Learning and participatory practices at work: understanding and appraising learning through workplace experiences

Abstract

Learning through healthcare practice is as longstanding as healthcare occupations themselves. However, the risk is that this process becomes taken for granted, and not considered and enacted in ways to optimise its potential. To address this concern and to enhance these processes of learning and working, this chapter discusses the concept of participatory practices at work. This conceptualisation offers an explanatory account of the interdependence between working and learning, the contributions of workplace activities and interaction and how their efficacy for learning can be realised through clinical work. The chapter elaborates two case studies exploring: pharmacists and doctors co-working and learning, and final-year midwifery students employed as undergraduate student employees. Finally, methodological advances such as video reflexive ethnography (VRE) offer a way to illuminate and optimise ‘taken for granted’ participatory practices. VRE – a collaborative visual research approach – assists practitioners to learn about and change practice.