogue scholarship, perspective transformation towards the religious other is one of the most desired outcomes. However, exactly how such transformed perspectives come a...

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of psychological safety on transformative learning in the workplace. This study focused on psychological safety as a specific practice that may or may not independently contribute to transformative learning outcomes.Design/methodology/approachData was gathered from 132 employees in one US manufacturing company through a survey asking about the perception of psychological safety and the experience of transformative learning. A mediation analysis was conducted to test the effects of transformative learning processes – social support, attitude toward uncertainty and criticality – on the relationship between psychological safety and transformative learning outcomes.FindingsThe results of this study showed that psychological safety led to transformative learning outcomes mediated by transformative learning processes including social support, attitude toward uncertainty and criticality.Originality/valueExisting literature reveals little about the mechanism of how transformative learning occurs in the workplace. This study contributes to the field of human resource development by explaining the relationship between psychological safety and transformative learning, as well as first attempting to use transformative learning as a viable construct in workplace research.

The global pandemic known as COVID-19 has brought most cities and counties to a slow dance of shelter-in-place and stay-at-home curfews. This is our first personally experienced civilization-wide t...

The Problem We are living in a socially polarized landscape where dualistic mind-sets govern the way we engage with social justice issues and thus failing to adequately serve all human beings. The Solution By bringing in Frederic Laloux’s conception of evolutionary organization, we propose that organizations can serve as catalysts for co-creative social transformation, closing the distance between organizations and society and ultimately enhancing the well-being of the whole. The Stakeholders This article will provide organizational leaders and human resource development (HRD) professionals with a conceptual understanding of what a new paradigm of social movement learning would look like in an emerging society where polarities are not fought against but engaged as a whole.

The contemporary use of action research draws on the exploratory, inductive nature of many qualitative research approaches—no matter the type of data collected—because the type of research problems studied are complex, dynamic, and located in rapidly changing contexts. When action research is undertaken to support social and organizational change, support from stakeholders affected by the research problem is essential, creating further complexity. Action research may serve as an alternative to more traditional views of social science. In this chapter, the authors describe action research as envisioned by Kurt Lewin, its originator. They show how two variants of action research—action science and collaborative developmental action inquiry—advance insight into how action research can be used to develop personal capability to address system changes that action research seeks to unveil. They conclude with reflections on criteria for rigor and relevance in action research in today's post-modern, complex world.

The Problem Whereas critical reflection has been the hallmark of learning from experience in the workplace, performance has been the hallmark for productivity. In the face of complex, ongoing, disruptive change, failing safe is a necessary condition for learning from experience, and critical reflection the method of learning from safe to fail experiments. How can workplaces be safe to fail spaces where critical reflection is embraced, encouraged, and rewarded? The Solution We focus especially on the role of the leader to create a climate of psychological safety where it is safe to practice critical reflection. The workplace needs to become a safe place to fail to facilitate productivity, innovation, and creative responses to the demands that ensue from disruption at work. The Stakeholders This article is relevant to human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners who are interested in developing the workplace in times of uncertainly and constant disruption.

This chapter describes the changing nature of adult education theory and practice in the face of complex, disruptive change and explores theories that are suited to tectonic shifts in a period of what we describe as “liquid modernity” in the midst of complex sociocultural-economic-political change in a global environment.

Life in the 21st century is increasingly complex, paradoxical, and ambiguous, bringing into question the ways that graduate adult education programs function. In this article, we describe an action research study involving the method of collaborative developmental action inquiry conducted with key stakeholders of a program in adult education at a research one university. Collaborative developmental action inquiry created opportunities for transformative learning to take place. The study process and outcomes suggest that the method and practices of collaborative developmental action inquiry could themselves create favorable conditions for transformative learning to occur.

This study explored the extent to which ambiguity can serve as a catalyst for adult learning. The purpose of this study is to understand learning that is generated when encountering ambiguity agitated by the complexity of liquid modernity. Ambiguity, in this study, describes an encounter with an appearance of reality that is at first unrecognizable, oblique, simultaneously evoking fear of “no-cognition” and the potential hope for multiple meanings irresolvable by reference to context alone. Specifically, this phenomenological study engaged nine adults who make meaning—cognitively, affectively, and interpersonally—with an extraordinary capacity for mastering complexity. The findings suggest that metaphor facilitates probing encounters with ambiguity, revealing three capacities for generative learning within ambiguity. Given the unprecedented demands for rapid change and adaptation confronting adults today, exploring the value of ambiguity may facilitate the capacity for vital learning and intelligent action.

This article discusses the theory and practices associated with a methodology for leadership capacity development that utilizes Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry to support adults in understanding the connections between transformative learning and adaptive leadership. Discussion is focused on transformative learning, ways of knowing, or action logics and single-, double-, and triple-loop learning.

