learning at work - a combination of experience based learning and theoretical education
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Learning at work - a combination of experiencebased learning and theoretical educationKatarina Paulsson a & Lisa Sundin ba Royal Institute of Technologyb National Institute for Working LifePublished online: 08 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Katarina Paulsson & Lisa Sundin (2000) Learning at work - a combination of experiencebased learning and theoretical education, Behaviour & Information Technology, 19:3, 181-188, DOI:10.1080/014492900406173
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Learning at work ±a combination of experience-based learning and theoretical education
KATARINA PAULSSON ² and LISA SUNDIN ³
² Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. National Institute for Working Life, Ostersund Branch,
Box 601, 832 23 FroÈ soÈ n, Sweden. e-mail: [email protected]
³ National Institute for Working Life, Ostersund Branch, Box 601, 832 23 FroÈ soÈ n, Sweden;e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. Training and learning at work is important asemployees competence has to meet organisational requirementsfor ¯ exibility. This study examines conditions and obstacles inintegrating a web-based course at work in order to enhanceemployees level of competence. Employees view of workingcondition, competence and how they learn at work is also ofimportance. A selection of 35 people was made at a companywhich is part of a large business. The design was quantitativewith complementary qualitative data. The employees had apositive attitude towards work despite increasing di� culties inwork tasks and an increasing workload, which was the greatestbarrier of integrating the web-based course at work. Compe-tence development involved a certain degree of stress, but wasoutweighed by the fact that it was stimulating and led to thework feeling easier. To manage work, knowledge was obtainedprimarily by colleagues and company courses.
1. Introduction
Since the very beginning of industrialisation, the
working life and the organisation of work have been
subject to constant change. Globalisation, the demand
that more goods and services have to be produced in a
shorter time, and the development of new technology
and new applications have meant that work and itscontent have changed (Barnatt 1997). This has a� ected
the individual employees such that their situations have
changed from security of employment to employability
and adaptability (LoÈ nn 1996). In order for the
individual to be able to get and to keep a job, therequirement that they have the right abilities has
increased, and thereby the competence of the employees
and their capacity for learning have become more and
more important. The employee has to be functionally
¯ exible in his work, and to have a wide and overlappingcompetence in order to carry out varying tasks within
the organisation (Barnatt 1997). The chance the
individual is given in order to be able to handle
demands for an increase or a change in competence
depends on how great an in¯ uence the employee has
over his own work, together with his chance of
maintaining and developing his knowledge. A jobcharacterised by having control over daily tasks
stimulates the individual’ s development, increases moti-
vation to learn and the chances of coping with future
changes (Karasek and Theorell 1990, Levi 1998).Discussions within educational research touch on
the similarities and di� erences between the concepts
of learning at work, education and competence.
Forsberg (1990) and EllstroÈ m (1996) state that
learning is a constantly ongoing process, whichmay be planned but is often unconscious. This
process controls actions which lead to change.
EllstroÈ m (1996) goes further and di� erentiates the
formal learning from the informal, where the former
is planned in accordance with certain de® ned goals
and takes place within teaching institutions. Informal
learning is spontaneous and based on experience,and happens outside teaching institutions. He states
that it is important to combine formal and informal
learning with the aim of strengthening the learning
process. These two forms taken on their own are
limited; purely formal learning risks being dependenton the learning situation, thereby making it di� cult
to convert so that the new knowledge can be
applied at work. Purely experiential learning, based
on what happens in one’s own work situation,
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOG Y, 2000, VOL. 19, NO. 3, 181±188
Behaviour & Information TechnologyISSN 0144-929 X print/ISSN 1362-3001 online Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
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means that problems can arise in the abstraction of
the received knowledge into other situations (Ell-
stroÈ m 1996, Docherty 1996).
