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Learning at work - a combination of experiencebased learning and theoretical educationKatarina Paulsson a & Lisa Sundin ba Royal Institute of Technologyb National Institute for Working LifePublished online: 08 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Katarina Paulsson & Lisa Sundin (2000) Learning at work - a combination of experiencebased learning and theoretical education, Behaviour & Information Technology, 19:3, 181-188, DOI:10.1080/014492900406173

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Learning at work ±a combination of experience-based learning and theoretical education

KATARINA PAULSSON ² and LISA SUNDIN ³

² Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. National Institute for Working Life, Ostersund Branch,

Box 601, 832 23 FroÈ soÈ n, Sweden. e-mail: katarina.paulsson@niwl.se

³ National Institute for Working Life, Ostersund Branch, Box 601, 832 23 FroÈ soÈ n, Sweden;e-mail: lisa.sundin@niwl.se

Abstract. Training and learning at work is important asemployees competence has to meet organisational requirementsfor ¯ exibility. This study examines conditions and obstacles inintegrating a web-based course at work in order to enhanceemployees level of competence. Employees view of workingcondition, competence and how they learn at work is also ofimportance. A selection of 35 people was made at a companywhich is part of a large business. The design was quantitativewith complementary qualitative data. The employees had apositive attitude towards work despite increasing di� culties inwork tasks and an increasing workload, which was the greatestbarrier of integrating the web-based course at work. Compe-tence development involved a certain degree of stress, but wasoutweighed by the fact that it was stimulating and led to thework feeling easier. To manage work, knowledge was obtainedprimarily by colleagues and company courses.

1. Introduction

Since the very beginning of industrialisation, the

working life and the organisation of work have been

subject to constant change. Globalisation, the demand

that more goods and services have to be produced in a

shorter time, and the development of new technology

and new applications have meant that work and itscontent have changed (Barnatt 1997). This has a� ected

the individual employees such that their situations have

changed from security of employment to employability

and adaptability (LoÈ nn 1996). In order for the

individual to be able to get and to keep a job, therequirement that they have the right abilities has

increased, and thereby the competence of the employees

and their capacity for learning have become more and

more important. The employee has to be functionally

¯ exible in his work, and to have a wide and overlappingcompetence in order to carry out varying tasks within

the organisation (Barnatt 1997). The chance the

individual is given in order to be able to handle

demands for an increase or a change in competence

depends on how great an in¯ uence the employee has

over his own work, together with his chance of

maintaining and developing his knowledge. A jobcharacterised by having control over daily tasks

stimulates the individual’ s development, increases moti-

vation to learn and the chances of coping with future

changes (Karasek and Theorell 1990, Levi 1998).Discussions within educational research touch on

the similarities and di� erences between the concepts

of learning at work, education and competence.

Forsberg (1990) and EllstroÈ m (1996) state that

learning is a constantly ongoing process, whichmay be planned but is often unconscious. This

process controls actions which lead to change.

EllstroÈ m (1996) goes further and di� erentiates the

formal learning from the informal, where the former

is planned in accordance with certain de® ned goals

and takes place within teaching institutions. Informal

learning is spontaneous and based on experience,and happens outside teaching institutions. He states

that it is important to combine formal and informal

learning with the aim of strengthening the learning

process. These two forms taken on their own are

limited; purely formal learning risks being dependenton the learning situation, thereby making it di� cult

to convert so that the new knowledge can be

applied at work. Purely experiential learning, based

on what happens in one’s own work situation,

BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOG Y, 2000, VOL. 19, NO. 3, 181±188

Behaviour & Information TechnologyISSN 0144-929 X print/ISSN 1362-3001 online Ó 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd

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means that problems can arise in the abstraction of

the received knowledge into other situations (Ell-

stroÈ m 1996, Docherty 1996).

