Developing Knowledge for Qualified Professionals

Abstract

This chapter considers workplace learning and its link with performance. It draws on research that illustrates workplace learning in various professions, including nursing, engineering and chartered accountancy. These disparate professions offer useful and at times common insights—many of which will also have resonance in the teaching profession—into the nature and complexity of the learning that happens within workplace settings. Before looking at the implications of the findings of this research, however, the chapter looks briefly at some concepts that underpin how we look at workplace learning. This includes looking at knowledge and memory, so that we can understand that workplace learning is influenced by different types of knowledge and by how we remember and apply that knowledge. Then, using the lessons from the research, various aspects of workplace learning are illustrated: performance, the influence of time on cognition and performance, and links between tacit knowledge and performance. The chapter then looks in more depth at one research study with nurses, engineers and chartered accountants, to investigate the factors that affect their learning at work and the learning trajectories that they take. Finally the chapter takes a look at managers’ roles in supporting workplace learning; and at the learning, performance and (often neglected) strategic aspects of continuous professional learning.