Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 25, Issue 3

The date of writing this editorial does not exist in the ancient Mayan calendar. This has prompted a lot of people to speculate on the end of the world, and on a more philosophical level to discuss who we are and were we come from. In the case of us Editors, we have both come to JWL from the quality management school of thought. The way we have learned to understand quality management (not so much by rules and guidelines – the assurance side– but as continuous learning and improvement) we see strong connections between workplace learning and quality management.

In our way of understanding QM, it is mostly a management question –management of people, not of systems. In the terms of Kolb’s learning cycle: organizations should delve in reflective observation of what the results of the activity are – then conceptualize what they find – then experiment with alternative ways of working – and this should finally lead into a positive experience of improvement (see, e.g. Wade and Hammick, 1999).

We believe this is how organizations should be brought to learn about their own activity. Recently we have been involved in building an auditable quality system framework based on the quality of learning, not on the quality of documentation or strictness of rules. In a practitioner paper we report on our experiences in building that kind of system, as well as the main principles of the system assessing quality of learning.

Naturally in this issue there are also a selection of double-peer-reviewed research articles. The issue opens with the article “Effect of using a Personal Development Plan on learning and development” by Simon Beausaert,Mies Segers, Didier Fouarge, and Wim Gijselaers. From their data of over 2,000 pharmacy assistants they conclude that Personal Development Plan users have a history of more learning activities than average non-users, but PDP does not necessarily stimulate its users to more future learning activities, nor lead to higher self-evaluation in job competencies.

In the second article, Anne Pässilä, Tuija Oikarinen and Anne Kallio reflect on telling the “story of the work” in a forest industry company and three health care companies. The method is a novel one but generally supports our (Kolb’s) idea of improvement through reflection, and in their concluding remarks they state their reflective storytelling dialogues “led to excitement about improvement ideas but also fears whether it was possible to put these ideas into practice”.

Finally, Eva Kyndt, Natalie Govaerts, Loes Keunen and Filip Dochy examine learning intentions of low-qualified employees with a survey including 673 respondents and a qualitative study of 14 interviews. They confirm that self-directedness in career processes and financial satisfaction are positively related to the learning intentions of low-qualified employees. However, the interviews also suggest that learning itself has negative connotations to these low-qualified employees, mostly due to their earlier formal learning experiences.

We hope you find our selection of articles interesting and that you, dear reader, continue the discussion.

Sara Cervai, Tauno KekäleEditors