Forsberg (1990:16) de® ne education as `an arrange-ment a situation or a series of situations where people

are to learn something. Education has more or less

clearly de® ned pre-set goals and content. Learning can

take place in education, but also and perhaps mostoften takes place outside education’ . The most

important di� erence between the concepts of learning

and education are that education does not necessarily

lead to learning, and learning does not need to be

connected with education but can take place apart

from it (EllstroÈ m 1996, Svensson 1997). Furthermore,

EllstroÈ m (1996) and Forsberg (1990) state that onebasic condition for learning to occur at work is that

an exchange occurs between the individual and his

working situation. The area of work in which the

individual is active provides both opportunities for

and barriers to learning. The actions of the individual,depending on individual characteristics, are also

important where they a� ect the chances for learning.

EllstroÈ m (1996:80) describes the following factors as

important in order for a learning process to take

place;

· The participation of work colleagues in formula-

tion of goals, planning and development of

activities

· Tasks with a high learning potential

· Information and deepened theoretical knowledge

· Local experiments for testing di� erent alternative

actions

· Exchange of experience and re¯ ection

· Group processes, workplace culture and organisa-

tional structures which support learning

· Support, but also a pressure for change and

legitimisation from the management at di� erent

levels in the organization

The concept of competence has been discussed andanalysed from many di� erent perspectives. Compe-

tence can be de® ned as the ability to solve problems

put before the employee in his daily work. The

importance of developing and using a network of

contacts for solving the problems which occur is also

stressed (Antilla 1997). According to EllstroÈ m(1996:11) competence is the ability of an individual

to act in relation to a speci® c task, situation or job

where this ability covers knowledge, intellectual and

practical skills together with social competence,

attitudes and personal characteristics. Competencecan also be regarded as that knowledge which is

useful in the working life (Svensson 1997).

2. Background to this project

A large Swedish concern has undergone comprehen-

sive restructuring during recent years. The primaryreason for this is the rapid technical development within

the computer and electronics industry. New production

methods and new technology mean that it is easier to

manufacture today’ s products, which in its turn hasa� ected the company’ s development and production.

These changes have also led to changes in the job

content (Bogren 1999). A development company within

the concern designs and develops telephony systems for

mobile and ® xed networks, and industrialises new

products. Work in the company is built up in three

stages; in the ® rst stage the circuit boards aremanufactured; in the second stage the magazine is built

up and tested, and in the third stage the nodes

(exchanges) are manufactured and the customers’ soft-

ware is completed. The three di� erent stages are carried

out by three work units which are organized in a similarway and in which the working environment and the

working conditions are comparable. The o� ce work

comprises administration, planning, design and support

of the products which are manufactured. Manufacturing

is done on the production line. Where the employeeswork in goal-directed groups, all the employees in the

unit work together closely. This involves a responsibility

which a� ects everything from the incoming order to the

manufacturing of the product and its installation. This

way of working requires the employee to have di� erent

types of problem-solving ability. This includes abilitiesin communication and co-operation with national and

international customers from di� erent organisational

cultures, and the ability to pass on new knowledge to

one’s own colleagues is also important.

The employees’ individual responsibilities are re-¯ ected in the strategy of the concern for providing

competence. The employee has to draw up his or her

own competence pro ® le in conjunction with his im-

mediate manager, together with his wishes in terms of

development routes, and to draw up an individualdevelopment plan. This plan has to fall into line with the

overall competence strategy of the company. The

Manager responsible for personnel continually identi® es

competence gaps within strategic competence areas and

draws up and carries out remedial plans for counter-

acting any de® ciencies. The units themselves select howthey will work on ful® lling the need for competence.

