Investigating learning through work
This research activity will harness the latest thinking on learning through work, and will apply it to the needs of different Australian RTOs.
Check the details of this activity:
Team
Leader: Associate Professor Clive Chappell, OVAL, UTS. Team: Geof Hawke, Carl Rhodes
Research questions
- How and in what ways can learning and development practices within RTOs be organised to better support learning at work?
- What are the major enablers and constraints to learning through working and what strategies and models can organisations deploy to encourage productive learning at work?
Rationale
All organisations, including Australian RTOs, are seeking ways to achieve competitive advantage through the people they employ. Creating this advantage depends largely on the training/development of people and their ability to learn. However, traditional training, as the key to improving individual and organisational capability, is no longer regarded as sufficient in itself to satisfy the needs of the contemporary work environment.
Problems of transfer, flattened organisational structures, financial and time constraints, commercial pressures and the changing nature of work itself have led to renewed interest in finding learning solutions rather than training solutions to workforce development; with learning conceptualised as a central, on-going and integral feature of contemporary work.
Participating RTOs will benefit from this research by:
- being able to identify how well they are creating a learning-conducive workplace
- becoming more self-reliant in terms of learning and development
- being the first to use the diagnostic tool in their own business
- identifying strategies to improve the ability of their workforce to learn at work leading to an increase in organisational performance
Methodology
Case studies through interviews and observations of a diverse range of RTOs to establish:
- current learning and development practices
- mix of learning and training solutions for skills development
- current strategies that support learning at work
- extent to which work is organised to support learning
- extent to which other environmental and contextual factos suggested by the litertaue are present
Timeline
May 2005 - December 2005
Products
- "Investigating Learning and Work" by Clive Chappell and Geof Hawke, a literature review that provides the rationale for the development of the tool (PDF 161Kb)
- "Investigating Learning and Work", by Clive Chappell presented as part of the symposium Building the capability of VET Providers for the future at the RWL4 Conference, UTS, Sydney, December 2005 (MS Word 125Kb)
- Diagnostic tool will evaluate the extent to which the organisation of work is conducive to learning
- Final research report will summarise the findings of the research activity
Taking part
You can become a committed and active participant in this broad research program in many ways:
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