Work-Related Learning

Some key issues for organisational learning and work redesign are:

• relationships/ culture
• flows of people and work
• experiences and engagement (of individuals and groups)
• organisational policies and influences
• couplings between learning and work
• 360 degree learning
• learning as an organisation
• roles and influence of tools and technology

Learning contexts and settings

Materials which analyse the social practices oriented towards learning within different settings. Topics include opportunities for learning, spaces for learning, expectations for learning and creating supportive learning contexts. Other key areas include:

• use of and access to artefacts, information, knowledge
• pressure of work
• expectations, rewards and punishment
• availability and nature of feedback
• challenge and value of work
• organisation and nature of work
• group learning: culture of setting; relationships

Additionally, contexts for learning include schools and colleges, workplaces, training centres, networks, communities and families.

Contexts for learning at work include:

• Meeting context
• 'on the job' context
• 'working alongside' context
• 'work encounter' context

Formal knowledge

Informal knowledge

Technical knowledge and skills

People skills

Tacit knowledge

Procedural knowledge

Process knowledge

Knowledge of the organisational culture

Collective and organisational knowlegde

Knowledge transfer

Emotional labour?

Emotional intelligence?

Theorectical bases involves how they predispose people to look at research on learning in and through work.

Activity theory

Actor network theory

Socio-cultural practice theory

Multi-lens perspective

Labour process theory

Sociol-cultural linguistics

Organisational learning

Knowledge development/management

Socio-psychological constructivist

Post-structuralist

Grouping of concepts

Perspectives and concepts:

Gender

This section allows entry into the range of methods, methodologies and strategies that have been and are currently in use or being considered to study learning at work. It identifies a range of methods in use. It also gives links to the epistemological and theoretical positions that can underpin their use.

Some methods (which are often used in combination)  include:

• Observation (participant/repeat/non-participant)
• Interviewing
• Use of technology (eg email, computer assisted interviewing, video)
• Instruments and tools (eg questionnaires, diaries and learning logs)

A case study approach is often used, which frequently draws upon a mixture of methods.

Consideration also has to be given to:

• Decisions about which methods to use (eg epistemological positions)
• Methods in action (adapting and using methods in context)
• Data handling, reduction, analysis and synthesis (eg validation, tracking, coding, etc)
• Ethical concerns
• Scope of the study (eg longitudinal, snap-shot)

Of course methods are not used in a vacuum. They are used in accordance with theorectical/epistemological perspectives, which can be found under Theoretical bases.

This will take place on 11th February from 10 - 3.30 at the Institute for Education, 20 Bedford Way, London Room 901.

The group will consider development of text for some of the other categories at this meeting. Results of the meeting will be posted here.

Note the links above (just below the date) show how we could link to existing D-space entries.

The meeting on February 11th went very well - thanks for all your efforts. We will need one more meeting to flesh out the final two categories (transitions and trajectories) and policy and then review all ten sub-categories and see how well they fit together. We thought we would have a little time before fixing the next meeting, so that we can catch up with some of the proposed technical refinements. 

After the final meeting in April / May (that can also consider how to represent all the TLRP wrl projects at the Sydney conference) Sally and I will work on linking to exisiting documents etc. so that we can give a demonstration of the full potential of the system at the TLRP annual conference,

I will circulate possible dates for the next meeting and thanks again for your ideas - things are starting to take shape,

Alan

      

Strategies for enhancing learning

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

The current developments on the site demonstrated the potential to cluster issues related to work-related learning. From a TLRP perspective the group felt that it would be important to produce some narratives that through hyper-linking allowed users to go in different directions and also allowed for different perspectives. It was felt that the initial clustering was important as this needed to support investigation of theoretical and methodological issues as well learning processes and to allow switching between different levels of analysis.

In order to allow for different lenses with which it would be possible to view research on work-related learning the group felt that 12 - 20 branches might be about the right number for ease of organisation. After discussions in small groups at two meetings the group as a whole came up with the following ten categories:

• Research Methodologies / Strategies
• Theoretical bases
• Learning contexts and settings
• Organisational learning and work design
• Strategies for enhancing learning
• Factors affecting learning
• Policy (national / regional / organisational)
• Learning processes
• Knowledge at work
• Learning trajectories and transfer