This may be a question of a training programme,

recruiting, on-the-job training, organisational develop-

ment, co-operation with other companies or the

university. English is the language used within theconcern, and in personnel development conversations it

emerged that the employees lacked su� cient knowledge

K. Paulsson and L . Sundin182

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in technical English. This knowledge is very important

when the employees are both reading and writing

production and installation handbooks, manuals etc.

in English. In addition, the language is very importantwhen working and communicating with foreign custo-

mers. When incoming orders and production load

¯ uctuate and knowledge in technical English was being

looked for, they looked for new ways to integrate thetraining into the work. This was made possible by a

web-based distance learning package in technical

English which could be carried out at low cost, which

was independent of time and space, and therefore

¯ exible according to each employees working situation.

In addition, the distance between the learning situation

and the workplace was minimised so that the theoreticalknowledge (the formal learning) was integrated with the

daily work tasks (the informal learning).

A project was carried out at the Working Life

Institute at OÈ stersund with the aim of studying learning

at work and how the competence of individual employ-ees in industry could be raised with the help of ICT

(Information and Communication Technology). One

part of the project was to follow and evaluate a web-

based distance learning course at the company described

above, with the aim of carrying out a study of thepreconditions and hindrances for this type of education.

3. Aim

The overall aim of the study was to research:

· preconditions and hindrances in being able to

integrate web-based distance learning into work

· survey how employees regard the working condi-

tions, competence and competence development

opportunities and how they learn at work, and

· any di� erences between units in terms of these

questions.

4. Method

4.1. Design of the study

Course participants were recruited through develop-

ment talks with line managers at the workplace. Before

the start of the course the participants were informedabout the study and its aims, and were guaranteed

anonymity. In addition, they were given information

about the training and technical information about

connection to the web and where they should go if they

encounter problems. After this the participants ® lled in aquestionnaire which were collected the same day. They

were also invited to take part in an interview about their

experiences of the course and how they regarded

learning at work. The participants were given just over

three months to carry out the training.

4.2. Selection

Thirty-® ve people were selected from the 480 whowork at the development company. Of these 35, ten were

women and the average age of the selected people was

34.5 years. The majority (70% ) had an educational

background of at least three years at college and a

relatively short time of employment at the company

(average = 1.5 years).

4.3. Training/course material

The training material was put together by AMU

Delta Utveckling AB in OÈ stersund and consisted of astudy guide via the web with accompanying literature in

book format. AMU provided the tutoring resources in

the form of trained teachers of English. The design of

the training included communication with the tutor by

e-mail. The training material was divided into threemodules. It started with a knowledge test via the web

which was e-mailed to the tutor, and after this the

participants received a password for logging into the

course. After each module a number of exercises were

done and sent in to be authorised by the tutor, and the

participants were then given a new password so thatthey could continue on to the next module.

4.4. Questionnaire

The questionnaire developed by the National Institute

for Working Life in OÈ stersund consisted of 36 questions

divided into six sections; personal information, employ-

ment conditions, experience with computers, under-

standing of the working conditions, understanding ofcompetence and competence development, and experi-

ence of web-based education and the expectations of the

course. The response alternatives in sections one, two

and six were mainly dichotomous. Other response

alternatives for sections three, four and ® ve were given

on a ® ve-point `Lickert Scale’ . The scale went from oneto ® ve, where one corresponded to `No, not at all’ and

® ve by `Yes, very much’. The questionnaire also

contained eight questions with open response alterna-

tives. The aim of these was to determine positive and

negative e� ects of computer usage at work/home, whatthe most important changes were to have taken place at

the workplace during the previous year, what knowledge

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was felt to be important in order to be able to take part

in the changes, and the expectations from taking part in

training via the web.

4.5. Interview

The basis for the interviews was developed from theresults of the questionnaire, and consisted of 21

questions. These were divided under two main headings

and covered learning at work and experience of training.

The interviews were carried out on two occasions, and

they were all tape recorded.

4.6. Omissions

As the questionnaire was distributed and collected in

at the same time, there were no systematic omissions.

There were, however, internal omissions on some of thequestions.

