WEST MIDLANDS CENTRAL HEALTH INNOVATION AND …€¦ · 3 WMC HIEC Education Theme Report 2 is little evidence that employees indirectly pay through lower wages’ (Bassanini et al.,

3 WMC HIEC Education Theme Report 2

Education Theme

The mixed economies of continuing learning in work

Author:

Hywel Thomas, Centre for Research in Medical and Dental Education, School of

Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.

WEST MIDLANDS CENTRAL HEALTH INNOVATION AND EDUCATION CLUSTER

(WMC HIEC)

1 3 WMC HIEC Education Theme Report 2

The mixed economies of continuing learning in work

Writing recently on craftsmanship, which, in his text includes the work of doctors and artists

as much as skilled manual labour, Richard Sennett identifies its key characteristic as ‘an

enduring basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’ (2008: 9). More

than 200 years earlier, Adam Smith expressed a contrary view of the basic human impulse

in relation to work, observing of Oxford professors who, if his emoluments are ‘precisely the

same, whether he does, or does not perform some very laborious duty, it is certainly his

interest, at least as interest is vulgarly understood, either to neglect it altogether, or...perform

it in as careless and slovenly manner as that authority will permit’ (Smith, 1776).

These two perspectives on human motivation in the workplace are, in some degree,

represented in two influential traditions of research and scholarship, one largely economic in

orientation and the other largely social constructivist, both of which enrich our understanding

of our commitment to work from their distinct intellectual perspectives. The aim of this paper

is to examine whether these perspectives - and another arising more from organizational

analysis - can have a productive co-habitation when applied specifically to understanding

how members of professional occupations renew and develop their skills through what I will

term continuing learning in work (CLIW), by which I include formal and informal learning

associated with work whether it occurs at or away from the workplace.

Derived from these motivational assumptions, the first section proposes a conceptualisation

defining four domains of ‘learning orientations’. Used as an analytical device, these are then

related to theoretical and empirical work arising from economic, social constructivist and

organizational analyses into CLIW. The discussion highlights the distinctive perspectives

and insights of these approaches while the second section shows not only how each

contribute to understanding CLIW but also to omissions in areas of enquiry. The concluding

section draws upon these areas of omission to sketch some options for further enquiry.

ORIENTATIONS TOWARDS LEARNING IN WORK Figure 1 represents four ‘learning orientations’ as ideal types arising from contrasting

assumptions about motivations towards learning at work. The vertical axis represents the

locus of interest; one polarity representing the assumption that all decisions are determined

by self-interest and the other that all decisions are based on an assessment of how CLIW

will assist or benefit ‘others’. The horizontal axis represents the locus of decision, from

circumstances where decisions about learning are made by the self to circumstances where

the decisions are made by others. As these are idealised constructs, they are not directly


matched in the real world but they do have an initial utility in scoping literatures that

approximate to these orientations. Utilising these concepts of interest and decision in this

way is not entirely novel, having been applied to education as a means of analysing changes

introduced by the 1988 Education Reform Act (Thomas, 1994) and to similar changes in

other parts of the public sector (Le Grand, 2003) and, as both papers provide analyses of

self interest and altruism, the arguments will not be rehearsed here. However, the novelty of

the application here should be noted, in terms of the form it takes, particularly in exploring

the inter-disciplinary potential for understanding CLIW.

Figure 1: Orientations toward learning at work

Other

Responsive

Directed

Locus of decision

Personal

Regulated

Personal orientation

Located here is that part of the economics of CLIW that is rooted in the assumption that

optimal outcomes for individual and social welfare are best secured if individuals and

organisations are left to pursue their own interests, doing so through the operation of

markets. Although the conditions required for these outcomes - what economists call perfect

competition - are seldom met in practice, valuable insights are gained from theorising within

this framework. In the case of education generally and CLIW in particular, theorising is

based on the concept of human beings as capital. The idea that the skills and capacities

acquired by human beings can be viewed as a form of capital, analogous to investment in

physical capital of plant and machinery and which can be developed, appreciate or

depreciate, is not new in economics (Smith, 1776, Marshall, 1920) but it is the late 1950s


that more formal treatment develops with work endeavouring to explain rates of economic

growth (Denison, 1962) and the economic returns to individuals of investment in education

(Schultz, 1963). A theoretical breakthrough in the formulation of these economic returns is

Becker’s Human Capital Theory (Becker, 1964) which offers a unified explanation of a wide

range of empirical phenomena, including: why earnings typically increase with age but at a

decreasing rate; that earnings tend to be positively related to levels of skill; unemployment

tends to be inversely related to levels of skill; the distribution of earnings is positively

skewed, especially among professionals and other skilled workers; and abler persons

receive more education and training than others.

