Learning through experience: developing synergies between research and practice in workplace learning, work-based learning and the recognition of prior learning

Citation

Harris, J. and Whittaker, R. (2012), "Learning through experience: developing synergies between research and practice in workplace learning, work-based learning and the recognition of prior learning", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 24 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl.2012.08624baa.001

Learning through experience: developing synergies between research and practice in workplace learning, work-based learning and the recognition of prior learning

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 24, Issue 2

About the Guest Editors

Judy Harris is Adjunct Professor at Thompson Rivers University (TRU), British Columbia, Canada, and was the first Visiting Scholar to be hosted by the Open Learning division of TRU in 2010. Her research interests include the curricular and pedagogic implications of the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), work-based learning and widening participation in higher education. She was Editor (with Per Andersson) of Re-theorising the Recognition of Prior Learning (NIACE, Leicester) (2006) and Editor (with Mignonne Breier and Christine Wihak) of Researching the Recognition of Prior Learning: International Perspectives (NIACE, Leicester) (2011) and has many years of policy-related academic research in South Africa.

Ruth Whittaker is Head of Learning Enhancement and Academic Development (GCU LEAD), Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland. She is also Chair of the QAA Scotland/Universities Scotland Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Network; Universities Scotland representative on the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) RPL Network and a member of the recently launched European RPL Network. She undertakes research in recognising prior informal learning, credit transfer, transition and progression, and directs research and development projects at a national and European level at the policy/practice interface. Her RPL research interests are located within the context of widening participation, workforce development and national qualifications frameworks.

The changing nature of work and working life, the advent of lifelong learning and the notion of employability have combined to emphasise the importance and worth of workplace learning (Boud and Solomon, 2001). Since the mid-1990s, the practice of the Recognition of Prior Learning, with its theoretical taproots in experiential learning (Weil and McGill, 1989), has focused attention on calibrating informal and non-formal learning in order to build individuals’ confidence in their achievements, support access to and/or advanced standing in learning programmes and to contribute to occupational and professional certification and workforce development[1]. Thus, RPL has become an important process for recognising knowledge and skills developed in the workplace as well as in personal and community contexts.

In terms of research and practice, workplace learning and RPL have often operated on separate tracks, frequently due to the vagaries of educational policy and associated funding mechanisms. Yet, as areas of scholarly activity, they potentially have much in common. As Cameron (in this volume) argues “Both require the collection of evidence and have purposes related to the public recognition of learning, skills, competencies and knowledge which have been acquired through [...] a range of learning contexts and spaces” and “Both play a key role in the human capital needs and development of organisations, industries and economies. They also act as critical processes for individuals, employees and professionals in recognising occupational and professional based skills, competencies and knowledge acquired through multiple means and contexts”.

The origin of this collection of papers is two-fold. In 2009, the Prior Learning International Research Centre (PLIRC) was inaugurated. Initiated by Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada, the Centre comprises an international group of RPL scholars committed to “innovative, provocative and rigorous” research in their field. In 2011, the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRLL) offered the first in a series of International Symposia on global themes of lifelong learning. It was dedicated to RPL and to supporting an emergent research community. Coinciding with the launch of PLIRC’s first publication Researching the Recognition of Prior Learning: International Perspectives (Harris et al., 2011) the Symposium provided a forum for discussion of research past and present and for the identification of research gaps, possibilities and questions.

The key questions framing discussion at the first Symposium “Learning through experience: developing international and regional research agendas for recognition of prior learning (RPL)” included:

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  What is the current focus of RPL research in different countries and what have we learned from this in terms of the use and impact of RPL?

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  To what extent is, or can, RPL support national agendas of lifelong learning, widening participation, social inclusion and workforce development, as well as pedagogical and curriculum development?

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  What are our gaps in understanding of RPL as well as in the broader evidence base which could form the basis of regional and international research agendas?

The papers selected for this special issue seek to profile quality RPL research that engages specifically with issues around workplace learning. Emanating from a range of national contexts, they engage with these topics in different ways: one paper identifies different logics undergirding RPL and work-based learning research and practice; another researches and creates a unifying analytical framework through which to conceptualise and develop ePortfolios in RPL and workplace learning; a further paper reports on an investigation into what prior learning should/could be valued as “college level” recommending a focus on learning that demonstrates the capacity to bring about changes and improvements in workplaces. Two papers focus on recognising workplace learning through RPL in higher education programmes, one in terms of assessor-learner relationships and the other in the curriculum and pedagogy of professional doctorates. A synopsis of each paper follows.

Taking as a starting point the above-mentioned separation of RPL and workplace learning as communities of research and practice, Berglund and Andersson use an “RPL perspective” to investigate how employees’ knowledge and skills are recognised in workplaces in Sweden and the consequences of that recognition. Their findings highlight a crucial difference in terms of the logic driving “traditional” RPL and workplace RPL hinging on the “transferability” versus the “utilization” of knowledge and skill. The former is the main objective of traditional RPL, whereas the latter is the goal of employers. Indeed, Berglund and Andersson claim that many employers’ interests are perhaps best served by not making prior learning visible through RPL because of the risk of wage inflation and more marketable workers being poached by rival companies. This paper makes an important contribution to our knowledge base by situating RPL in the lived reality of labour markets and patterns of work organisation in companies.

