Researching Transitions in Lifelong Learning

Abstract

Employees when asked to nominate where they learn how to do their job overwhelmingly point to their workplace as a major site of learning (Skule and Reichborn 2002). Researchers, policy makers and practitioners have taken up this idea to understand how and to what extent workplaces are sites for learning, and how work and learning can be better integrated to benefit both individuals and organizations (Ellström 2001). For the most part, these endeavours have either focused on examining structured learning at work leading to a qualification or tailored to the specific skill needs of the organization (e.g. Griffiths 2004; Fuller and Unwin 2003), or they have focused on understanding the significance and facilitation of learning that can occur during the normal activities of work (e.g. Billett 2002). This contemporary focus on the integration of work and learning in organizations has resulted in a re-examination of learning theories in terms of their usefulness in the context of learning at work (Hendry 1996). There is growing acceptance among educational thinkers that understanding learning at work challenges learning theories that have informed traditional education and training pedagogies commonly deployed in organizational and workplace contexts. New understandings of learning are emerging as a result of the uncoupling of learning from the dominant learning theories that have operated in the field of education and training (OECD 2003). Contemporary views on learning in relation to work explore practices that are outside formally prescribed learning situations, have no instructional metaphors and do not employ traditional pedagogical activities (Bereiter 1994; Saugstad 2005; Hager 2003; Fuller et al. 2005). In other words, the practices are not explicitly named or described using teaching and learning discourses. We suggest that we now need to look to other theoretical resources to understand the dynamic and complex relationships and transitions that characterize learning at work. For example, there are work practices that are specifically named, and often supplemented by explicit company documentation, that are part of the profile of the organization – integral to the way it ‘works’ – that are not usually seen as learning practices. Identifying and investigating these practices, as learning practices is the focus of the AustralianResearch Council Discovery project Beyond Training and Learning: Integrated Development Practices in Organizations.

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