The extensive international evidence providing empirical support for these propositions

continues to grow and, in relation to CLIW, there is clear evidence that the more highly

educated and highly skilled are the main recipients of expenditure (Jenkins et al., 2002,

Arulampalam et al., 2004, Dolton et al., 2005, Macleod and Lambe, 2008). This is consistent

with predictions, whereby changing technological conditions require more training and this is

more likely to be given to the more highly skilled because, setting cost against productivity,

they provide a higher return (Blundell et al., 1999, Vignoles et al., 2004). Also consistent with

the theory is that younger workers are more likely beneficiaries (Oosterbeek, 1998,

O’Connell and Jungblut, 2008), although this effect may increasingly be influenced by more

rapid skills obsolescence (Arulampalam et al., 2004). Evidence on gender is less clear.

There is evidence that women are more ready to pay for their training (Bassanini et al.,

2005) with more recent EU wide data showing females more likely to receive training than

males but for less time (O'Mahony, 2012). Unlike several other European countries, part-

time workers in the UK are less likely to be trained (Arulampalam et al., 2004).

With respect to CLIW, the theory distinguishes general from specific training, the former

being training in skills that are transferable from one employer to another while the latter is

training for skills that are specific to the requirements of the employer. Becker posits that

employers will only pay for the latter as they receive the benefits in term of increased

productivity. Where employers provide general training, which is transferable to other

employers, it is paid for by employees, typically through a reduced wage premium

(Bougheas and Georgellis, 2004, Georgellis and Lange, 2007). The optimal assumptions of

the theory are that there is a perfect market with free movement of labour and perfect

information. As markets in practice have imperfections, empirical verification of the

distinction between who bears the cost of general and specific training is limited. Indeed, a

comparative study of workplace training in 13 European countries, concludes that, ‘On

average, the entire cost of ¾ of the training courses is directly paid by employers, and there


is little evidence that employees indirectly pay through lower wages’ (Bassanini et al., 2005)

(p. 77). N terms of its economic contribution, CLIW matters, recent work in selected EU

countries suggesting it accounts for one-fifth of the contribution of ‘knowledge inputs’ to

economic growth (O'Mahony, 2012).

As the theory does not explicitly address non-market conditions, it makes no direct

predictions about the public sector but the evidence is that workers in the public are sector

are more likely to be recipients of training (Arulampalam et al., 2004, O'Mahony, 2012).

Possible explanations may be the different composition of the workforce in public sector

compared with the rest of the economy or, and more likely, the more limited influence of cost

pressures compared with the private sector influences levels of provision.

In summary, studies within this perspective provide large scale survey data identifying the

demographic characteristics of those who access CLIW, organisational characteristics of

providers, and assessment of its contribution to economic growth. Limitations include: the

quality of training data (e.g. the EU Labour Force Survey asks respondents if they ‘attended

any courses, seminars, etc. outside the regular education system’); related to this, therefore,

is an unsophisticated view of learning; organisational characteristics are limited (e.g.

ownership, size); limited attempts to identify costs and their distribution between employers

and employees.

Regulated orientation The CLIW located here are those that represent the self interest of the individual but where

requirements about their type and volume may be ‘imposed’ by an occupation’s regulatory

body; in that sense, the locus of decision is an ‘other’. Commenting on the risks of allowing

occupations to be self regulating, Adam Smith observed that ‘People from the same trade

seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a

conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices (Smith, 1776).

