This paper aims to explore the introduction of a new experience‐based learning process in the learning and teaching of human resource development (HRD) within a professionally accredited curriculum in a UK University.
An action enquiry approach is taken, and qualitative data gathered over a full academic year from tutors and students are analysed to examine how those involved made sense of and learned about HRD.
Influences on the experience of an innovative HRD pedagogy are identified as: assessment processes and expectations; relationships and behaviours within the learning and teaching process; the experienced emotions of those involved; and the extent to which students feel clarity about what is expected.
The qualitative nature of the data and the focus on one particular UK institutional taught module limits the generalisability; in particular, the experience of full‐time students or those involved in courses that focus exclusively on HRD outside of UK are not incorporated.
Attention to assessment processes is an essential pre‐requisite to any pedagogic innovation, as is effective and transparent team‐working by tutors and careful thought about tutor behaviours in settings where experienced emotions and relationships directly affect the innovative process.
The inherent tension between the constructivist and exploratory HRD curriculum and the requirement for “performative clarity” in HRD pedagogy is explored. Experienced emotions and relationships are shown to mediate a student‐centred and critically reflexive HRD pedagogy, something that is currently insufficiently recognised in much of the literature.
