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The primary objective of this paper is to suggest that researchers on workplace learning avoid an isolated learning discourse. The point at issue is that being a learner is just one aspect of people's sometimes complicated lives in the workplace, and that people may sometimes—for good reasons—resist a learning discourse if it is linked excessively to the educational system, management or researcher processes. It is suggested that associating learning excessively to a learner identity is problematic. A more comprehensive situated perspective on workplace learning may assist in understanding the different and sometimes conflicting aspects of learning situations in the workplace. The paper is based on recent literature on situated learning with a particular focus on workplace learning studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The English Skills for Life strategy symbolises the prominent place that adult basic skills have claimed in education and training policy in England since the beginning of this century. The strategy aims to improve the skills of a large number of learners over a ten year period (2001-2010). This paper explores what we can learn about the impact of the strategy from an analysis of available statistical data. The paper presents trends in participation and achievement over the first four years of the strategy, which indicate a pattern of diminishing returns to numbers participating over time, and which may well reflect the growing difficulties the policy will face of engaging 'hard to reach' learners. Alongside this analysis, the paper raises a number of issues concerning the limitations of available statistical data in providing answers to questions such as the progress made by learners and their subsequent progression, both within and beyond adult basic skills provision. The paper goes on to argue that the strong emphasis on a numerical target related to qualification outcomes may serve to focus both practitioners' and policy makers' attention on this aspect alone. This, it is argued, may serve the interests of international benchmarking of skills levels in the population, but may do rather less in helping to improve learners' lives and capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that the emergence of a new mode of production - co-configuration is generating new modes of expertise that EU policies for lifelong learning (LLL) are not designed to support professionals to develop. It maintains that this change can be seen most clearly when we analyse Small and Medium Size (SMEs) enterprises in the creative industries. Drawing on concepts from Political Economy - 'Moebius strip enterprise/expertise' and Cultural Historical Activity Theory - project-object' and the 'space of reasons', the paper highlights conceptually and through a case study of an SME in the creative industries what is distinctive about the new modes of expertise, before moving on to reconceptualise expertise and learning and to consider the implications of this reconceptualisation for EU policies for lifelong learning. The paper concludes that the new challenge for LLL is to support the development of new forms of expertise that are difficult to credentialise, yet, are central to the wider European goal of realising a knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the theoretical bases of leading models of learning styles and empirical evidence of their impact on achievement and motivation in post-16 education and training. We describe the review process, the development of an organizing framework to understand the field, presented in a continuum of families of learning styles, and a summary of our assessments of 13 influential models of learning styles. We conclude with a discussion of the place of learning styles within new frameworks for understanding thinking and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with the recognition that every learning theory rests on particular assumptions about the nature and capacities of the learners, this study provides an examination of the implicit premises upon which several of the more prominent learning theories – behaviourism, cognitivism, situated learning, and social cognitivism – have been built. Even as each theory is found to propose a slightly distinct conceptualization of human nature, none are found to accommodate acknowledgement of the role of the soul, the spiritual dimension, in determining individuals’ ability to learn. Expanding on Habermas’s and Mezirow’s ideas of learning domains as popularized by Cranton (1994), this paper shows that ultimately, the learning transaction hinges upon the phenomena of perceptions, and perceptions are realized through the realms of physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual input. This reconceptualization of learning to include the soul as a key determinant concludes with a concrete explanation of how acknowledgement of humans’ spiritual dimension holds significant potential for enhancing teaching-learning situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the first phase of a large-scale qualitative research project that explored the perceptions of training practitioners on how they understood the process by which we carry our knowledge and skill across different contexts. Clearly, this is a process of transition, where it is the individual who moves across the contexts and consequentially adapts, reshapes and makes decisions as to the applicability of his/her current competence within the new context of situation. The research has uncovered the complexity of this transition and the decision making involved, and provided participant support for some of the emerging theories of learning which take the concept of learning away from that of bounded learning where the material to be learnt in already known and there are experts who can transmit the necessary knowledge and skill to one of expansive learning where what is to be learned is not stable or well defined or understood ahead of time. The outcomes of the research, which are embedded in the developed model, suggest that we need to use formal learning to prepare our learners for the challenge of expansive learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary objective: to develop a scale to measure students' disposition to engage in lifelong learning. Research design, methods and procedures: using items that reflected the components of lifelong learning, we constructed a 14-item scale that was completed by 309 university and vocational college students, who also completed a measure of deep and surface learning. Main outcomes and results: the lifelong learning scale had reasonable reliability, and showed some differences between students in different discipline and institutions. As hypothesized, lifelong learning was positively related to the deep approach to learning and negatively to the surface approach. Conclusions: although the factors that contribute to the lifelong-learning attributes measured here have yet to be investigated, this questionnaire can provide an overall picture of a group's inclinations towards lifelong learning. It can help evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions, or allow individual students to understand their learning strengths and weaknesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]