In its contemporary form, the proposition that occupational groups contrive to protect their

own interests is represented by work on occupational licensing, which occurs where there is

a ‘mandatory requirement to hold a legal permit to practice the range of activities that can be

performed by a practitioner’ (Humphris et al., 2010). Its mandatory nature serves the

interests of the occupational group and of governments that authorise this status but less

obviously customers and clients. The former benefit because entry to the occupation is

restricted and demand may increase because of perceived or actual improvement in the


quality of the service provided. Governments benefit as they are seen as acting to protect

the quality of services available to the public. The theoretical predictions of the effect of

these changes are less positive and largely supported by the empirical evidence.

On theoretical grounds, we can reasonably assume that the restrictions on the supply of

labour will push up quality but as it also pushes up price, a priori we cannot predict whether

licensing will improve or degrade the price: quality ratio (Kleiner, 2000). Other

consequences are found in a trenchant critique by Friedman (Friedman, 1962) who defines it

as the modern version of the medieval guild whereby a profession is granted monopoly

powers and these are used: to restrict access; increase price to consumers by boosting

salaries; define a level of standards for all members even though more differentiated

provision may more satisfy consumer requirements; adjust standards upwards if the supply

of suitably qualified applicants increases; restrict the range of work to the occupation even

though others may be equally competent; and make legal challenge on grounds of

incompetence more difficult, for example because of the difficulty of getting physicians to

testify against fellow physicians.

Empirical evidence on some of these factors tends to point towards higher costs for the

consumer, the US showing a wage premium of 18% and 13% in the UK (Humphris et al.,

2010), although an earlier study showed a wage premium for only half of the 24 occupations

included (Maurizi, 1974). Good evidence on how quality is affected is difficult to establish in

what are predominantly service based occupations. A US study comparing the dental

records of 464 air force recruits treated in different states ‘found little statistical support for

the role of tougher licensing measured either through characteristics of state licensing

statutes or pass rates on dental health’ (Kleiner et al., 2000). A study on the use of testing in

the recruitment of teachers showed that state mandated testing is associated with increases

in teacher wages but no evidence of a corresponding increase in quality (Angrist and

Guryan, 2008). An earlier study by the same authors showed that one of more commonly

used tests favoured applicants who graduated from Schools of Education, generally

academically weaker than graduates from other Schools (Angrist and Guryan, 2004). A

recent paper argues that data on teachers show that licensing may benefit wealthier schools

and districts (Kleiner, 2011).

While these items relate to control of entry, implications for CLIW arise because the powers

can also be used to define expectations and, in some cases, requirements for amount and

type of learning activities. Examples from the health and education sectors in the UK

between 1997 and 2010, a time when both were under pressure from government to raise


standards and reform working practices, invite consideration whether the licensed status of

medical practitioners and unlicensed status of teachers influenced outcomes.

Public anxiety about standards of clinical practice (Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry, 2001) and

ethical standards in use of body parts for research (Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry, 2001)

forced the profession to adopt greater formalisation of specialist training and requirements

for CLIW. However, the profession retained control of how professional standards were

defined and monitored (see http://www.rcgp.org.uk/revalidation.aspx for GPs). More

recently, evidentially unsubstantiated concern about the quality of training of junior doctors

arising from the introduction of the European Working Time Directive has led to a proposal

for a large expansion of the most senior (consultant) grades to oversee training (Temple,

2010). It may be pertinent to note that: seven of the 12 members of this Expert Group were

medical practitioners and two others were senior managers of the body overseeing medical

education; moreover, despite terms of reference covering dentists, healthcare scientists and

pharmacists, the review identified no issues pertinent to their training. In contrast, in the

case of teachers, it is a government agency that defines what constitutes a teacher (TDA,

2007), a limitation on professional authority that, compared with the medical profession, may

have influenced different outcomes in response to public service reform.

