The concept of employability extends beyond initial occupational preparation into the ability to remain employable as, inevitably, occupational capacities and workplace requirements change frequently across working lives. Hence, the need to continually learn to remain occupationally current and respond to changing workplace requirements becomes…

In an ever-changing world of work, workers are expected to maintain currency of changes through lifelong learning to sustain employment and transition into new jobs or occupations - as the need arises. Adult workers rely on affordances from societal, workplace, community and educational institution sources that offer opportunities - intentional or…

In Australia, doctors undertaking advanced training to become general practitioners work under the supervision of clinical educators. Primarily clinicians, these clinical educators participate in one day of teaching-related professional development annually, generally a workshop. Shortcomings with this form of professional development led to the…

In work-based learning (WBL), autodidactic, informal, nonformal, and formal approaches to learning are viewed not as dichotomous, distinct, or divergent spheres along a continuum but as intersected and clustered spheres. In WBL, prior learning, professional development, advanced standing, and other forms of learning are therefore formally…

This paper provides a perspective on learning in which training and situated learning complement each other in developing cabin crew competence. Traditionally, airlines have approached cabin crew training from a competency-based, behavioural perspective with limited engagement in the actual work context. This ethnographic study builds on…

Aim/Purpose Work-based learning has been identified in the literature, and is established in academia and in the global worlds of work; however, an examination of work-based research, particularly at the doctoral level, has been less well articulated. Moreover, a paucity of published literature on either work-based research or Professional Studies…

There is broad acknowledgement that higher education should produce career-ready graduates and the role of practical experience--such as part-time employment, unregulated extra-curricular internships and work-integrated learning (WIL)--in achieving this. WIL is critical for developing the non-technical skills, disciplinary expertise and career…

Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is embraced in Australian higher education (HE) and is a feature of most Australian HE 'entry to profession' engineering education programs accredited by Engineers Australia. Accreditation guidelines articulate the need for curriculum-integrated engagement with professional practice (EPP) and encourage EPP in a…

Purpose: Despite the recruitment of foreign sport coaches being a relatively long-standing phenomenon, there is limited research examining the experiences of foreign coaches working in globalised high-performance sport contexts. In examining how foreign coaches learn to perform their craft, we draw upon Billett's [2006. 'Relational Interdependence…

Aim/Purpose: Most research on work-based learning and research relates to theory, including perspectives, principles and curricula, but few studies provide contemporary examples of work-based projects, particularly in the Australian context; this paper aims to address that limitation. Background: The Professional Studies Program at University of…

Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork, this article discusses the use of physical, virtual and social space to support collaborative work in translator education programs. The study adopted a contrastive ethnography approach that incorporated single- and multiple-case design rationales for site selection. Extended observation, informal chats and…

An appreciative lens has been used to explore the question: what is it in the performance of managers, other employees, vocational educators and apprentices themselves, which enables an apprentice to experience a sense of thriving at work? The apprentice is understood to be involved in a process of continually developing and becoming as their…

A policy consensus has emerged in Australia that there is a workforce literacy and numeracy crisis, similar to many other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. The study informing this paper examined this framing of crisis by interviewing and observing production workers in three manufacturing companies. Each company was…

Purpose: This conceptual paper aims to argue that times, spaces, bodies and things constitute four essential dimensions of workplace learning. It examines how practices relate or hang together, taking Gherardi's texture of practices or connectedness in action as the foundation for making visible essential but often overlooked dimensions of…

Planning and implementing teacher professional development is a process of engaging in organisational learning and change. Yet our planning and implementation of professional development is at times a series of one-off sessions and can be quite ad hoc. This paper argues that teacher learning takes place not only through formal sessions but also…