ABSTRACT
Most accounts of action learning in practice have tended to concentrate largely on what are perceived as successful applications. One useful but small-scale evaluation of action learning set facilitator development programmes, for example, identified an impact on a number of key areas, including perceived skills in facilitation, critical thinking and evaluation, together with increased confidence levels in supporting colleagues. Traditionally, evaluations of development activities have depended largely on the impressions formed by their participants, often after the event or series of events have taken place. The development activity such as action learning works much more through generative causation as through successionist causation. Drawing on a major national review of evaluation of leadership and management development and an examination of evaluations of eight major leadership development programmes in the National Health Service in the UK, a summative evaluation framework for action learning is proposed.