Forsberg (1990:16) de® ne education as `an arrange-ment a situation or a series of situations where people
are to learn something. Education has more or less
clearly de® ned pre-set goals and content. Learning can
take place in education, but also and perhaps mostoften takes place outside education’ . The most
important di� erence between the concepts of learning
and education are that education does not necessarily
lead to learning, and learning does not need to be
connected with education but can take place apart
from it (EllstroÈ m 1996, Svensson 1997). Furthermore,
EllstroÈ m (1996) and Forsberg (1990) state that onebasic condition for learning to occur at work is that
an exchange occurs between the individual and his
working situation. The area of work in which the
individual is active provides both opportunities for
and barriers to learning. The actions of the individual,depending on individual characteristics, are also
important where they a� ect the chances for learning.
EllstroÈ m (1996:80) describes the following factors as
important in order for a learning process to take
place;
· The participation of work colleagues in formula-
tion of goals, planning and development of
activities
· Tasks with a high learning potential
· Information and deepened theoretical knowledge
· Local experiments for testing di� erent alternative
actions
· Exchange of experience and re¯ ection
· Group processes, workplace culture and organisa-
tional structures which support learning
· Support, but also a pressure for change and
legitimisation from the management at di� erent
levels in the organization
The concept of competence has been discussed andanalysed from many di� erent perspectives. Compe-
tence can be de® ned as the ability to solve problems
put before the employee in his daily work. The
importance of developing and using a network of
contacts for solving the problems which occur is also
stressed (Antilla 1997). According to EllstroÈ m(1996:11) competence is the ability of an individual
to act in relation to a speci® c task, situation or job
where this ability covers knowledge, intellectual and
practical skills together with social competence,
attitudes and personal characteristics. Competencecan also be regarded as that knowledge which is
useful in the working life (Svensson 1997).
2. Background to this project
A large Swedish concern has undergone comprehen-
sive restructuring during recent years. The primaryreason for this is the rapid technical development within
the computer and electronics industry. New production
methods and new technology mean that it is easier to
manufacture today’ s products, which in its turn hasa� ected the company’ s development and production.
These changes have also led to changes in the job
content (Bogren 1999). A development company within
the concern designs and develops telephony systems for
mobile and ® xed networks, and industrialises new
products. Work in the company is built up in three
stages; in the ® rst stage the circuit boards aremanufactured; in the second stage the magazine is built
up and tested, and in the third stage the nodes
(exchanges) are manufactured and the customers’ soft-
ware is completed. The three di� erent stages are carried
out by three work units which are organized in a similarway and in which the working environment and the
working conditions are comparable. The o� ce work
comprises administration, planning, design and support
of the products which are manufactured. Manufacturing
is done on the production line. Where the employeeswork in goal-directed groups, all the employees in the
unit work together closely. This involves a responsibility
which a� ects everything from the incoming order to the
manufacturing of the product and its installation. This
way of working requires the employee to have di� erent
types of problem-solving ability. This includes abilitiesin communication and co-operation with national and
international customers from di� erent organisational
cultures, and the ability to pass on new knowledge to
one’s own colleagues is also important.
The employees’ individual responsibilities are re-¯ ected in the strategy of the concern for providing
competence. The employee has to draw up his or her
own competence pro ® le in conjunction with his im-
mediate manager, together with his wishes in terms of
development routes, and to draw up an individualdevelopment plan. This plan has to fall into line with the
overall competence strategy of the company. The
Manager responsible for personnel continually identi® es
competence gaps within strategic competence areas and
draws up and carries out remedial plans for counter-
acting any de® ciencies. The units themselves select howthey will work on ful® lling the need for competence.
This may be a question of a training programme,
recruiting, on-the-job training, organisational develop-
ment, co-operation with other companies or the
university. English is the language used within theconcern, and in personnel development conversations it
emerged that the employees lacked su� cient knowledge
K. Paulsson and L . Sundin182
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in technical English. This knowledge is very important
when the employees are both reading and writing
production and installation handbooks, manuals etc.
in English. In addition, the language is very importantwhen working and communicating with foreign custo-
mers. When incoming orders and production load
¯ uctuate and knowledge in technical English was being
looked for, they looked for new ways to integrate thetraining into the work. This was made possible by a
web-based distance learning package in technical
English which could be carried out at low cost, which
was independent of time and space, and therefore
¯ exible according to each employees working situation.
