How individuals learn to do more with less: The role of informal learning and the effects of higher-level education and unemployment in Ghana

This study used the PIAAC dataset to compare the effects of informal literacy learning on adults’ literacy proficiency to those of formal and non-formal learning. The study participants were Nordic adults aged 35–65 years. The statistical method was regression analysis. The results indicate that informal literacy learning had the most significant effect on Nordic adults’ literacy proficiency. Non-formal adult education had a clearly smaller effect, and formal adult education seemed to have a negative effect when background factors were controlled for. Informal learning, particularly reading outside work, had a significant effect independent of adults’ backgrounds, indicating that it offers also less-educated and unemployed adults the opportunity to develop literacy proficiency.

Background and objectives: All health and social care professionals learn on the job through both formal and informal learning processes, which contributes to continuous professional development (CPD). This study explored workplace learning in General Practices, specifically looking at the role of informal learning and the workplace practices that appear to support or restrict that learning, as well as how technology was integrated into these learning processes.Methods: Three focus groups with general practitioners, practice nurses, managerial and administrative staff were conducted followed by twelve individual semi-structured interviews with participants drawn from the focus groups. Three observations of multi-disciplinary team meetings were used to establish potential team-based learning activities.Results: Triggers for informal workplace learning included patients presenting challenging or unusual conditions; exposure to others’ professional practice; and policy driven changes through revised guidance and protocols. By exploring how these triggers were acted upon, we identified mechanisms through which the primary care workplace supports or restricts informal learning through working practices, existing technologies and inter-professional structures.Conclusion: Informal workplace learning was identified as arising from both opportunistic encounters and more planned activities, which are both supported and restricted through a variety of mechanisms. Maximising informal learning opportunities and removing barriers to doing so should be a priority for primary care practitioners, managers and educators.

Self-reflection is critical for visitors to make sense of an exhibit collection in which they are the subject of investigation and may play an important role in any informal learning context. This study examines this construct by listening for self-reflective talk at Mind, an exhibit collection focused on helping visitors explore aspects of themselves rather than external objects or phenomena. It addresses 3 questions: (a) What does self-reflective talk sound like in such a collection? (b) What categories of self-reflective talk are prevalent? (c) What types of exhibits engender what categories of self-reflective talk? Findings indicate that self-reflective talk comes in various forms. Self-monitoring talk, including self-assessments about how visitors are feeling and doing and what they know, is more prevalent than self-connecting talk, comments about visitors’ own lives, values, and their sense of self. Comparisons among different types of exhibits suggest that exhibits designed for multiple users prompt high frequencies of self-connecting talk and self-monitoring talk, whereas interactive exhibits and exhibits that pose a challenge elicit high frequencies of self-monitoring but not self-connecting talk. Additional work is needed to better understand self-reflection, its role in informal learning, and effective means of fostering self-reflection in science museums.

This study employed a qualitative research design to investigate informal learning among practicing instructional designers. Prior research has examined how instructional designers spend their time, make decisions, use theory, solve problems, and so on, but no published research has explored the nature and role of informal learning in instructional design work. Based on intensive interviews of practitioners in the field, this study produced eight themes organized according to two metathemes: (a) the nature of informal learning in instructional design practice and (b) instructional design as informal learning. Specific themes concerned what instructional designers learn through informal practical experience, how they learn it, and the meaning of this kind of learning for various aspects of their work. Overall, these results suggest that informal learning is a vital part of instructional design practice and that design itself can be thought of as a specialized type of informal learning. Other conclusions regarding informal learning in design are discussed and future directions for research are offered.

This study aims to examine how principals’ leader humility influences teachers’ innovative work behavior through the mediating roles of psychological safety and informal learning. This study used a quantitative survey method. There were four instruments used, including Teacher Innovative Work Behavior Scale, Expressed Humility Scale, Individual Psychological Safety Scale, and Informal Learning Scale. Data were collected from 221 teachers in Indonesia using a convenience sampling technique. Hypotheses were tested using Model 6 of the Hayes PROCESS macro. All hypotheses were supported by the data, indicating that the effect of leader humility on innovative work behavior is mediated by psychological safety (β = 0.06; 95% CI = [0.03, 0.11]), informal learning (β = 0.09; 95% CI = [0.02, 0.15]), and serial mediation of psychological safety and informal learning (β = 0.07; 95% CI = [0.03, 0.12]). These findings highlight the importance of school principal training focused on humility, interpersonal risk management training for teachers, the establishment of teacher learning groups, and enhancement of school management support for teachers’ innovation processes.