5. Results

5.1. Computer experience

All participants used computers at work for an

average of four to six hours each day. All had access

to the internet at work, and about 89% used it in their

work. The employees used the computer to a largeextent at work, and had a good knowledge about the

internet, and they could therefore be said to have a

familiarity with computers. The positive results of using

the computer were an increased familiarity with

computers, and the creation of space for learning when

communication and information seeking could be done

quickly and simply. In this way the employees could

keep themselves abreast of current information and useIT as a tool and an aid in their work. The negative

results of using computers show themselves in the social

and ergonomic aspects such as reduced interaction with

colleagues, impersonal communication and working in a® xed sitting posture, resulting in aches and pains. The

most common areas of use for computers at home were

word processing, e-mail, sur ® ng the internet and playing

games. The computer was used at home for up to two

hours a day by 80% of the participants. Participation in

web-based distance learning was a new experience for

94% of the participants.

5.2. How employees view their working conditions

As seen in Table 1 it can be said that the employeeshad a relatively positive view of their jobs; they were

involving, stimulating and contained a relatively high

degree of variation, even though they felt that the

work had become more di� cult than it was a year

previously, and that the workload had increased.The most important changes to have occurred

during the previous year were that the majority of

employees had got new work tasks and increased

responsibility, and that they were working more

independently. Organisational changes were faster

product changes with a shorter time to carry out thetasks. Increased opportunities for training were

another important change. Comparison between the

three units showed no di� erences in how the employ-

ees viewed their working conditions.

K. Paulsson and L . Sundin184

Table 1. Average values of working conditions.

Involvingwork tasks

Stimulatingwork tasks

Work is hardertoday than

one year ago

Worload ishigher today than

one year ago

Work varies moretoday than one

year ago

Mean 3.94 3.74 3.18 3.56 3.38Std. Deviation 0.94 1.04 1.17 0.99 1.23

Table 2. Average values of knowledge requirements.

Have time to learnnew tasks to cope

with work

Need increasedtheoretical knowledge

to cope with work

Higher level oftraining in order to

cope with work

Mean 2.49 3.41 3.12Std. Deviation 0.98 1.16 1.20

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5.3. Employees average values of knowledge requirements

Table 2 shows that the employees felt that they could

only manage to a relatively small extent to learn newthings as new demands occurred in their work. Regard-

ing demands for increased theoretical knowledge and

the need for higher levels of training in order to cope

with their work, the participants stated that thesedemands and needs had increased during the previous

year.

Comparisons between units, displayed in F igure 1,

shows that there were certain di� erences in how these

knowledge requirements were perceived. In unit two, all

the participants stated that they could not learn new

things as new demands occurred in their work. Fourteen% of the participants in unit one and 27% in unit three

stated that they did manage to learn new things as new

demands occurred in their work. For the variables of

demand for increased theoretical knowledge and the

need for a higher level of training now compared with ayear ago, there were no signi® cant di� erences between

the units.

5.4. Employees view of competence and opportunities forcompetence development

Regarding the views about competence and the

opportunity to in¯ uence competence development, it

was felt that continual competence development at work

certainly did cause stress. Though this was outweighedby the fact that continual competence development at

work also brought stimulation and that the work was

felt to be easier. This is displayed in Table 3. The

employees also stated that they could in¯ uence their

opportunities for competence development themselvesto a relatively large extent.

Comparisons between units showed that 14% and

20% of the employees in units one and three respectively

stated that continual competence development at work

caused stress. In unit two, none of the employees statedthat continual competence development at work caused

stress.

In unit two, (83% ) of the employees stated that they

could in¯ uence their opportunities for competence

development, while in units one and three only about

40% said the same thing, as shown in Figure 2.There were no great di� erences in the variables of

continual competence development at work being

stimulating or that the work became easier.

5.5. Employees view of learning at work

The ways in which employees learnt what was

important for carrying out their work were mainly from

friends/colleagues and via the company’s courses.

Learning from work supervisors/managers and fromexternal courses occurred to a somewhat lower extent.