Cameron’s study surveys selected Australian conference abstracts and papers to ascertain current usage of ePortfolios in RPL and in professional practice and explores the implications of this for recognising workplace learning. She finds some but limited usage of ePortfolios in RPL in the Australian vocational education and training sector, and more usage in the professions. After a detailed review of the research literature, she presents typologies of portfolios and a synthesised analytical framework to facilitate the selection of types of e-portfolio according to a range of variables, with particular application to workplace learning and human resource management and development.

In the United States, RPL has been identified as an important strategy to help the national workforce to achieve college-level credits and complete a degree. Travers reports on research at a public liberal arts university to explore the meanings of “college-level”. Seven themes emerged which are presented in a framework that defines college-level learning in “relational” terms i.e. individual development, understandings ideas and others, and being able to relate ideas to the wider world. On the basis of this analysis, it is argued that a shift is required in how workplace learning is assessed in RPL – away from determining equivalency with existing curriculum knowledge and towards an assessment of the extent to which workplace learning can be used to solve problems, create linkages and bring about improvements in workplaces and beyond.

Pokorny’s paper raises issues that are common to assessment practice in both RPL and workplace learning: authority, authorship and identity. Located in higher education in the United Kingdom (UK) and focusing on the experience of assessment, she deploys concepts from situated learning, genre studies and academic literacies to profile assessment-related practices that are experienced as empowering (or not) by assessors and students/learners/workers. Her analysis shows that the more empowering experiences of RPL (for all parties) were based on mediation and joint exploration of the candidate’s experience and learning, with scope for negotiation around what counts as credit-worthy knowledge. On this basis, she is able to argue for a re-conceptualisation of traditional assessor- learner relationships in RPL and to draw out implications for future practice.

Also in the UK, Armsby addresses the topic of RPL in Work-Based Learning professional doctorate programmes. Work-based Learning programmes at any level use the context of work and the experiences within it as the basis for study. This empirical evaluation of doctorates foreground disciplinary knowledge and practice and experience-based learning in terms of how these relate to notions of professional knowledge, scholarship, traditions and identity in the academy. She argues that in the professional doctorate, RPL or prior learning itself is used as both a “phenomenon of investigation” and a tool for development (as opposed to a credentialing mechanism), and that this is exemplified by learner-centred pedagogies akin to coaching. In seeking to use “non-standard” evidence to demonstrate critical and reflective analysis at doctoral level, this doctoral programme, and others like it, aim to fuse professional and academic knowledge into new forms of knowledge through rigorous practice-centred scholarly activity.

All the papers reflect a common theme regarding the extent to which RPL is limited in a formal educational context as well in the workplace by its predominant interpretation as “assessment” at the “credential/credit exchange model” rather than the “developmental/empowerment model” end of a well-documented continuum (Butterworth, 1992; Trowler, 1996). The capacity to move towards the latter would be enhanced by:

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  addressing an evidence gap in terms of understanding the student experience of RPL;

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  moving towards “dialogic mediation” whereby candidates feel that their professional competence/expertise is valued, in its own right (Pokorny);

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  shifting the focus of RPL to demonstrating capacity, competence and the use of knowledge and skills in different contexts rather than equivalence to academic knowledge (Travers);

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  the recognition and valuing of “Mode 2” (Gibbons et al., 1994) knowledge in an academic context through ”a blending of professional practice-based knowledge with academic models” (Armsby);

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  more use of new technologies/eportfolios to support a “learning and development” RPL process with greater degrees of learner control, as opposed to viewing RPL as primarily an assessment process (Cameron).

As indicated, Berglund and Andersson highlight tensions generated by different perceptions of the value or “logic” of RPL from the employer and employee perspective, in terms of the “utilization” and “visibility and transferability” of competence, respectively. Finding a way of uniting the two will be important if the potential of RPL, as a means of contributing to workforce development agendas, is to be realised in a significant way.

All of the above issues were echoed in the CRLL Symposium. Participants were challenged in Judy Harris’s keynote address to be bold in their RPL work, to aim for new theorising informed by broader research methodologies in order to better understand the nature of formal knowledge and practice-based knowledge and the sometimes complex relationships between them. This was reinforced in Tara Fenwick’s closing reflections, which acknowledged the “multiple knowledges” not currently recognised by institutions. While the workplace as a pedagogical site is increasingly accepted, Fenwick argued that the crucial role RPL could play in this, as both a developmental process and as a challenge to the nature of knowledge, is not widely appreciated outside the RPL research and practitioner community. Is there a need to consider a re-branding of “RPL”, or at least a breeching of its boundaries, so that its synergies with other theoretical frameworks as well as with workplace and academic practices become more visible and accessible to researchers and practitioners in different fields? “Learning at Work” could perhaps provide a point of intersection between RPL; professional learning and development; workplace and work-based learning; flexible and blended learning; employability and work-related learning, thereby facilitating enhanced and shared understandings and practices.

On balance, these selected papers do indeed demonstrate nascent synergies between workplace learning and RPL despite their separate tracks historically. Taken further, we suggest that research in each field could benefit from the theoretical frameworks and research methodologies deployed in the other, and that the ground is fertile for such endeavour. In that spirit, as Guest Editors, we hope that this Special Edition will encourage international and regional research agendas that build on this foundation in a shared community of scholarship.

Judy Harris, Ruth Whittaker

We use the term RPL whilst being aware that practices are also known as APEL (Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning), Validation, PLAR (Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition) and PLA (Prior Learning Assessment).