In addition, the distance between the learning situation
and the workplace was minimised so that the theoreticalknowledge (the formal learning) was integrated with the
daily work tasks (the informal learning).
A project was carried out at the Working Life
Institute at OÈ stersund with the aim of studying learning
at work and how the competence of individual employ-ees in industry could be raised with the help of ICT
(Information and Communication Technology). One
part of the project was to follow and evaluate a web-
based distance learning course at the company described
above, with the aim of carrying out a study of thepreconditions and hindrances for this type of education.
3. Aim
The overall aim of the study was to research:
· preconditions and hindrances in being able to
integrate web-based distance learning into work
· survey how employees regard the working condi-
tions, competence and competence development
opportunities and how they learn at work, and
· any di� erences between units in terms of these
questions.
4. Method
4.1. Design of the study
Course participants were recruited through develop-
ment talks with line managers at the workplace. Before
the start of the course the participants were informedabout the study and its aims, and were guaranteed
anonymity. In addition, they were given information
about the training and technical information about
connection to the web and where they should go if they
encounter problems. After this the participants ® lled in aquestionnaire which were collected the same day. They
were also invited to take part in an interview about their
experiences of the course and how they regarded
learning at work. The participants were given just over
three months to carry out the training.
4.2. Selection
Thirty-® ve people were selected from the 480 whowork at the development company. Of these 35, ten were
women and the average age of the selected people was
34.5 years. The majority (70% ) had an educational
background of at least three years at college and a
relatively short time of employment at the company
(average = 1.5 years).
4.3. Training/course material
The training material was put together by AMU
Delta Utveckling AB in OÈ stersund and consisted of astudy guide via the web with accompanying literature in
book format. AMU provided the tutoring resources in
the form of trained teachers of English. The design of
the training included communication with the tutor by
e-mail. The training material was divided into threemodules. It started with a knowledge test via the web
which was e-mailed to the tutor, and after this the
participants received a password for logging into the
course. After each module a number of exercises were
done and sent in to be authorised by the tutor, and the
participants were then given a new password so thatthey could continue on to the next module.
4.4. Questionnaire
The questionnaire developed by the National Institute
for Working Life in OÈ stersund consisted of 36 questions
divided into six sections; personal information, employ-
ment conditions, experience with computers, under-
standing of the working conditions, understanding ofcompetence and competence development, and experi-
ence of web-based education and the expectations of the
course. The response alternatives in sections one, two
and six were mainly dichotomous. Other response
alternatives for sections three, four and ® ve were given
on a ® ve-point `Lickert Scale’ . The scale went from oneto ® ve, where one corresponded to `No, not at all’ and
® ve by `Yes, very much’. The questionnaire also
contained eight questions with open response alterna-
tives. The aim of these was to determine positive and
negative e� ects of computer usage at work/home, whatthe most important changes were to have taken place at
the workplace during the previous year, what knowledge
L earning at work 183
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was felt to be important in order to be able to take part
in the changes, and the expectations from taking part in
training via the web.
4.5. Interview
The basis for the interviews was developed from theresults of the questionnaire, and consisted of 21
questions. These were divided under two main headings
and covered learning at work and experience of training.
The interviews were carried out on two occasions, and
they were all tape recorded.
4.6. Omissions
As the questionnaire was distributed and collected in
at the same time, there were no systematic omissions.
There were, however, internal omissions on some of thequestions.