Public service reforms were intended to raise standards by re-designing work practices,

‘altering job roles to reduce occupational demarcations and to enhance the contribution of

non-professional staff’ (Bach, 2002, Labour Party, 2001). At best, the impact on the medical

profession appears modest: between 1999 and 2009, medical practitioners as a proportion

of the health care workforce increased from 13.7% to 15.2% (NHS (Information Centre

Workforce and Facilities Team), 2010) and, on job demarcation, the very slow growth of

anaesthetic practitioners working under the supervision of anaesthetists is illustrative of

limited change and professional resistance, all the more significant for a role that in the US

and some European countries is not even undertaken by medical practitioners.(NWWA,

2007). By contrast, between 2000 and 2010, the proportion of the teachers in the school

workforce fell from 71.5% to 55.3% while there was an increase of 115,200 (146%) in the

number of teaching assistants (Department for Education, 2010), with the more highly

qualified (Higher Level Teaching Assistants) undertaking whole class teaching and training

routes being created that may become ‘equivalent to the initial teacher training programme’

(Burgess and Shelton Mayes, 2009). Notwithstanding claims about the holistic nature of the

teachers’ role (Galton and MacBeath, 2010). It may be that the absence of a sufficiently

strong and distinct knowledge base limited the ability of the teaching profession to protect

their status (Wilkinson, 2005, Thompson, 2006) or it may be their weak control over entry


into the profession. In any event, government departments and agencies have been able to

impose their preferences on major changes within the professional domain of teachers.

In summary, existing studies with the framework of occupational licensing indicate that

professional regulation benefits the profession without necessarily benefitting their client

groups. However, we should not lightly set aside the importance of regulating entry into

professions or setting standards for CLIW. In recognising their appropriateness, however,

there is also a case for giving some regard to self interest as a motivator for defining

professional standards and, within that, the place of CLIW. It is a somewhat different

perspective from the theories and studies we consider next.

Responsive orientation The notion of individuals making decisions about their learning in work on the basis of how it

will best serve the interests of others fits well with the ideal view of the motive of decision

making by professionals and the perspectives examined here are inclined to this benign and

positive view about the motivation of professionals. It is a form of altruism where behaviour

‘benefits another (unrelated) actor and which imposes some cost on its originator’ (Ware,

1990). It finds echoes in the observation that professionals may 'grow rich; but the meaning

of their profession, both for themselves and for the public, is not that they make money, but

that they make health, or safety, or knowledge, or good government, or good law’ (Tawney,

1952).

Common to the work examined within this domain is a clear focus on learning itself. Unlike

many studies within economics, often content with ‘yes/no’ data on whether any form of

training has occurred, here the interest is about identifying and understanding different

approaches to learning. An example concerned with identifying approaches to learning is

provided by Eraut and colleagues, whose work includes a typology of early career learning

that distinguishes learning as a ‘by-product’ of work (e.g. tackling a challenging task) from

those where learning is the goal (e.g. shadowing) and identifying activities common to both

(e.g. asking questions) (Eraut, 2007, Eraut and Hirsch, 2007) as well as providing accounts

of these activities in practice (Eraut et al., 2002). This binary distinction of by-

product/deliberate is presented elsewhere as informal/formal learning (Gruber et al., 2008)

but it is also a step towards a further layer of analysis examining the place of context in

learning. Here, the metaphors of acquisition and participation are helpful (Sfard, 1998) as

they represent contrasting views of learning: on the one side, acquisition is akin to the

‘accumulation of some goods’ or ‘gaining possession over some commodity’ while, on the

other, the idea of a body of knowledge is replaced by a process of “knowing”, ‘where the


permanence of having gives way to the constant flux of doing’ and, additionally and crucially,

is ‘never considered separately from the context within which they take place’ (ibid, p.6).

Learning as a process that is inescapably within a context places the individual in and part of

a social process, a view of learning as an on-going social process. This situated nature of

learning was extended by Lave and Wenger (Lave and Wenger, 1991) who argued that

‘there is no activity that is not situated’ (p. 39) and proposed the concept of legitimate

peripheral participation as representing processes through which individuals learn/change as

they become members of communities of practice, which themselves are altering as a result

of continuing social dynamic. In constructing a view of ‘knowing’ as situated and socially

constructed, the problem of transferring ‘knowing’ between settings is highlighted and

appears to diminish the value of formal learning because it is disengaged from context and

application while stressing the value of the informal. Others argue, however, that learning

can be enhanced by ideas and concepts from other contexts, clarifying thinking and

knowing, and having a transformative function(Guile and Young, 2002, McDermott, 1997), a

view Paavola et al (Paavola et al., 2004) identify in knowledge creation models applied to

industry settings (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995, Nonaka et al., 2000), to the work of

professional groups (Engeström, 2000, Engeström, 2007, Engeström, 1999, Virkkunen and