Background/ContextThe implications of complexity theory have become a recurring topic in the literatures of a wide range of scholarly and professional fields including adult education. This paper builds on literature calling attention to the educational need for pedagogically addressing the implications of the intensifying complexity in the environments that confront adults in their professional and personal lives.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThree theoretical streams, (a) Complex adaptive systems; (b) learning through experience; and, (c) adult developmental theory provide the basis for the pedagogical approach that is presented. The focus is on contingently applying these distinct streams of theory into learning designs. We share our experiences in experimenting with course designs for preparing adult learners for taking action on personal, civic, and professional challenges embedded in ambiguity and uncertainty in which rigid application of ready-made solutions is not possible. Our goal is to stimulate deeper experimentation. Accordingly, the question guiding this paper is, “How can we as adult educators create conditions in our classrooms, and other learning venues, for addressing the need for preparing adults to mindfully learn through the challenges that confront them in the context of increasing complexity?”SettingFor purposes of illustrating our experience and provoking questions, we draw on examples from our work in three graduate level courses in distinct disciplinary settings—specifically, organizational psychology and adult learning, adult education, and technology management.Research DesignThis paper is an analytical essay drawing out the implications for generative learning from an integrative literature review connecting the three theoretical streams identified above that guide our thinking and work. We provide a framework for creating generative learning spaces based on the implications drawn from this integrative literature review, along with examples of application.Conclusions/RecommendationsOur experiences in a range of settings suggests that applying the framework can provide educative structures in which adults may stretch their capacity to make meaning, and learn how make choices for timely action, under conditions of uncertainty and ambiguity generated by the complexity their socio-economic environments. The approach also provokes new challenges for faculty as well as students, challenges that require more systemic research. We conclude with an agenda for future research.

The rapid pace of social and technological change in the early 21st century leaves many adults scrambling to meet the complexities that characterize their daily lives. Adult learners are faced with multiple, often competing, demands from work, education, family, and leisure, which requires adult education graduate programs to carefully consider how best to meet these changing needs of today’s students. Using a developmental action inquiry approach, the authors collected data using multiple rounds of mutual inquiry from diverse groups of stakeholders in adult education. We asked each group to explore the question, “How does adult education as a profession, field, and practice help adults, organizations, and society meet the demands of 21st century life?” The combined results indicate that responsive, dynamic graduate programs in adult education for the 21st century should support the cultivation of critical and timely reflection, create online learning environments predicated on intentional community and mutuality, and foreground the relationship between adult learning and developmental capacity to prepare adult education facilitators who stand confidently in the face of complexity and ambiguity.

This article addresses an important, yet often underattended to, aspect of the strategy development process: fostering the use of strategic learning practices in the simultaneous practice of developing strategy and cultivating strategic mindset awareness. The need for addressing this aspect of the strategy development process is increasingly important because of the intensifying complexity of the task environment. Following a framing of this context in terms of a complex adaptive systems perspective, a conceptual model for addressing this strategic HRD challenge is presented. The model is based on two distinct, yet in terms of potential implications for HRD practice, interconnected streams of literature: strategic learning practices, and adult development theory (specifically, constructive developmental theory and developmental action inquiry). The implications for HRD practices seeking to address this need, along with implications for future research, are also discussed.

This paper focuses on the role conundrums that confront action researchers who are engaged in co-inquiry designs for purposes of generating knowledge that is both actionable and makes a robust contribution to a more generalized body of knowledge. Drawing on the lived experience of researchers in such a project in U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, this paper describes the conundrums that confronted the researchers, identifies the central dynamics around which they seem to be organized, and discusses the impact on the subsequent practice of the researchers. Practices that establish reflexivity in the research process are an important part of the role of the researchers. So too is establishing relationships that provide for sensemaking and integrating rigor and relevance.

The complexity of our current social, environmental, and economic realities requires conceptual frameworks that help us chart transformative pathways of collective action. Otto Scharmer’s Theory U is one such framework, offering a profound synthesis of relevant theories and practices related to systems thinking, organizational learning, and leadership. Theory U is also a rich, multi-layered framework that is challenging to apply in action due to its conceptual complexity and because of the demands it makes of both facilitators and participants. As a means of facilitating the skillful use of this theory and its practices, the authors find it helpful to examine and explore Theory U through the lens of a distinct, yet related framework: Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry (Torbert, 2003, 2004). CDAI is a methodology based on action science that integrates adult development theory, first, second, and third person inquiry, and transforming action.

The present paper proposes Matthew Lipman’s community of philosophical inquiry as a space of transformative learning, suitable for developing that cosmopolitan perspective which is necessary to engage with contemporary cosmopolitanism-oriented experiential spaces. Against this backdrop, the paper presents an analysis of the data resulting from an assessment of a training experience for teachers and educators, carried out within the framework of the EU-funded project PEACE (Philosophical Enquiry Advancing Cosmopolitan Engagement), whose rationale is that the first step for a reflective interpretation of the cosmopolitan reality we live in consists in the activation of critical thinking processes (the latter being interpreted by combining Lipman’s and Mezirow’s views).

The paper presents an experiential workshop on the methodologies of the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) starting from the hypothesis that the methodologies of the TO could lead to a transformation of meaning perspectives, and to the development of a critical reflection on assumptions. This will be achieved through an action which is already a practice of transformation and change because it requires the audience to get personally involved. Our challenge is to adopt these methods as tools and experiential practices to promote transformative learning in formal educational settings with students, teachers and educators. In the Theatre of the Oppressed, indeed, participants report episodes of oppression that may relate to all levels of society. Each participant can take part in the scene, as can those viewing, who become spect-actors (Boal, 2006). Taking the stage represents a moment of crisis for one’s own certainties. For these reasons the TO seems to be an experiential practice aimed at expanding awareness and reflexivity, which contribute to redefining the set of knowledge, beliefs, evaluative judgments and feelings that guide our actions. It can activate a critical examination of the common way of thinking, starting from a “disorienting dilemma,” a problematic and doubtful situation which undermines established patterns of meaning. That gives rise to processes of exploration, analysis, and the assumption of new roles to try and to evaluate: previous perspectives of meaning are changed, transformed and integrated with new critical interpretations. Thus, an experiential space to promote emancipatory learning may be generated (Freire, 1970).