WhatsApp is extensively employed in academic settings for collaboration and information exchange; however, its potential for simultaneous academic and psychosocial support remains underexplored. This article draws from a study which investigated students’ experiences with WhatsApp as an informal learning and psychosocial support tool in chemical engineering undergraduate studies. Small WhatsApp groups, facilitated by the life coach in the first year, provided psychosocial support which was deemed necessary for helping students transition from high school to university. Over four years, students continued participating in course WhatsApp groups facilitating student–student engagement, communication with lecturers, and support from a life coach if needed. Qualitative data from 10 semi-structured interviews revealed the development of a supportive community of practice which enabled collaboration, communication, and empathy among students, lecturers, and the life coach on life and academic matters. However, some students experienced negative consequences, suggesting a need for further exploration of WhatsApp’s impact. This article advocates for continued research on WhatsApp’s role in informal learning, self-directed learning, and psychosocial support, particularly in large class settings.

ABSTRACTHigh percentages of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) drop out during their first 5 years in the classroom. Often, formal support systems are put in place to overcome ‘practice shock’. However, in this research, it was hypothesised that it is not the formal support structure put in place that determines whether starting teachers feel satisfied in their job and show perseverance but rather the amount of knowledge exchange that takes place. This was confirmed by the results of a first quantitative study. Then, a follow-up qualitative study showed that having the principal in the role of a mentor is often experienced as a mechanism of control or evaluation. Starting teachers prefer to choose their own mentor. They prefer their mentor not to be a superior but a close colleague whom they trust, who is teaching the same course in the same year. Our results have especially implications for onboarding of novice teachers. Since social informal learning (e.g. through the exchange of feedback with colleagues) benefits newly qualified teachers, it is important to create a safe and warm learning climate in which knowledge exchange can flourish. Also, NQTs should be given the opportunity to choose their mentor.

This study identified how informal learning affects learner self-efficacy and learning transfer in college students in the Department of Beauty, and analyzed whether learner self-efficacy plays a mediating role in the relationship between informal learning and learning transfer. Based on domestic and international prior studies, the theoretical background for informal learning, learner self-efficacy, and learning transfer was reviewed, and based on this, research models and hypotheses were derived. Of a total of 180 survey responses, 174 copies were used for the final analysis, excluding 6 copies that were unfaithful. As a result of the study, it was found that external exploration and self-reflection among the sub-factors of informal learning had a significant effect on learner self-efficacy, and it was also confirmed that learner self-efficacy also had a significant effect on learning transfer. In addition, it was found that informal learning has a direct effect on learning transfer, and learner self-efficacy has a mediating effect in the relationship between informal learning and learning transfer. These results suggest that college students majoring in beauty are actively using informal learning, and such learning experiences are effectively transferred to the actual beauty field. Therefore, in the field of beauty education, it is necessary to establish an evaluation and support system based on informal learning to reinforce learner self-efficacy and learning transfer.

Impact of Formal Education on Learners' Development in Ghana

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of a high-performance work system on human resource performance and the mediating effect of informal learning in this causal relationship. Design/Methodology/Approach – The research method of this study is a quantitative approach, and the data was aggregated to the 1st Human Capital Corporate Panel Survey II (HCCPS) by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education & Training (KRIVET) due to its focus on the experience of accounting experts in Korean companies. A total of 1,024 participants were included in this study. Findings – The study found that high-involvement work organization and high-commitment HRM had a positive effect on organizational commitment and job competence in Korean companies, and that informal learning had a partial mediating effect in the causal relationship between a high-involvement work organization and organizational commitment and job competence. Research Implications – From a theoretical perspective, this research highlights the importance of informal learning in linking high-performance work system with human resource performance. In addition, this study also demonstrates the relational impact of high-commitment HRM and high-involvement work organization in Korean companies, further expanding the literature on workplace performance. From a practical perspective, this study suggests that companies need to incorporate effective high performance work systems, and build an environment to enable active informal learning opportunities. In addition, institutions should promote learning initiatives to maximize human resource effectiveness, ultimately improving organizational performance.

One central issue in sports is the role of informal learning in organized child and youth sport in contrast to learning in the school context of physical education (PE). In Scandinavia, the model for organizing sports include an independent sports organization that organizes child and youth training on many levels, including the grassroots level and elite competitions organized within non-profit clubs and based on non-salaried voluntary work. In contrast to the public schooling context where physical education is led by educated and professional PE-teachers, organized child and youth club sports are based on parental engagement. Drawing on ten interviews with male coaches training their own children, this study examines how fathers are handling learning in the dual position as a father and a coach. This narrative analysis focuses on the theoretical concept of dilemmatic spaces in interviews and shows how shared cultural and societal storylines are used by the parental coaches in their personal stories. The results illustrate three dilemmatic spaces of learning that the participants must rhetorically handle. The first dilemma illuminates the dual position of both being a father, and at the same time acting as a coach. In the second dilemma, the fathers are seeking to balance between care of their child and increasing performance development. The third dilemma is balancing the training as child/parent quality time and the need for children to develop autonomy. The results show how the dual position of being a father and a coach can be both an asset in the relational building but also highly problematic and, in any case, involves a relational identity change. Learning in this dual position means that the fathers cannot act entirely as a coaches and disregard or override their parental position.