Learning from suppliers, the university and the internet/

internet training hardly occurred at all (Table 4).

F igure 3 shows that, knowledge in unit one was

obtained mainly from the company’s courses (50% ), inunit two from friends/colleagues (60% ), and in unit

three from friends/colleagues (63% ) and from the

company’ s courses (63% ). There were also di� erences

in whether the employees learnt what was important for

L earning at work 185

Figure 1. Di� erences in knowledge requirements.

Table 3. Employee’ s view on competence and opportunities for competence development.

Continouscompetencedevelopmentinvolve stress

Continouscompetencedevelopmentis stimulating

Continouscompetencedevelopment

unburden work tasks

Opportunity toin¯ uence

competencedevelopment

Mean 2.49 4.17 3.66 3.71Std. Deviation 0.95 0.79 1.00 0.97

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carrying out their work via supervisors/managers. In

unit two, (40% ) learnt in this way, while in unit threeonly (13% ) of the employees learnt from their super-

visors/managers. In unit one no such learning took

place. It was only in unit two that the employees learnt

what was important for carrying out their work via

university/college.The most prominent aspects from the interviews was

that the employees experienced that the workload had

increased noticeably during the previous year, and that

product changes happened more and more quickly. The

employees felt that this placed demands on them toincrease their knowledge. Another prominent aspect was

that new knowledge was obtained from work colleagues.

6. Discussion

There are di� culties in studying learning at work

when in many cases it consists of unconscious and

unplanned processes which are controlled by the activity

and the processes which are going on within the

organisation (EllstroÈ m 1996). The involvement of workcolleagues in goal formulation, planning and business

development is a factor which EllstroÈ m (1996) describes

as being important in order to make a learning process

happen more easily at work. The work in the studiedcompany is organised in goal-directed working groups

and the employees feel that the work is involving,

stimulating and varied, and this can be an expression of

involvement. The stated strategy of competence provi-

sion to be found in the concern also agrees with theinvolvement in goal formulation, planning and business

development which EllstroÈ m describes. There is a need

for higher level of training and more theoretical knowl-

edge to cope with work today.

This put demands on the employees for furthertraining and learning at work. In the goal-directed

groups the employees a� ects everything from the

incoming order to the manufactured product. This

working process involve responsibility and in¯ uence

over the work tasks which together with high demands

on ability to cope with work is described by Karasekand Theorell (1990) as the good work. The good work

stimulates the individual’s development, increases moti-

vation to learn and the chances of coping with future

changes. In general the employees view their work as a

good since its both varied and stimulating and thereforeit can be said that there exists work tasks with a high

learning potential.

K. Paulsson and L . Sundin186

Table 4. By whom employee’s learn what is important for carry out work.

F riends/colleagues

Supervisors/managers

Companycourses Suppliers

Internet/Intranet

Externalcourses

Universitycourses

Mean 3.83 2.34 3.31 1.91 1.53 2.32 1.59Std. Deviation 1.04 1.16 0.80 1.34 0.86 1.22 0.99

Figure 2. Employee’s view on competence and opportunitiesfor competence development. Figure 3. By whom employee’s learn at work.

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The factor that information and deeper theoretical

knowledge make learning easier is strengthened by the

tendencies which were shown, where the employees

obtained information quickly and easily with the aid ofinformation and communication technology. They also

stated that they needed a higher level of education and

greater theoretical knowledge in order to be able to do

their work. One barrier was that the employees statedthat they did not have time to learn all the new things

which they needed in order to be able to do their work.

This in its turn could be one reason why information

and knowledge were obtained from work colleagues.

Workplace culture is characterized by group processes

which support learning, especially in regard to the

exchange of experience between colleagues. At theforefront of these are the ability to solve problems,

learn from the experience of others and transfer these to

one’s own working situation. The workload and the

pressure for change which existed at the workplace

contributed to the fact that there was no time forre¯ ection and thinking.

