Learning through work: Workplace affordances and
individual engagement
Author
Billett, S
Published
2001
Journal Title
Journal of Workplace Learning
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005548
Copyright Statement
© 2001 Emerald: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please
refer to the publisher version for access to the definitive, published version.
Downloaded from
http://hdl.handle.net/10072/3842
Link to published version
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1366-5626.htm
Griffith Research Online
https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au
Learning through work:
Workplace affordances and individual engagement
Billett S (2001) Learning through work: Workplace affordances and individual engagement.
Journal of Workplace Learning 13 (5) 209-214
Stephen Billett
School of Vocational, Technology and Arts Education,
Faculty of Education,
Griffith University
Australia
This paper identifies factors that shape how learning proceeds in workplaces. It
focuses on the dual bases of how workplaces afford opportunities for learning and
how individuals elect to engage in work activities and with the guidance provided by
the workplace. Together, these dual bases for participation (co-participation) at
work, and the relations between them, are central to understand the kinds of
learning that workplaces are able to provide and how improving the quality of that
learning might proceed. The readiness of the workplace to afford opportunities for
individuals to engage in work activities and access direct and indirect support is a
key determinant of the quality of learning in workplaces. This readiness can promote
individual’s engagement. However, this engagement remains dependent upon the
degree by which individuals wish to engage purposefully in the workplace.
1. Learning though work
The way workplaces afford opportunities for learning and how individuals elect to engage in
activities and with the support and guidance provided by the workplace, is central to
understanding workplaces as learning environments. These dual bases for participation at work ---
co-participation --- and the relations between them, are held to be central to understanding the
kinds of learning that workplaces provide. In particular, the readiness of the workplace to afford
opportunities for individuals to participate in work activities and access direct and indirect support
are key determinants in the quality of learning that arises from that participation. These
affordances are salient to the outcomes of both structured workplace learning arrangements, such
as mentoring, as well as learning derived through everyday participation at work. The level of
enterprise readiness as key determinant for is supported by the findings of an investigation of
guided learning in five workplaces (Billett, McCann & Scott 1998, Billett 2000). It was found that
guided learning strategies (Modelling, Coaching, Questioning, Analogies &Diagrams) augmented
learning through everyday work activities. However, across the enterprises participating in this
study, there were differences in the use of these strategies and perceptions of their value. Factors
such as variations in enterprise size, their activities and workplace goals for learning did not fully
explain these differences. Instead, the level of the enterprise’s readiness to afford activities and
guidance was identified as a key factor. Overall, it seems learners afforded the richest
opportunities for participation reported the strongest development, and that workplace readiness
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was central to the quality of experiences. Readiness is more than the preparedness for guided
learning to proceed. It also includes the norms and work practices that constitute the invitational
qualities for individuals to participate in and learn through work. The degree by which workplaces
provide rich learning outcomes through everyday activities and intentional interventions will be
determined, at least in part, by its readiness to afford opportunities and support for learning.
2. Work and learning: Participatory practices
There is no separation between participation in work and learning (Lave 1993). Work activities,
the workplace, other workers and observing and listening are consistently reported as key sources
for workers to learn their vocational activities through work (Billett 1999a). The moment-by-
moment learning or microgenetic development (Rogoff 1990, 1995) occurring through everyday
engagement at work is shaped by the activities individuals engage in, the direct guidance they
access and the indirect contributions provided by the physical and social environment of the
workplace. Work activities act to reinforce, refine or generate new forms of knowledge. This kind
of ongoing learning is analogous to what Piaget (1966) referred to as accommodation (new
learning) and assimilation (refining and reinforcing existing knowledge).
Learning through participating in work can be understood in terms of the how the
workplace support or inhibit individuals’ engagement in work activities and access to both the
direct and indirect guidance. These affordances are constituted in work practices. However, they
are not afforded evenly to all workers. The bases for how these affordances are distributed
include:
• perceptions of individuals’ competence;
• the workers’ race (Hull 1997), gender (Tam 1997),
• status of work (Darrah 1996, 1997)
• employment status(Darrah 1996, 1997),
• workplace demarcations (Bernhardt 1999, Billett 1995, Danford 1998);
• personal relations, workplace cliques and affiliations (Billett 1999b).
Given the relationship between participation and learning, how individuals or groups of
individuals’ participation is invited (i.e. encouraged or inhibited) becomes a central concern for
understanding and enacting workplace learning. This is particularly the case because workplaces
tend to be contested environments. Access to opportunities to participate, particularly in
undertaking new tasks or those of central importance to the workplace, are the source of
contestation between:
• ‘newcomers’ or ‘old-timers’ (Lave & Wenger 1991),
• full or part-time workers (Bernhardt 1999);
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• teams with different roles and standing in the workplace (Darrah 1996, Hull 1997);
• individuals’ personal and vocational goals (Darrah 1997);
• or among institutionalised arrangements such as those representing workers, supervisors
or management (Danford 1998).