Kuutti, 2000, Wertsch, 1998, Wertsch, 1991) and knowledge building in schools and colleges

(Bereiter, 2002). Whilst writers within these three approaches stress their distinctiveness,

Paavola et al identify many commonalities and, crucially, the concern with innovation

through supporting learning in the workplace. The synergy from different forms of

knowledge and knowing is captured in the observation that it is as much a misconception to

argue that huge amounts of academic knowledge lead to skill formation as it is to argue that

huge amounts of practical knowledge lead to skill formation (Gruber et al., 2008).

The models cited here (associated with Nonaka, Engeström, Bereiter and their colleagues)

also share a concern to improve practice, their detailed analyses of practice seeking

understanding in order to facilitate better performance in work settings. In consequence,

enquiries are likely to be qualitative in method. In seeking understanding of local

circumstances, their theoretical frameworks provide means of explicating those

circumstances to those with whom they are collaborating but lack the predictive intent of

economic theories. There is also a more benign view of motivation than the self-interest

assumption of economics. The analyses reflect a desire to solve problems and develop

individuals and teams in the workplace. An illustration of the difference is an account of

‘turfing’ in the economics literature, where medical specialists seek to dump problem patients

onto others (Caldicott, 2007), compared with the shared endeavour of clinical teams to


resolve the problem of ‘heartsink’ patients in Activity Theory (Engeström, 2007). This is not

to suggest there are no conflicts: that the organisation of production can be adversarial is

recognised (Lave and Wenger, 1991); tensions between novices and more experienced

members of a community of practice (Litowitz, 1997); an individual’s internal dilemmas

(Holquist, 1997); resistance to change and entrenched views (Daniels et al., 2007,

Engeström, 2007, Edwards, 2005, Holquist, 1997) but the underlying assumption is that

these differences arise from different understandings and misunderstandings rather than a

more deliberate self interest. In the circumstances, it is less surprising that power relations

is recognised as an issue that requires greater attention but is relatively neglected in

analyses (Daniels, 2001).

Directed orientation

The Directed orientation is represented by decisions about learning taken by someone other

than the individual recipient of learning and where the primary interest or beneficiary of its

outcomes is also for someone other than the recipient. In terms of theoretical perspectives,

it resonates with the concept of New Managerialism and its focus on exercising greater

control over professionals across the public sector (Le Grand, 2003, Deem and Brehony,

2005, Diefenbach, 2009, O'Reilly and Reed, 2011, Oliver, 2005) and, in responding to the

requirements of government, is illustrated by head teachers managing the CPD of their staff

(Burns, 2005, Bolam et al., 2007). As New Managerialism reflects the changing relationship

of professions and wider society with traditional autonomies giving way to pressures for

greater accountability (Cole, 2000), there are inevitable tensions. These may include:

resistance by rank and file staff in the public sector to more market and business oriented

models of organisation (Kirkpatrick, 2006); the contradiction with the argument that effective

change may depend upon altering attitudes and these are best secured through consensus

than imposition (Evans, 2007); and that managed CPD risks being more standardised,

overlooking the heterogeneity of a profession and the differing types and levels of support

individuals require (Day and Gu, 2007, Jensen, 2007).

The Directed orientation also has correspondence with analytical frameworks for

understanding change and learning in work. In view of its emphasis on the lead role of

managers, included here is Nonanka’s model of knowledge creation (Nonaka et al., 2000),

the idea of ‘pragmatist organisations’ with their reliance, for example, on leadership in

schools to generalise to other classrooms the successes of the most successful teachers

(Sabel, 2006). Moreover, despite the language of ‘collaborative organizations’ (Heckscher,

2007) and ‘collaborative communities’ (Maccoby and Heckscher, 2006), the learning

required for new ways of working in these studies arise from management initiatives.


