NN46, September 2011
Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark
The Workplace as a Site of Learning: Facilitating Learners’ Motivations and Outcomes
By Natasha Kersh, Edmund Waite and Karen Evans, Institute of Education, London
Email: N.Kersh@ioe.ac.uk; K.Evans@ioe.ac.uk, E.Waite@ioe.ac.uk
Keywords: Skills for Life (SFL); workplace learning; basic skills; learning outcomes, motivations; learning space.
Summary: The study discussed in this contribution aims to explore the extent to which work-based ‘Skills for Life provision’ facilitates employees’ learning outcomes and achievements.
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Governments worldwide seek to upgrade the ‘basic skills’ of employees deemed to have low literacy and numeracy, in order to enable their greater productivity and participation in workplace practices. A longitudinal investigation of such interventions in the United Kingdom has examined the effects on employees and on organisations of engaging in basic skills programmes offered in and through the workplace. The research focuses on literacy and numeracy programmes, which have previously been associated with formal provision in educational institution classrooms and more recently have moved into the workplace as a site for delivery.
The perception of the space in which education and training traditionally take place has been going through a process of change. Learning that takes place outside the classroom is as significant as learning that occurs in formal educational settings (Edwards et al, 2006). Different modes of learning such as experiential, community-based and work-based learning have become more prominent in recent years. The latest reforms as well as the demands of the market economy and the “knowledge society” have emphasised that learning may occur in settings other than the classroom, in a range of formal and informal environments, including workplace sites, virtual learning, home or leisure settings. The significance of learning that takes place in settings other than the classroom is emphasised by our research findings, which indicate that learning in the workplace setting provides learners with opportunities to acquire a number of significant work-related skills, including, literacy and numeracy skills. Learners’ spatial associations with their workplaces are often perceived as positive, as they may contrast with their previous negative experiences associated with formal education and training.
Our evidence suggests that the benefits of acquisition of basic skills within the workplace are not restricted to the development of skills to be employed at work only. The research has indicated that participation in the SFL (Skills for Life) training has enabled the employees to develop their confidence and self-assurance in general. There are, for example, positive effects on the learners’ family lives and leisure activities that have been associated with their SFL training as they are able to recontexualise their acquired basic skills in environments other than their workplaces. Although workplace SFL provision aims to boost skills relating to economic productivity and is focused quite narrowly on one spatial environment – the workplace – learners’ motivations are much broader. Our theoretical and empirical research has helped us to underpin and relate learners’ skills and motivations to a wider range of differing environments. Apart from using their newly acquired skills in the workplace, learners can also recontextualise their skills to other contexts, for example to their family environments.
The key findings suggest that (1) ‘Skills for Life’ workplace provision provides an accessible and convenient opportunity for learning that is also less prone to the more intimidating associations of formal educational environments for learning; and that (2) the workplace as a site of learning has an important effect in boosting learners’ motivations and facilitating learner outcomes in a diverse range of work-related and personal activities within and beyond the work setting.
Although this research focuses primarily on the UK context, the significance of employees’ engagement in workplace literacy has also been explored through a transnational research collaboration (Wolf and Evans, 2011) with contributions from the USA, New Zealand and Canada that emphasise the importance of longer-term developments of literacy proficiency and the need to recognise the interplay of formal and informal literacy learning (ibid). Results are feeding into policy-related inquiries into adult skills and workplace learning in Britain and internationally.
References
Edwards, R., Gallagher, J., Whittaker, S. (2006) Learning Outside the Academy: International research perspectives on lifelong learning, Abingdon and New York, Routledge.
Wolf, A. and Evans, K. (2011) Improving Literacy at Work. Abingdon: Routledge.
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Cite article as: Kersh, N., Waite, E. and Evans, K., (2011) ‘The Workplace as a Site of Learning: Facilitating Learners’ Motivations and Outcomes’, in NORRAG NEWS, Towards a New Global World of Skills Development? TVET's turn to Make its Mark, No.46, September 2011, pp. 115-117, available: http://www.norrag.org
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