The inquiry-based learning loop: bridging pedagogy, equity and student scholarship in management education through essay competition and undergraduate research journal

This paper reports a three-year action research study examining how a scaffolded, inquiry-based extracurricular programme the inquiry-based learning loop enhances undergraduate students’ engagement, confidence, and inclusion in research within a UK business school. Responding to persistent inequities in access to authentic inquiry, the initiative integrated three components: an essay competition, research and writing workshops, and a student-led journal. Guided by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, Freirean critical pedagogy, and co-creation principles, the study conceptualises scaffolding as a reciprocal, community-based process through which learners progress from peripheral participation to academic authorship. Qualitative data from student reflections and practitioner reports, analysed thematically across three cycles, revealed a developmental trajectory: (1) students entered the research space with linguistic and epistemic vulnerability; (2) inclusion was constructed through dialogic co-creation and peer mediation; (3) cognitive breakthroughs emerged via structured scaffolding and affective safety; and (4) hierarchies of knowledge were disrupted as students internalised scholarly practices and identities. The study advances theory by reconceptualising the Zone of Proximal Development as a distributed and cyclical process, extending critical pedagogy to operationalise inclusion as epistemic participation rather than support. Practically, it offers a scalable, low-cost model for embedding authentic, student-led research ecosystems in management education, bridging structural divides between teaching and research.