Workplace Learning Experiences Research Articles

Researching 40 years of learning for work: the experiences of one cohort of workers

Using previously unanalysed data from a lost study—the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situations and Adult Roles (1962–1964)—and data from a subsequent restudy, this paper contributes to debates on vocational education by examining three themes. First, the methodological issues raised by undertaking a restudy are discussed. Second, the young workers’ initial workplace learning experiences in the 1960s are examined with an emphasis on commitment to learning and training. Third, links between initial training experiences and the subsequent learning experiences in later careers are explored. We conclude that high levels of commitment to workplace learning were evident throughout the life‐course of this group. However, significantly, this commitment existed only when the training available was on‐the‐job and the links between learning and working practice were clear. Formal learning opportunities were deemed unimportant and seen as existing for the benefit of the employer, not the employee.

A survey of factors influencing the engagement of two professional groups in informal workplace learning activities

A survey was conducted to describe the informal workplace learning experiences of 318 public school teachers and HRD professionals. Analysis of the data found that teachers rely to a greater extent on interactive learning activities while HRD professionals rely to a greater extent on independent learning activities. Both professional groups reported that two environmental factors frequently inhibit their engagement in informal learning activities: a lack of time and a lack of proximity to colleagues' work areas. Three additional environmental factors were found to inhibit HRD professionals from engaging in informal learning: an unsupportive organizational culture, the unwillingness of others to participate in informal learning activities, and the inaccessibility of subject matter experts. One additional environmental inhibitor was found for teachers: a lack of funds. Seven personal characteristics were found to enhance the motivation of both professional groups to engage in informal learning: initiative, self-efficacy, love of learning, interest in the profession, commitment to professional development, a nurturing personality, and an outgoing personality. Implications of these findings for HRD theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Critiquing workplace learning discourses: Participation and continuity at work

This article critiques some assumptions shaping the current discourse on workplace learning. It proposes that these assumptions restrict how workplace learning is conceptualised and discussed. Principally, describing workplace learning environments and experiences as ‘informal’ and that ‘informal learning’ occurs in workplaces constrains understanding about how learning occurs through work and, consequently, the development of a workplace pedagogy. As with educational institutions, in workplaces there are intentions for work practice, structured goal-directed activities that are central to organisational continuity, and interactions and judgements about performance that are also shaped to those ends. Therefore, describing learning through work as being ‘informal’ is incorrect. Instead, the structuring of workplace activities has dimensions associated with learning directed for the continuity of the practice, which also often has inherently pedagogical qualities. Moreover, the unqualified description of learning environments as being either ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ suggests a situational determinism. Instead, learning is proposed as being interdependent between the individual and the social practice. The core tension in this relationship is that between those needs for the continuity of the work practice and individuals' needs to realise their personal or vocational goals. It is proposed that considerations of learning, learning in workplaces and the development of a workplace pedagogy need conceptualising in terms of participatory practices.

Developing Curricular and Appropriate Learning Strategies for Community Development and Peace Studies

This article reflects on the motives, process, and outcomes of efforts to develop a dynamic course structure in which to teach current community development practice and peacemaking. We recognize the need for more applied learning to better support a student profile that is increasingly made up of community development practitioners and peace workers. The learning environment we seek to provide at the University of New England, a regional university in New South Wales, Australia, offers students the opportunity to: (1) consolidate and monitor their own practice in the field; (2) evaluate their own workplace environment and learning experiences in the field with reference to other students’ comparative experience; and (3) interact with teaching staff who act as providers of resources, networking contacts, and people with whom to engage in critical reflection. The paper concludes that a dynamic, flexible, and cooperative approach to learning is highly appropriate to contemporary adult and professional workplace education.

Ontological performance: Bodies, identities and learning

In these post-Cartesian times, adult educators are retrieving the body as a significant site of learning. In this article we explore this in two linked ways: conceptually, in the light of broader perspectives in the social sciences, in policy analysis, and in philosophy; and also through empirical evidence, from adults' workplace learning experiences, and from adult literacy classrooms. We conclude that from practical embodied actions (that is, from ontology), significant epistemological claims can be generated, such as could shape adults' learning for, and in, the workplace.

Women composing selves, seeking authenticity: a study of women's development in the workplace

The workplace has received increasing attention in the past decade as an important site of adult learning and development. Responses in the form of educational programmes, organizational structures and leadership to promote ‘continuous learning’, and a new focus on workplace teaching have proliferated. But our understanding of the activities and processes of workplace learning remain vague, particularly in the case of women, for whom experiences of learning in work are entwined with issues of gender bias, relationships, family, power, and identity. This article describes a study examining the workplace learning experiences of 17 women, using oral history methods. The study found that central to these experiences was women's exploration and expression of self. Themes discussed in the article include recognizing and naming self, confronting and breaking free of workplace structures constraining the self, and recovering an ‘authentic’ self. Analysis focuses particularly on reconciling postmodern theories of subjectivity with what appears in this study's findings to be women's strong sense of a centred core self. Women today... compose lives that will honor all their commitments and still express all their potentials with a certain unitary grace... in finding a personal path among the discontinuities and moral ambiguities they face, they are performing a creative synthesis with a value that goes beyond the merely personal. (Bateson 1990:232)