Understanding part-time postgraduate student experience in the context of landscapes of practice: The experiences of Human Resource Management practitioners engaged in concurrent study

Situated learning theories emphasise the context of learning as significant in understanding the experience and engagement of students, but such research is often focussed on traditional undergraduate settings. This study focusses on an alternative niche cohort, that of part-time postgraduate taught students within Human Resource Management, who are concurrently employed as full-time mid-career practitioners in the field. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to explore these, I examine how the contexts of learning in personal, professional and academic spheres informs our understanding of communities of practice, social identity and academic literacies. I argue that for such students these engagements are liminal, negotiated engagements across particular landscapes of practice, with implications for student approaches to learning, and their acceptance of academic theory and practitioners, with consequences for student approaches to learning, and acceptance of academic theory and practitioners.