5. Results
5.1. Computer experience
All participants used computers at work for an
average of four to six hours each day. All had access
to the internet at work, and about 89% used it in their
work. The employees used the computer to a largeextent at work, and had a good knowledge about the
internet, and they could therefore be said to have a
familiarity with computers. The positive results of using
the computer were an increased familiarity with
computers, and the creation of space for learning when
communication and information seeking could be done
quickly and simply. In this way the employees could
keep themselves abreast of current information and useIT as a tool and an aid in their work. The negative
results of using computers show themselves in the social
and ergonomic aspects such as reduced interaction with
colleagues, impersonal communication and working in a® xed sitting posture, resulting in aches and pains. The
most common areas of use for computers at home were
word processing, e-mail, sur ® ng the internet and playing
games. The computer was used at home for up to two
hours a day by 80% of the participants. Participation in
web-based distance learning was a new experience for
94% of the participants.
5.2. How employees view their working conditions
As seen in Table 1 it can be said that the employeeshad a relatively positive view of their jobs; they were
involving, stimulating and contained a relatively high
degree of variation, even though they felt that the
work had become more di� cult than it was a year
previously, and that the workload had increased.The most important changes to have occurred
during the previous year were that the majority of
employees had got new work tasks and increased
responsibility, and that they were working more
independently. Organisational changes were faster
product changes with a shorter time to carry out thetasks. Increased opportunities for training were
another important change. Comparison between the
three units showed no di� erences in how the employ-
ees viewed their working conditions.
K. Paulsson and L . Sundin184
Table 1. Average values of working conditions.
Involvingwork tasks
Stimulatingwork tasks
Work is hardertoday than
one year ago
Worload ishigher today than
one year ago
Work varies moretoday than one
year ago
Mean 3.94 3.74 3.18 3.56 3.38Std. Deviation 0.94 1.04 1.17 0.99 1.23
Table 2. Average values of knowledge requirements.
Have time to learnnew tasks to cope
with work
Need increasedtheoretical knowledge
to cope with work
Higher level oftraining in order to
cope with work
Mean 2.49 3.41 3.12Std. Deviation 0.98 1.16 1.20
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5.3. Employees average values of knowledge requirements
Table 2 shows that the employees felt that they could
only manage to a relatively small extent to learn newthings as new demands occurred in their work. Regard-
ing demands for increased theoretical knowledge and
the need for higher levels of training in order to cope
with their work, the participants stated that thesedemands and needs had increased during the previous
year.
Comparisons between units, displayed in F igure 1,
shows that there were certain di� erences in how these
knowledge requirements were perceived. In unit two, all
the participants stated that they could not learn new
things as new demands occurred in their work. Fourteen% of the participants in unit one and 27% in unit three
stated that they did manage to learn new things as new
demands occurred in their work. For the variables of
demand for increased theoretical knowledge and the
need for a higher level of training now compared with ayear ago, there were no signi® cant di� erences between
the units.
5.4. Employees view of competence and opportunities forcompetence development
Regarding the views about competence and the
opportunity to in¯ uence competence development, it
was felt that continual competence development at work
certainly did cause stress. Though this was outweighedby the fact that continual competence development at
work also brought stimulation and that the work was
felt to be easier. This is displayed in Table 3. The
employees also stated that they could in¯ uence their
opportunities for competence development themselvesto a relatively large extent.
Comparisons between units showed that 14% and
20% of the employees in units one and three respectively
stated that continual competence development at work
caused stress. In unit two, none of the employees statedthat continual competence development at work caused
stress.
In unit two, (83% ) of the employees stated that they
could in¯ uence their opportunities for competence
development, while in units one and three only about
40% said the same thing, as shown in Figure 2.There were no great di� erences in the variables of
continual competence development at work being
stimulating or that the work became easier.
5.5. Employees view of learning at work
The ways in which employees learnt what was
important for carrying out their work were mainly from
friends/colleagues and via the company’s courses.
Learning from work supervisors/managers and fromexternal courses occurred to a somewhat lower extent.