Therefore, participation in work activities is not afforded in similar ways to all who work in the
workplace and participation in work activities can the bases of competition and exclusion between
competing interests. For example, part-time, contractual workers and home-based workers may
struggle to be afforded the kinds of opportunities to participate in the ways available to full-time
employees. Part-time women workers have been shown to have difficulty in maintaining their
skills currency and realising career aspirations (Tam 1997). Lower status workers may be denied
the affordances enjoyed by high status workers (Darrah 1996). Affiliations and demarcations
within the workplace also constitute bases to distribute opportunities. For instance, plant operators
in an amalgamated union invited fellow plant workers to access training and practice while
restricting opportunities to other workers in the same union (Billett 1995). Personal affiliations in
workplaces also determine participation and how coworkers’ efforts are acknowledged. How
individuals access both familiar and new work tasks, and interact with coworkers, particularly
more experienced workers, shapes the quality of the learning outcomes. Given that knowledge is
held to be socially sourced and its construction mediated by social processes (e.g. access to
guidance, observation and interactions with other workers) and artefacts/signs (e.g. workplace and
its artefacts) (Valsiner & van de Veer, 2000) these participatory factors are central to
understanding how workplaces afford opportunities to learn.
However, while acknowledging the salience of contributions afforded by workplaces, it is
also necessary to account for how individuals elect to engage with workplace activities and
guidance also shapes the quality of their learning. Learning new knowledge (i.e. concepts about
work, procedures to undertake tasks or attitudes towards work) is effortful and refining the
knowledge previously learnt are mediated by individuals’ existing knowledge, including their
values about to which activities they should direct their energies. It would be mistaken, therefore
to ignore the role of human agency. Participation in work activities does not lead to the
unquestioned learning of what is afforded by the workplace. Individuals are active agents in what
and how they learn from these encounters (Engestrom & Middleton 1996). Wertsch (1998)
distinguishes between mastery and appropriation. The former is the superficial acceptance of
knowledge coupled with the ability to satisfy the requirements for public performance. The
unenthusiastic use of standard salutations by supermarket check out operators and airline cabin
crews can be used as illustrations of mastery. Appropriation is the acceptance by the individual of
what they are learning and their desire and effortful engagement to make it part of their own
repertoire of understandings, procedures and beliefs (Luria 1976). However, regardless of whether
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appropriation and mastery results from these encounters, they are both the product of individuals’
values, beliefs and understandings, which are a product of their life histories, engaging with
activities, goals and interactions that are constituted situationally in the workplace. The degree of
similarity or relatedness (Valsiner 1994) between the individuals’ vales and what the workplace
affords may determine whether individuals encounters with workplace experiences result in
appropriation or mastery. That is committed or superficial learning.
Figure One depicts the dual bases for co-participation at work, by representing the
affordances that workplaces can provide and the outcomes arising from that participation, in the
left-hand circle. On the right-hand side are the bases for individuals’ engagement and outcomes.
Figure 1 – Co-participation at work (Billett 1999b)
Workplace affordances
Individuals’ participation in work
Work practice
Individuals’
knowledge
(access and engagement)
Activities
Artefacts
Affordances
Activities
Interactions
Engagement
Activities
Interactions
(values, knowledge
personal history, ways of
knowing, engagement in
other social practices)
Tools, aims, goals
Procedures
Values, norms
Degree of
relatedness
Conceptions, procedures
and values
3. Coparticipation at work
The findings of an investigation of learning in workplaces reported earlier (Billett, 2000)
foreshadowed the significance of the relations between participatory practices and learning
through work. The findings of this investigation are useful in illustrating co-participation at work.
As noted earlier (Billett 2000), this investigation examined the efficacy of the contributions of
both the ‘unintended’ (i.e. everyday activities, observing and listening, other workers, the
workplace) referred to as the ‘learning curriculum’ (Lave 1990) and intended guided learning
strategies (i.e. Modelling, Coaching, Analogies, Diagrams, Questioning) to learning the
knowledge required for work performance. The data gathering procedures included monthly
interviews over a six-month period that elicited learners’ accounts of recently undertaken
workplace tasks. Learners were asked about whom or what had helped them complete these tasks
or what contribution they needed more of in order to complete tasks. Throughout the
investigation, the researchers also made notes about each of the workplaces and how the provision
of workplace learning was manifested in each setting. The findings overviewed here are drawn
from three workplaces, providing comparisons across and within workplaces about how they
afforded participation in work activities. Healthylife
1
is a large food manufacturer, with a history
1
The names of the three enterprises referred to here are fictitious.
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