ABSTRACT
Action learning is best considered as both an ethos and a method, or more accurately a variety of methods. There is broad agreement on the main features of action learning, but there are significant variations in its practice. Action learning also has an epistemological base, epistemology being the theory of the origin, nature, methods and limits of knowledge. The development of Critical Action Learning moves the focus towards a point located between Speculative and Emancipatory, although the potential danger of this location is that greater analytical power may be achieved, but at the expense of an emphasis on both action and reality testing. There is no single universally agreed definition of action learning and no single 'best' way of doing it. For example, in the United States action learning is much more structured in approach than in the UK or in Europe. Rather, it can be perceived as a family of approaches.
