Purpose: This paper aims to examine and discuss learning conditions for teachers, in the context of choice and decentralisation reforms. Design/methodology/approach: This article is based on analyses of 30 interviews with Swedish upper secondary teachers focusing on their experiences of their conditions for learning. Findings: This paper shows how…

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate whether the formal and informal learning patterns of community health-care nurses changed in the wake of a reform that altered their work by introducing new patient groups, and to explore whether conditions in the new workplaces facilitated or impeded shifts in learning patterns. Design/methodology/approach:…

Informal learning and how individuals learn in the workplace have gained increasing attention by researchers in recent years. In relation to other learning activities, informal learning constitutes a substantial part of an adult's life. This paper explores the informal workplace learning experiences of graduate student employees. Data was…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of formal learning from a web-based training and informal (workplace) learning afterwards on the behaviour of general practitioners (GPs) with respect to prescription of antibiotics. Design/methodology/approach: To obtain insight in various learning processes, semi-structured…

This study was designed to explore the socialization of student affairs professionals in community colleges. The authors used the theory of organizational socialization (Van Maanen & Schein, 1979) and explored these nuances through a qualitative research design. Findings include differences in socialization in institutions versus the…

Purpose: The topic of informal learning at work has received increasing attention in the past years. The purpose of this study is to explore in which informal learning activities employees engage and what are the drivers for informal learning. Design/Methodology/Approach: Semi-structured interviews were taken from ten human resources (HR) and ten…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the formal and informal workplace learning of professional chefs. In particular, it considers chefs' learning strategies and outcomes as well as the barriers to and facilitators of their workplace learning. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology is based on in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured…

Workplace learning is complex as employees engage in activities to meet organizational objectives. This study investigates incidental learning in a complex clinical environment. The systems created to collect information and perform patient-visit functions involve several people who have distinct roles that can impact how subsequent people in the…

Actor network theory (ANT) is used to explore how work-learning is enacted in informal online communities and illustrates how researchers might use sociomaterial approaches to uncover complexities, uncertainties, and specificities of work-learning practices. Participants in this study were self-employed workers. The relational and material aspects…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the process of informal learning of aviation instructors. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative instrumental case study design was used for this study. In-depth, multiple semi-structured interviews and document review were the primary approaches to data collection and the data were analyzed using constant…

This single instrumental qualitative case study explores and thickly describes job performance outcomes based upon the manner in which self-directed learning activities of a purposefully selected sample of 3 construction managers are conducted, mediated by the use of Web 2.0 technology. The data collected revealed that construction managers are…

This article reports on a mixed methods study that investigated aspects of formal, non-formal and informal learning for workers and adult high school learners seeking literacy and essential skills. Three key themes emerged from the qualitative data: motivations for participation in various forms of learning; seeking out informal learning…

Today's healthcare can be characterised by the increasing importance of specialisation that requires cooperation across disciplines and specialities. In view of the number of educational programmes for interdisciplinary cooperation, surprisingly little is known on how learning arises from interdisciplinary work. In order to analyse the learning…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate some of the kinds of formal and informal workplace training activities that workers with low literacy engage in from different parts of Canada and the United Kingdom. The study employed a multi-site case study research design with 31 employees and 18 instructors from seven different types of…

The extensive literature on workplace stress, its causes, and the consequences for human health and organizational effectiveness, is being complemented by a growing, alternative emphasis on employees' well-being. However, in education (where well-being is particularly at risk) sustained examples of positive organizational approaches, rather than…