Despite their similarities with the literature on collaborative learning and communities of

practice, therefore, the initiating role of management in shaping learning strategies is

distinctive. Nevertheless, these models highlight differences in how managers lead the

learning associated with securing change; and these differences can matter, indicative

evidence showing an association between high involvement (in decision making, what and

how work is done, etc.) and training quality and job satisfaction (Felstead et al., 2010,

Felstead et al., 2005) and between teamworking and performance (Procter and Burridge,

2008). Moreover, even within the ambit of public sector organisations subject to New

Managerialist changes, there is scope for their leaders ‘transmitting’ external requirements

into quite different learning and change strategies.

External drivers of learning in work may also come from client groups and, as a result,

become its determinants and beneficiaries, a small scale study of four solicitors showing the

learning involved in dealing with the flow of new case judgements (Gold et al., 2007) but also

highlighting the elision of working and learning (Sennett, 2008). A more disturbing example

of ‘others’ being the determinant and beneficiary of training is the pharmaceutical industry,

viewed by some in the UK as well as the US as using its financial resources to shape and

provide the CPD of physicians to benefit its own business more than the needs of patients

(Relman, 2007, Cruddas and Gannon, 2009).

RESEARCHING THE MIXED ECONOMIES OF CLIW Understanding learning in work The matrix in Table 1 is a means of classifying and comparing the contributions to

understanding CLIW provided by the approaches discussed in the previous section. The

issues and areas explored are set out as questions organised into four loosely defined sets:

motivation, modalities, measurement and methodologies. A tick is shown in a cell order to

represent activity in an area and two ticks where activity is substantial. In terms of potential

synergy, what is striking and potentially fruitful is the relatively limited overlap in areas of

enquiry within the four domains. Moreover, even where there is overlap, there is often no

duplication because of differences in the way the same or similar questions are examined.


Table 1: Understanding continuing learning in work

Personal Regulatory Responsive Directed

Motivation

Why is it undertaken?

Who decides on access?

Who pays?

Modalities

How is it undertaken?

What is undertaken?

Measurements

By whom is it undertaken?

How much occurs?

How much does it cost?

What are the outcomes?

Methodologies, whether typically:

Positivist/Interpretivist/Hybrid P P I/H I/H

Quantitative/qualitative/mixed Quant. Quant. Qual. Qual./Mixed

Motivation

As the organising principle of the four orientations is interest, it is evident in all relevant cells

of the Table, excluded only from ‘Regulated’ as no studies of CLIW exist within that

orientation. Of course, the assumptions about interest differ markedly from an explicit

assumption of self-interest in the Personal orientation to the implication of client interest in

Responsive and a managed client interest in Directed. Yet interest, whether on behalf of self

or others, is somehow not centre-stage in these studies and, as a result, individual agency

and motivation are seldom examined. The use of the phrase mixed economies in the title is

chosen, therefore, to indicate that motivations for CLIW are not reducible to single or simple

categories; Sennett and Smith are both only partially correct. Understanding more about

CLIW and its successes and failures may benefit from examining motivations more explicitly

and may require studies that place greater emphasis on individuals and their choices.

Related to this is the question on who decides access, which is examined in two

orientations, although only in limited ways, yet these decisions may well influence motivation

and outcomes; as much may be true of who pays.


Modalities

How CLIW is undertaken is treated rather cursorily in the Personal domain, many studies

identifying whether or not some training has occurred. This limited conception contrasts

sharply with studies in the Responsive and Directed domain which are particularly strong in

this area, with studies in the Responsive and Directed domains sometimes examining the

content of the CLIW and how individuals - or more likely teams – set out to resolve them.

Measurements

The strength of studies in the Personal domain is the attempt to measure how much CLIW

occurs, albeit often using a limited concept of learning - as training. Studies in this domain

are strong in identifying the typical demographics of individuals who benefit from CLIW, often

doing so using comparative methods so that activities in different organisational types and

sectors of the economy are examined. These are also the only studies that examine the

cost of CLIW, although these are few in number. Outcomes are examined in all three

relevant domains but differ in focus: in the Personal domain, at best there are attempts to

explain CLIW’s contribution to productivity and economic growth; in the Responsive domain,

the knowledge creation models report the outcomes of their interventions and, as with the

Directed domain, largely rely on qualitative accounts of benefits. A rare attempt at linking

evidence on CLIW in schools with measurable pupil outcomes suffered from design and

response problems (Bolam et al., 2006).

