NGRF - UK National Guidance Research Forum

Distinguishing between working and learning through work is difficult. It is similarly difficult to separate factors that affect learning at work because in many cases they interact strongly. The distinctions made below particuarly in the main headings should be understood as analytical aids rather than distinctly different categories.

Factors affecting learning emphasises the relational aspects of learning at all levels. It is a dynamic rhetoric.

Individual

• life history
• current position
• hopes
• dispositions
• attitudes to career

Group/community

• availability of support
• informal communication
• occupational positioning
• presence or absence of learning culture
• the nature of teamworking

Wider organisations

• the nature and challege of work
• the kind of mentoring available
• patterns and management of work
• HR systems
• quality of feedback
• purpose of product and service strategy
• corporate structure

Macro (labour market): structures

• Globalising tendencies (how to translate policy through intermediaries)
• MNCs
• Third and First world
• American hegemony
• ICT
• Workforce mobiltiy/migration (illegal workers)
• Performance discources

Labour market

Gender

Ethnicity

Class