Learning from suppliers, the university and the internet/
internet training hardly occurred at all (Table 4).
F igure 3 shows that, knowledge in unit one was
obtained mainly from the company’s courses (50% ), inunit two from friends/colleagues (60% ), and in unit
three from friends/colleagues (63% ) and from the
company’ s courses (63% ). There were also di� erences
in whether the employees learnt what was important for
L earning at work 185
Figure 1. Di� erences in knowledge requirements.
Table 3. Employee’ s view on competence and opportunities for competence development.
Continouscompetencedevelopmentinvolve stress
Continouscompetencedevelopmentis stimulating
Continouscompetencedevelopment
unburden work tasks
Opportunity toin¯ uence
competencedevelopment
Mean 2.49 4.17 3.66 3.71Std. Deviation 0.95 0.79 1.00 0.97
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carrying out their work via supervisors/managers. In
unit two, (40% ) learnt in this way, while in unit threeonly (13% ) of the employees learnt from their super-
visors/managers. In unit one no such learning took
place. It was only in unit two that the employees learnt
what was important for carrying out their work via
university/college.The most prominent aspects from the interviews was
that the employees experienced that the workload had
increased noticeably during the previous year, and that
product changes happened more and more quickly. The
employees felt that this placed demands on them toincrease their knowledge. Another prominent aspect was
that new knowledge was obtained from work colleagues.
6. Discussion
There are di� culties in studying learning at work
when in many cases it consists of unconscious and
unplanned processes which are controlled by the activity
and the processes which are going on within the
organisation (EllstroÈ m 1996). The involvement of workcolleagues in goal formulation, planning and business
development is a factor which EllstroÈ m (1996) describes
as being important in order to make a learning process
happen more easily at work. The work in the studiedcompany is organised in goal-directed working groups
and the employees feel that the work is involving,
stimulating and varied, and this can be an expression of
involvement. The stated strategy of competence provi-
sion to be found in the concern also agrees with theinvolvement in goal formulation, planning and business
development which EllstroÈ m describes. There is a need
for higher level of training and more theoretical knowl-
edge to cope with work today.
This put demands on the employees for furthertraining and learning at work. In the goal-directed
groups the employees a� ects everything from the
incoming order to the manufactured product. This
working process involve responsibility and in¯ uence
over the work tasks which together with high demands
on ability to cope with work is described by Karasekand Theorell (1990) as the good work. The good work
stimulates the individual’s development, increases moti-
vation to learn and the chances of coping with future
changes. In general the employees view their work as a
good since its both varied and stimulating and thereforeit can be said that there exists work tasks with a high
learning potential.
K. Paulsson and L . Sundin186
Table 4. By whom employee’s learn what is important for carry out work.
F riends/colleagues
Supervisors/managers
Companycourses Suppliers
Internet/Intranet
Externalcourses
Universitycourses
Mean 3.83 2.34 3.31 1.91 1.53 2.32 1.59Std. Deviation 1.04 1.16 0.80 1.34 0.86 1.22 0.99
Figure 2. Employee’s view on competence and opportunitiesfor competence development. Figure 3. By whom employee’s learn at work.
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The factor that information and deeper theoretical
knowledge make learning easier is strengthened by the
tendencies which were shown, where the employees
obtained information quickly and easily with the aid ofinformation and communication technology. They also
stated that they needed a higher level of education and
greater theoretical knowledge in order to be able to do
their work. One barrier was that the employees statedthat they did not have time to learn all the new things
which they needed in order to be able to do their work.
This in its turn could be one reason why information
and knowledge were obtained from work colleagues.
Workplace culture is characterized by group processes
which support learning, especially in regard to the
exchange of experience between colleagues. At theforefront of these are the ability to solve problems,
learn from the experience of others and transfer these to
one’s own working situation. The workload and the
pressure for change which existed at the workplace
contributed to the fact that there was no time forre¯ ection and thinking.
