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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.

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Australian technical and further education (TAFE) institutes are perhaps the most heterogeneous of the nation’s education sectors. However, TAFE institutes’ capacity to provide inclusive education is constrained by their curriculum focus and pedagogical practices and culturally premised assumptions that may inhibit learning for students from diverse cultural backgrounds and life experiences. This paper reports from a study that investigated the experiences of learning for African students from refugee backgrounds in TAFE institutes. Adopting phenomenological methodology, the study illuminates ways in which the students’ earlier and current experiences shape their learning at TAFE institutes. The findings indicate that, while greatly appreciating being in a safe environment, African students from refugee backgrounds nevertheless experience racial discrimination and social exclusion as they resettle in Australia. Also, the pedagogical practices at TAFE institutes do not always recognise or accommodate the students’ socio-cultural backgrounds and refugee life experiences. In all, the ‘experienced curriculum’ created unhelpful dissonances for these students. Consequently, the paper argues that in order to benefit more fully from their educational experiences in TAFE and also to effectively engage more in the wider Australian society activities, including employment, these students require particular interventions from these institutes and those who teach in them. It is proposed that a social inclusive transformative learning approach intervention is required for African students from refugee backgrounds to attain meaningful educational outcomes in TAFE institutes.

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This paper reports the outcomes of a pilot study that aimed to investigate how experts think, act and learn. The study, focusing on three vocational experts (a painter, a midwife and a mechanic), comprises an investigation of the characterisation of experts, their ways of knowing and the knowledge deployed when engaged in work. The study suggests that current accounts of expertise are narrowly defined and that situational factors and dispositional attributes need to be included, further suggesting that goals for and curriculum practice within vocational education need to account for situational factors and the range of experiences of individualsin developing expertise. Show less

TAFE institutes offering higher education degrees is a relatively new concept, but the practice is expected to grow as a consequence of government policies aimed at increasing the percentage of Australians holding a bachelor degree. Five research overviews have been developed to accompany the research report on this issue. These overviews draw out the implications of the research for TAFE teachers and managers, staff development and public policy, as well as the issues raised in relation to the status of TAFE degrees. The overviews are based on the research report 'Higher education in TAFE' by Leesa Wheelahan, Gavin Moodie, Stephen Billett and Ann Kelly (indexed at TD/TNC 96.18). Overviews include: Implications for teachers; Status; Implications for staff development; Implications for public policy; Implications for TAFE managers. Show less

This article examines how different forms of vocational knowledge are constructed from social sources. Using a Vygotskian framework it is claimed that in different ways vocational knowledge is shaped by history, community and ontogeny through microgenetic development. This process of ongoing problem-solving links social circumstances to the development of cognitive structures necessary to conduct vocational practice. It is held that such findings help explain the limitations of transfer and also the need to conceptualise expertise at the particular community of practice, rather than at some disembedded level of practice. Show less

This paper outlines curriculum considerations for the ordering, enactment and experiencing of practice-based experiences (e.g. practicums) in tertiary education programs developing occupational specific capacities. Increasingly, these programs are engaging students in practicum experiences (i.e. those in the circumstances of practice). These practice-based experiences require considerable investment on the part of all involved and so need to be used in ways that do justice to those investments. However, such experiences are often provided and engaged in by students without consideration being given to their educational purposes; their likely contributions and how they can be sequenced and utilised to achieve those purposes. Here, the specific concern is to identify bases for considering these purposes and how these might be realised through the selection and sequencing of student experiences. A case study of two practicum experiences comprising midwifery students' 'follow-through' experiences with birthing women and clinical placements is used to identify the kinds of learning that can arise through different kinds of practice-based experiences and how they might be most effectively organised. The concern, therefore, is to identify how the midwifery curriculum (i.e. pathways of experiences) can be ordered and augmented by particular pedagogic practices that assist realise the program's intended learning outcomes. The two different practice-based experiences are found to generate distinct learning outcomes for the students. The follow-throughs generate understandings about the birthing process from the birthing mothers' perspectives and provide goal states for midwifery work and understandings about midwifery practice, whereas the development of clinical capacities that arise through clinical placements. Consequently, the formers kinds of experiences might be best provides before, or in conjunction with second. Importantly, rather than viewing these experiences as being supplementary to what is provided within tertiary education institutions, they need to be consider as particular kinds of experiences on their own terms and engage with and utilise their contributions accordingly.

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This chapter, which is based on a program of research in workplace learning that was undertaken over the last decade, conceptualises workplace learning as legitimate learning environments on their own terms. It proposes how initial and ongoing development of vocational practice throughout working life may best proceed and how workplaces should be conceptualised as learning spaces. The implications for policy and practice are also identified, the key one being that the promotion of learning throughout working life is a responsibility to be shared by government, industry, enterprise, teachers and individuals. Goals and actions to be undertaken by each of these actors to foster high quality learning at work are listed. The chapter concludes that in order to best realise the potential of workplaces as learning spaces, a reappraisal and broadening of the conceptualisation of what constitutes learning, and enacting the kinds of pedagogic practices that may be utilised to enhance the quality and distribution of workplace affordances, are necessary.

The monograph from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 80.217; individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 80.218 to TD/TNC 80.229. Show less

The need for vocational education to respond to demand-side factors has become a key policy goal for vocational education in Australia. However, what comprises the demand side has not been critically appraised. Assumptions that only industry and enterprises comprise the demand side are questioned by the legitimate claims for inclusion by regions and individuals. Taking this more inclusive definition of the demand side of vocational education, the outcomes of a study that investigated the changing relationship between industry and enterprises are reported. It also mapped the needs of the four client groups. Identified are both commonality and difference in these needs, some of which are not readily reconcilable within an enterprise or industry-led vocational education system. Means for reconciling the needs of the client groups within curriculum development are discussed, as are some supply-side considerations.

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Australia needs highly skilled workers to sustain a healthy economy. Current employment-based training models have limitations in meeting the demands for highly skilled labour supply. The research reported here explored current and emerging models of employment-based training to propose more effective models at higher vocational education and training (VET) qualifications that can maintain a balance between institution and work-based learning. The project was based around case studies in process manufacturing and child care. Thirty-three individuals, representing employers, employees/apprentices, VET providers, industry bodies and training package developers, were interviewed. The issues and views expressed by those interviewed from both industries were consistent with what was found in the literature review. The study produced a collated set of features for effective employment-based training. It found that for employment-based training models to be effective they must have five main dimensions. They must: (1) be pedagogically sound; (2) be operationally effective; (3) provide quality skills; (4) have utility and be sustainable; and (5) address requirements for quality outcomes. Show less

On their own, the cognitive psychology and sociocultural constructivist perspectives fail to furnish a complete account of adult learning and development. In the past, these perspectives have been viewed as being incompatible because their origins reside in rival and distinct areas of theorising. This paper seeks to propose a more comprehensive basis for adult learning and development by advancing an initial reconciliation between these perspectives, which represent views about the internal processes of the mind and the external influence on cognition. This reconciliation is achieved by identifying areas of commonality and compatibility between these two constructivist perspectives, which provide a likely basis to yield a more comprehensive account of adults’ thinking and acting. It is held that only through an accommodation between social practice and cognition can such an account be realised. Differences between the two perspectives are drawn closer together by current theorising which views an individual’s appropriation of knowledge as being a socially mediated, interpretive and contested process. This, along with the concept of ontogeny or life history, permits closure between the Piagetian and Vygotskian perspectives as they render key differences compatible. It is advanced therefore that deliberations about adults’ construction of knowledge and ongoing developments need to account for the dual contributions of internal processes and external sources provided by constructivist perspectives.

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