The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) requires BEd Hons (Educational Psychology) students to provide psycho-education. The rationale for this research is that students go beyond the time limit they have. This is problematic as the gap between presentation and engagement compromises authentic learning. The purpose of this research was to introduce students to Pecha Kucha (PK) as an alternative form of psycho-educational presentation. PK is a novel and ingenious PowerPoint presentation format that contains twenty slides with visuals and minimal text, presented in twenty seconds (Murugaiah, 2016). This research is situated in a professional learning community (PLC) theoretical framework. There is international consensus that PLC creates opportunities for sustainable reflexive praxis that promote pragmatic co-construction of knowledge and the ability to critically reflect and creatively use strategies to problem solving in a process of continuous learning (Du Four, 2004; Mezirow, 1990). This interpretive qualitative research was conducted within a participatory action research (PAR) design. It was based on the epistemological assumptions that are social constructivist in nature (Creswell, 2007). The ontology of social constructivism is that reality is socially constructed, which will encourage reflexive praxis of critical skills of the responsive counsellor (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011).

Research question: How do trainee counsellors experience Pecha Kucha as a facilitation tool for psychoeducation with learners of varying ages in schools?

This purposive sample constituted of voluntary participants enrolled in the BEd Hons (Educational Psychology) programme at a university. Data was collected through participant generated artefacts and a focus group reflection. An iterative data analysis method was used whereby data was collected with the aid of the ATLAS.ti computer program. The results indicated that the students found that it took longer to prepare a PK presentation. The use of PK encouraged interactive participation and improved information recall.

Conclusions: PK has the potential to be useful in enhancing learning and in individual and collective capacity building within a PLC.

Implications: PAR can be a valuable research methodology to promote teacher/counsellor development within a PLC. The significance of this research lies in its exploration of new methods to foster a culture of creative critical engagement with academic context.