Methodologies

The dominant methodologies of the Personal (and Regulated) domain is positivist and

contrasts with the interpretivist and hybrid methodologies evident in studies in the

Responsive and Directed domains; by the latter is meant studies that often claim to be

interpretivist but, for example, in adopting structured interview schedules, pre-organise the

data collection framework in ways that are akin to a positivist methodology.

Predictably, the positivist methodologies of studies in the Personal domain use largely

quantitative methods, often drawing upon existing large scale data sets and applying a

variety of statistical methods. In the Responsive and Directed domains, qualitative methods

occur but there is also greater likelihood of mixed methods being applied, including some of

the same statistical methods used in studies in the Personal domain.

Given a number of questions where there is no overlap between domains, differences in

approaches even where this occurs and some areas with no activity, what are the

implications for research? Rather than have a general discussion of the potential for


synergy between these domains, a more specific and applied approach is adopted by taking

two features of the information in Table 1 and beginning to sketch their implications for

research. The first of these is the potential where the Table shows an absence of work and,

in particular, in the Regulated domain, while the second considers combining the strength of

the Responsive and Directed domains in how CLIW is undertaken with the strength of the

Personal domain in its focus on who undertakes it, how much occurs and its cost.

Regulatory contexts Pressure in the UK and elsewhere for greater public accountability by professional groups to

their clients and wider society has now been a feature of public policy and public

expectations for more than a quarter of a century and there is ample evidence showing how

professionals, particularly those is the public sector, have responded or been required to

respond to those pressures. What has this meant for both the regulation of professional

learning in these professions and the learning activities of members?

Analyses within the conceptual - and ideological - framework of the Regulated domain it

might be expected that professional bodies act decisively to meet concerns about their

practice whilst practice itself might change only modestly or, to the extent that it does, shifts

the cost of meeting greater regulatory requirements onto their clients. Analyses within the

Responsive domain, on the other hand, might expect professional groups to respond no less

decisively but more substantively in policing practice, ensuring legitimate concerns with

quality are addressed, including changes in the behaviour of members. Whilst there are also

reactions that can be suggested for the personal and directed domains, these suffice for this

discussion and, for the time being, the argument that these concerns are unjustified is

abstracted out.

Learning processes and economic activity

The limited definition of CLIW in many studies in the Personal domain contrasts with its

differentiation in the Responsive and Directed domains, as the typology in Table 2

exemplifies (Eraut, 2007).


Table 2: A typology of early carer learning

Work Processes with

learning as a

by-product

Learning Activities located

within work or learning

processes

Learning Processes at or

near the workplace

Participation in group

processes

Working alongside others

Consultation

Tackling challenging tasks

and roles

Problem solving

Trying things out

Consolidating, extending and

refining skills

Working with clients

Asking questions

Getting information

Locating resource people

Listening and observing

Reflecting

Learning from mistakes

Giving and receiving

feedback

Use of mediating artefacts

Being supervised

Being coached

Being mentored

Shadowing

Visiting other sites

Conferences

Short courses

Working for a qualification

Independent study

Whilst learning activities are common (e.g. asking questions, getting information, etc.), the

classification depends on whether the principal object of an activity was working or learning,

so the typology distinguishes between ‘work processes with learning as a by-product’ from

‘learning processes at or near the workplace’. However, this second category includes items

differing sharply in terms of their proximity to the workplace and, therefore, their likely short

term consequence for production. Table 3 reconfigures the items so that the learning

processes in each category are progressively more distant from direct economic activity,

also adding observations on possible implications which affect personal and organisational

factors as well as measurable resources.


Table 3: Learning processes and economic activity

Work Processes with

learning as a by-product (CLIW1)

Learning Processes at the workplace (CLIW2)

Learning Processes away from the workplace (CLIW3)

Learning Processes independent of the workplace (CLIW4)

Learning processes

Participation in group processes Working alongside others Consultation Tackling challenging tasks and roles Problem solving Trying things out Consolidating, extending and refining skills Working with clients

Being supervised Being coached Being mentored

Shadowing Visiting other sites Conferences

Short courses Working for a qualification Independent study

Employee resources

Making best use of learning as a by-product probably requires some time to reflection. What are personal and organisational factors that encourage this to take place?

