Purpose: This paper aims to examine the professional learning of rural police officers. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative case study involved interviews and focus groups with 34 police officers in Northern Scotland. The interviews and focus groups were transcribed and analysed, drawing on practice-based and sociomaterial learning…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline some of the issues related to enabling the accreditation of prior experiential learning (APEL) in doctoral level awards, and illustrate the effects for candidates, others involved in the process and higher education (HE). Design/methodology/approach: The paper is a mainly qualitative evaluation…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how students with workplace learning experience the process of the assessment of prior experiential learning (APEL) in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: This is an inductive and exploratory study drawing on methodology from the field of academic literacies. It addresses two questions:…

Purpose: This paper aims to present the results of a study whose general objective is to characterize the affective states experienced in response to different teaching activities used in a workshop for developing entrepreneurial skills. It seeks to answer the following question: how affections and experiential learning strategies interrelate in…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to reveal and analyse dominant learning processes in emergency response work from the fire-fighters' point of view, and how fire-fighters develop their competence. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted an explorative approach using participant observation. The objective of this open-minded approach…

Purpose: The paper seeks to argue for a theoretical contribution that deals with the detection of collective learning. The aim is to examine and clarify the genesis processes of collective learning. The empirical basis is a telecoms context with task-driven networking across both internal and external organisational borders.…

Purpose: The aims of this study are: to present a training evaluation based on the "four levels model"; to demonstrate the value of experimental designs in evaluation studies; and to take a first step in the development of an evidence-based training program. Design/methodology/approach: The Kirkpatrick four levels model was used to evaluate the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate ways in which university students are introduced to disciplines and thence to the professions based on those disciplines. Design/methodology/approach: E-mail interviews with a broad sample of university teachers in a variety of professional disciplines formed the basis of a grounded theory…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how, when, and why emergency medicine residents learn while working in the chaotic environment of a hospital emergency room. Design/methodology/approach: This research used a qualitative interview methodology with thematic data analysis that was verified with the entire population of learners.…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to bridge the theoretical perspectives of workplace learning and teacher learning. Teacher learning takes place, for example, in the course of a teacher's work as well as in the institutional setting of a school. This article describes research conducted on such learning. Design/methodology/approach: The…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how a medium sized business has addressed what it has termed a "push-pull" method of management and organization development, based around an action learning approach. Design/methodology/approach: The paper sets out a methodology that other SMEs might look to replicate in their management and…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a retrospective reflection over unconscious, emergent learning among employees of an organization and to suggest how to capture these moments of experiential learning for future organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach: Action research in organizations is undertaken in interaction with…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize the transition from university to working life through different theoretical approaches. Inspired by Barnett the paper also asks: What is it to learn for an unknown future? According to Bartlett neither knowledge nor skills are sufficient to enable success in the contemporary world. What is…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop the sustained argument that explication can contribute to the emergence and development of the philosopher-manager who is appropriately sceptical of generalisations, and confident in their own abilities to develop local, valid and meaningful theories based on their wisdom and personal experience.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value and learning potential of work-based projects to both worker-researchers and their organisations. Design/methodology/approach: Within the School of Health, Community and Education Studies at Northumbria University, work-based learning (WBL) programmes are becoming increasingly important as…