Ann Pegg

Learning for school leadership: using concept mapping to explore learning from everyday experience

This study explores concepts of learning used by leaders, focusing on learning for leadership through day‐to‐day workplace experiences. The participants were drawn from the senior management team within a school, the chair of governors of the school and the local authority school improvement advisor. Concept mapping was used as a participatory research method. Maps were created by the participants and linkages discussed. The maps indicated that learning for leadership from experience was multifaceted. The language used to describe concepts of learning reflected generic and everyday concepts, rather than the language of pedagogy or concepts used in professional training/the literature. The study alerts us to the difficulties in embedding concepts used in formal training in the everyday life of educational professionals. It also highlights the use of concept mapping as a technique for exploring workplace learning. *Editors note. This paper was a finalist in the journals graduate student manuscript competition for 2006. Congratulations Ann! For information on how to submit manuscripts for the competition or on how to volunteer to be a reviewer please visit the journal web site or contact Dr Michele Acker‐Hocevar at macker@fau.edu

Learning to Lead the Risk-Conscious Organization: An Empirical Study of Five English Primary School Leaders.

This article explores how organizational cultures shape workplace learning for those learning to be educational leaders. The discussion is illustrated with the data from an ethnographic case study which explored the workplace learning of five school leaders. The findings suggest that workplace boundaries were constructed in response to perceptions of threat from the external environment and perceptions of risk in terms of school performance and that this had a significant impact on both what and how learning was taking place. These findings raise questions about how learners are able to develop creativity and innovation through workplace learning in a restrictive environment and the purpose of workplace learning when it is placed as a central feature of national leadership programmes.

Credit Transfer amongst Students in Contrasting Disciplines: Examining Assumptions about Wastage, Mobility and Lifelong Learning.

While arrangements for credit transfer exist across the UK higher education sector, little is known about credit-transfer students or why they re-engage with study. Policy makers have cited credit transfer as a mechanism for reducing wastage and drop-out, but this paper challenges this assumption and instead examines how credit transfer serves different constituencies of students. Findings are presented from a survey of 256 students transferring credit to the Open University and a review of their Credit Transfer Applications. Half the students were enrolled on arts modules; the remainder of students were studying modules in maths, computing and technology. The findings of this research reveal differences between these groups of students in terms of the origins of their past credit, the quantity of past credit they transfer and the ways in which their current studies are connected to future plans and aspirations.

Workplaces and policy spaces: insights from third sector internships Scotland

Purpose – Understanding the relationship between learning and work is a key concern for educational researchers and policy makers at the local, national and international level. The way that learning and the economic environment are framed impacts upon policy and funding decisions and has significant implications for the HE sector. The purpose of this paper is to explore how internships have become a key site in which policy and funding mechanisms seek to address concerns about graduate employability and graduate skills in relation to Scottish national economic plans and perceived business needs. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing from five years data generated from the Third Sector Internships Scotland programme, the authors adopt an approach to the analysis of policy and internship experiences based on a spatial perspective. The authors explore two spatial arenas in play; the conceptual space where discussion and policy making occur and the physical places of education and the workplace where learnin...