What are the motivational factors that influence commitments of supervisors and supervisees, etc.?

Assuming employer pays, cost likely to be low; key issue likely to be quality of CLIW. Challenge of transferring learning to workplace.

Personal motivation. Direct cost depends on who pays. Challenge of transferring learning to workplace.

Employer resources

What are the implications for an organisation if productive use of learning as a by-product is to be encouraged?

Opportunity cost of activities likely to be low. The nature of employer support for these processes.

Opportunity costs incurred. Challenge of transferring learning to workplace.

Direct cost may be relatively low if worker bears the cost of time out of the workplace. Risk of mismatch between employee expectations and opportunities.

The first cell in row 1 (CLIW1) corresponds exactly with Eraut’s first category, where learning

may occur but does so as a by-product of work processes and appear to incur no direct cost.

The remaining three cells disaggregate Eraut’s second category on a range from low to high


in terms of their likely loss of direct output. Rows 2 and 3 identify possible implications of

these different forms of CLIW with consequence for cross-disciplinary research.

Already cited is recent work seeking to identify the contribution of CLIW to economic growth

in the EU (O'Mahony, 2012) but this is CLIW4, courses and seminars. Yet, Eraut notes that

learning as a by-product (CLIW1) ‘accounted for a very high proportion of the reported

learning of the people we interviewed’ and German data (Kuwan et al, 2003: 302, cited in

Muller and Jacob, 2008: 139) on workers’ perceptions of means of learning, ranked ‘self-

learning in the workplace and experiences from former workplaces’ (CLIW1) as the most

important, followed by ‘instructions by and learning from colleagues and supervisors at the

workplace’ (CLIW2) with ‘Formal further training provided in the firm or by outside suppliers’

at third place (CLIW3 and CLIW4) with the rest classed as ‘private self-learning’ (CLIW4).

These are not immeasurable; for example, trainee dentists typically learn through CLIW1

processes but trainers and trainees were able to identify sessions where CLIW2 learning

was introduced (Firmstone, 2009) and the UK Labour Force Survey includes a question

about time spent in on-the-job training. Even if we disregard CLIW1 (it’s work), also ignoring

CLIW2 and CLIW3 probably understates the contribution of CLIW to productivity and

economic growth, possibly significantly given their lower cost and reported worker

preferences.

CONCLUSION Despite the attention given in public service reform to re-shaping professional boundaries,

there is little work within the ‘Regulatory’ domain, examining whether, how and with what

consequence regulatory bodies have re-shaped CLIW. The other area where there is limited

work across all four domains is on the cost of CLIW and, indeed, of the differing cost and

economic impact of its different sub-sets (Table 3). These are areas that might usefully be

explored through a comparative, longitudinal and mixed method enquiry. By comparative is

meant that it would include a number of professions and require its survey population to be

from public and private sectors. A longitudinal study would provide data on changes in the

professional bodies’ expectations of CLIW by its members, as well as evidence on changes

in the type and scale of activities. In terms of methods, documentary analysis would show

changes in formal expectations of CLIW, surveys such as the Labour Force Survey provide

data on levels of CLIW activity and interviews would be needed for a perspective on

changes in modes of CLIW; these would also provide subjective accounts on the reasoning

for reported activities and assessments of the merits and demerits of the required changes.

Most difficult to examine would be how professional groups ‘managed’ change, such as

being able to shift costs directly onto clients or, indirectly, through government. Strategies

here would include scrutinising the quality of evidence advanced for special treatment and


the composition of groups making a special case as, in another context, is relevant to

corporate remuneration (Froud et al., 2008). Potentially, the outcome of such a study would

show some of the substantive positive and negative outcomes of a period of high

accountability for professional learning across a range of professions.


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Documents

WEST MIDLANDS CENTRAL HEALTH INNOVATION AND …€¦ · 3 WMC HIEC Education Theme Report 2 is little evidence that employees indirectly pay through lower wages’ (Bassanini et al.,