In general the employees consider themselves having a

good opportunity to in¯ uence their competence devel-

opment. There are however di� erences between the

units. The employees at unit two regard that theirpossibility to in¯ uence competence development is twice

as large as the possibility at the other two units. In those

two units there seems to be a relation between the level

of opportunity to in¯ uence competence development

and if competence development involve stress. This

relationship was not found at unit two. The results alsoshowed that the learning processes within the units were

di� erent despite the similarities in the work organisation

and the working environment. Learning in unit one

could, according to EllstroÈ m’s (1996) de® nition, be seen

as being purely formal where learning at work onlyhappened via the company’ s courses. In unit two the

learning occurred primarily from work colleagues and

supervisors, which is characterized as informal learning.

EllstroÈ m (1996) states that the learning process is

strengthened when the two forms of learning arecombined, which was the case for unit three where the

employees learnt both from colleagues (informal learn-

ing) and from the company’ s courses (formal learning).

The occurrences of these di� erent relationships need to

be further investigated to be able to understand how the

learning processes develops.Results concerning the Web-based training showed

that there were a generally positive attitude towards

undergoing training in technical English. When asked

what knowledge would make it simpler for the employ-

ees to follow the development/changes taking place atthe workplace, the overwhelming majority stated that

they needed to learn English, technical English. Despite

the positive attitude, the training was not carried out to

the extent expected. A number of factors contributed to

this, the primary one being the high workload and the

second being a strong pressure for change which existedat the workplace. This meant that the employees did not

have the room to prioritise the training before the work

tasks that had to be done. When the workload is high

and there are few free moments for studying, speci® ctimes must be set aside for the training. One decisive

question was how the management and the course

participants prioritised the training. In this case, all the

responsibility was put on the individual employees. They

themselves had to create time to carry out the training,

which to a large extent meant that they had to study in

times outside the proper working hours. The desire forcerti® cation also re¯ ected the lack of legitimisation by

the management. The employees wished to be able to

demonstrate that they had been through the course in

the hope that they would be paid accordingly. The

employees who tried to study at work stated that it wasespecially important that the technology was function-

ing when they get the time to do the training. Technical

problems such as slow connection to the internet,

logging in to the course with several di� erent passwords

were found and they stole time from the training sessionitself.

The learning process at the workplace occurred in

many cases, as people interacted with their collea-

gues and exchanged experiences. Where training was

concerned, these processes a� ected the employee

negatively. The employees experienced constantinterruptions when sitting at their own computers,

where colleagues come to get help in solving their

problems, or to exchange experiences, the telephone

ringing and it being di� cult to get peace and quiet

to concentrate. This caused di� culties in getting thecontinuity and the whole picture of what the

training really involved and what was required of

the employee to ® nish the course. The work

organisation and the types of jobs at this company

also contributed to the fact that the time and spaceindependence which are speci® c to web-based learn-

ing had not been any advantage; instead, they were

more of a disadvantage. There is instead a need to

set aside speci® c times for carrying out the training,

in a speci® c room where one can go in order to

concentrate on the course in peace and quiet.Another contributory factor was that the employees

found that they received no support or motivation-

raising input from their supervisors. The absence of

personal contact which occurred between teacher/

tutor and the student meant that the training wasexperienced as static and that the knowledge gained

from the exchange of experience disappeared.

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7. Conclusion

To be able to integrate a web-based course with work,

it is essential that employees have time to attend thecourse even though the workload is high. To succeed in

this the management must prioritise the training and

create space for its implementation. Since the learning

processes in some ways di� ers between the units, onepossibility to improve future implementation would be

trying out di� erent alternative actions according to

learning processes within each separate unit.

Since the selection in this study is rather small it is

important to bare in mind that what has been reported

in this study only can be seen as tendencies. Even though

they are just tendencies, some interesting relationshipswould still be worth further and deeper investigation.

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