This article reflects on how tools such as the Outcomes Star can support public servants to take a learning-oriented, relational approach, filling the gap left by Public Administration (PA) education not keeping up with the challenges facing public servants today. We describe the distinctive design features of the Outcomes Star suite of tools and draw on empirical evidence, alongside our experience supporting Outcomes Star users, to illustrate how these features allow it to act as a pedagogical tool for service users, practitioners, managers and commissioners. Barriers to using tools like the Outcomes Star to benefit service delivery are framed in the context of misplaced ideas borrowed from other fields that run counter to aspirations for relational, responsive, joined up service delivery. The case is made that the PA needs to root its theoretical foundations in the human sciences alongside political studies and management science. We end with recommendations for greater involvement from human science disciplines in PA teaching, incorporating the Outcomes Star into PA teaching, and further research into the role of such tools in public service pedagogy.
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