This chapter begins by questioning the narrow definition of learning used in much present writing concerning lifelong learning, which tends to focus on the purported economic and societal benefits of prolonging and widening participation in formal education and training programmes. In contrast, much valuable and non-trivial learning already goes on, and has always gone on, outside formal programmes of instruction. This is true both at work (Fevre et al, 2000) and in leisure (Gorard et al, 1999d). If such informal learning continues to be ignored by proponents of a learning society, then the result may be an unnecessary exclusiveness in definitions of a learning society, and an unjustifiable reliance on certification. An individual’s position within the social-structure of the determinants of participation, described in Chapters Four to Six – the objective opportunities available to particular social groups at particular places and times – is located chiefly by their personal characteristics such as age, gender, and family background. A 1982 ACACE (Advisory Council for Adult Continuing Education) survey suggested that the ability to take up opportunities was affected by personal motivation and individual circumstance, as well as by individuals’ knowledge of and the availability of learning opportunities (Sargant, 1996). Being a learner has therefore been described as a ‘praxis’ (Mezirow, 1990). However, at least one other possibility has emerged, as there are some individuals who do not fit our more general theory of early socio-economic determinants, since their will to act comes from a crisis in their later life. Their motivation may be dispositional (Edwards et al, 1993), of the type that tends to be the most underestimated by survey-type methods (Harrison, 1993).

The role of informal learning

It is assumed that future robots must coexist with human beings and behave as their companions. Consequently, the complexities of their tasks would increase. To cope with these complexities, scientists are inclined to adopt the anatomical functions of the brain for the mapping and the navigation in the field of robotics. While admitting the continuous works in improving the brain models and the cognitive mapping for robots’ navigation, we show, in this paper, that learning by imitation leads to a positive effect not only in human behavior but also in the behavior of a multi-robot system. We present the interest of low-level imitation strategy at individual and social levels in the case of robots. Particularly, we show that adding a simple imitation capability to the brain model for building a cognitive map improves the ability of individual cognitive map building and boosts sharing information in an unknown environment. Taking into account the notion of imitative behavior, we also show that the individual discoveries (i.e. goals) could have an effect at the social level and therefore inducing the learning of new behaviors at the individual level. To analyze and validate our hypothesis, a series of experiments has been performed with and without a low-level imitation strategy in the multi-robot system.

BackgroundHRQoL is an indicator of individuals’ perception of their overall health, including social and environmental aspects. As a multidimensional concept, HRQoL can be influenced by a multitude of factors. Studies of HRQoL and factors associated with it among home-dwelling older adults have often been limited to inpatient settings or to a sub-population with a chronic disease. Studying HRQoL and its correlating factors among this population, by providing an ecological lens on factors beyond the individual level, can provide a better understanding of the construct and the role of the environment on how they perceive their HRQoL. Thus, we aimed to assess the HRQoL and investigate the correlates of HRQOL among home-dwelling older adults, guided by the levels of the ecological model.MethodsThis is a cross-sectional population survey conducted in 2019 in Canton Basel-Landschaft, in northwestern Switzerland, and includes a sample of 8786 home-dwelling older adults aged 75 and above. We assessed HRQoL by using the EQ-index and the EQ-VAS. The influence of independent variables at the macro, meso and micro level on HRQoL was tested using Tobit multiple linear regression modelling.ResultsWe found that having a better socio-economic status as denoted by higher income, having supplementary insurance and a higher level of education were all associated with a better HRQoL among home-dwelling older adults. Furthermore, being engaged in social activities was also related to an improved HRQoL. On the other hand, older age, female gender, presence of multimorbidity and polypharmacy as well as social isolation and loneliness were found to all have a negative impact on HRQoL.ConclusionsUnderstanding factors related to HRQoL by using an ecological lens can help identify factors beyond the individual level that impact the HRQoL of home-dwelling older adults. Our study emphasises the importance of social determinants of health and potential disparities that exists, encouraging policymakers to focus on policies to reduce socio-economic disparities using a life-course approach, which consequently could also impact HRQoL in later stages of life.