In general the employees consider themselves having a
good opportunity to in¯ uence their competence devel-
opment. There are however di� erences between the
units. The employees at unit two regard that theirpossibility to in¯ uence competence development is twice
as large as the possibility at the other two units. In those
two units there seems to be a relation between the level
of opportunity to in¯ uence competence development
and if competence development involve stress. This
relationship was not found at unit two. The results alsoshowed that the learning processes within the units were
di� erent despite the similarities in the work organisation
and the working environment. Learning in unit one
could, according to EllstroÈ m’s (1996) de® nition, be seen
as being purely formal where learning at work onlyhappened via the company’ s courses. In unit two the
learning occurred primarily from work colleagues and
supervisors, which is characterized as informal learning.
EllstroÈ m (1996) states that the learning process is
strengthened when the two forms of learning arecombined, which was the case for unit three where the
employees learnt both from colleagues (informal learn-
ing) and from the company’ s courses (formal learning).
The occurrences of these di� erent relationships need to
be further investigated to be able to understand how the
learning processes develops.Results concerning the Web-based training showed
that there were a generally positive attitude towards
undergoing training in technical English. When asked
what knowledge would make it simpler for the employ-
ees to follow the development/changes taking place atthe workplace, the overwhelming majority stated that
they needed to learn English, technical English. Despite
the positive attitude, the training was not carried out to
the extent expected. A number of factors contributed to
this, the primary one being the high workload and the
second being a strong pressure for change which existedat the workplace. This meant that the employees did not
have the room to prioritise the training before the work
tasks that had to be done. When the workload is high
and there are few free moments for studying, speci® ctimes must be set aside for the training. One decisive
question was how the management and the course
participants prioritised the training. In this case, all the
responsibility was put on the individual employees. They
themselves had to create time to carry out the training,
which to a large extent meant that they had to study in
times outside the proper working hours. The desire forcerti® cation also re¯ ected the lack of legitimisation by
the management. The employees wished to be able to
demonstrate that they had been through the course in
the hope that they would be paid accordingly. The
employees who tried to study at work stated that it wasespecially important that the technology was function-
ing when they get the time to do the training. Technical
problems such as slow connection to the internet,
logging in to the course with several di� erent passwords
were found and they stole time from the training sessionitself.
The learning process at the workplace occurred in
many cases, as people interacted with their collea-
gues and exchanged experiences. Where training was
concerned, these processes a� ected the employee
negatively. The employees experienced constantinterruptions when sitting at their own computers,
where colleagues come to get help in solving their
problems, or to exchange experiences, the telephone
ringing and it being di� cult to get peace and quiet
to concentrate. This caused di� culties in getting thecontinuity and the whole picture of what the
training really involved and what was required of
the employee to ® nish the course. The work
organisation and the types of jobs at this company
also contributed to the fact that the time and spaceindependence which are speci® c to web-based learn-
ing had not been any advantage; instead, they were
more of a disadvantage. There is instead a need to
set aside speci® c times for carrying out the training,
in a speci® c room where one can go in order to
concentrate on the course in peace and quiet.Another contributory factor was that the employees
found that they received no support or motivation-
raising input from their supervisors. The absence of
personal contact which occurred between teacher/
tutor and the student meant that the training wasexperienced as static and that the knowledge gained
from the exchange of experience disappeared.
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7. Conclusion
To be able to integrate a web-based course with work,
it is essential that employees have time to attend thecourse even though the workload is high. To succeed in
this the management must prioritise the training and
create space for its implementation. Since the learning
processes in some ways di� ers between the units, onepossibility to improve future implementation would be
trying out di� erent alternative actions according to
learning processes within each separate unit.
Since the selection in this study is rather small it is
important to bare in mind that what has been reported
in this study only can be seen as tendencies. Even though
they are just tendencies, some interesting relationshipswould still be worth further and deeper investigation.
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