Maurice Taylor

Informal Adult Learning and Everyday Literacy Practices

This study investigated the types of informal learning activities that adults with low literacy skills engage in outside of formal literacy programs and how these activities relate to their literacy practices. Key informants for the study included 10 adults identified at International Adult Literacy Survey levels 1 and 2. Using ethnographic methods, data were collected over three months from several sources. Three major themes emerged: life roles, the situated learning environments, and the practice of everyday literacy activities. Adults with limited literacy perform important life roles in much the same way as more literate adults do. These life roles, which precipitated informal learning, consisted of combinations of parent, supportive partner, family member, volunteer, and employee. A second pattern was the environment in which informal learning was situated. The three environments—home, community, and workplace—were the significant milieus where adults engaged in learning as a result of their life roles. A third theme was the range of everyday literacy activities practiced by adults through informal learning. There was a clear indication that oral communication skills were most often practiced as a result of engaging in an informal learning project, event, or episode at home, in the community, or at work. A discussion focuses on the implications of the findings for literacy research, practice, and policy development.

The Process of Change: Listening to Transformation in Meaning Perspectives of Adults in Arthritis Health Education Groups

Purpose. This study explored client experiences in two different arthritis education groups to develop an understanding of meaningful group experiences in the process of change leading to desired health outcomes. Method. A qualitative framework with an inductive, descriptive, phenomenological method guided the study. Ten participants with rheumatoid or inflammatory arthritis were recruited. Individual and focus group interviews provided descriptions of experiences. Results. Arthritis education group experiences led to improved client perceptions of ability to cope with chronic disease through a process of change in feelings, values and beliefs known as meaning perspectives. The change in meaning perspectives occurred through perceptions about disease, self and illness. Practice Implications. This study provides important insights into the clients process of change in meaning perspectives that can lead to health behaviors and desired health outcomes. The study demonstrates the use of the group context as a tool to enable the process of change.

Understanding learning transfer in employment preparation programmes for adults with low skills

This Canadian study investigated how the transfer of learning occurred in an employment preparation programme for adults with low literacy skills using a multi‐site case study research design. Four different programmes involving trainees, instructors and workplace supervisors participated in the investigation. Results indicated that the transfer of learning occurs through various life roles that adults enact while participating in the programme; the Essential Skills of computer literacy, oral communication, and continuous learning are the guideposts for transfer and the time/role model of learning transfer helps explain the different instructional strategies used in the classroom and the workplace. The findings shed some light on how sociocultural learning develops in adult literacy groups destined for the workforce and the importance of the tri‐partnership of the instructor, trainee and workplace supervisor.

Formal and Informal Training for Workers with Low Literacy: Building an International Dialogue:

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate some of the kinds of formal and informal workplace training activities that workers with low literacy engage in from different parts of Canada and the United Kingdom. The study employed a multi-site case study research design with 31 employees and 18 instructors from seven different types of workplace literacy programmes in various regions of Canada and 42 employees and six supervisors/tutors from four workplace basic skills programmes in the north and south of Greater London, England. Data sources from each country were developed and were used for comparable purposes following a within case and cross case analysis. The findings are described under three main themes. The first theme depicts the range of formal workplace programmes in both countries that employees with low literacy have participated in. The second pattern highlights the main types of informal learning activities that emerged from the data which included: observing from knowledgeables; practicing without supervision; searching independently for information; focused workplace discussions and mentoring and coaching. The third theme describes some of the determining factors of the informal learning process. Implications of the study suggest that company sponsored workplace and essential skills programmes act as catalysts for further learning at work. As well, findings also seem to indicate that various forms of self-directed learning and the organisational context may play an important role as these workers engage in and shape everyday workplace practices. Suggestions for continuing the cross nation studies are also discussed.

Work Training: Values and Beliefs of Young Adults in Contrasting Labour Markets in Canada and Britain

ABSTRACT This paper reports a comparative analysis of data from two linked national projects carried out in the United Kingdom and Canada during 1987–1990. The two projects providing the base data are, respectively, the 16–19 Initiative—an Economic and Social Research Council funded programme of research into the educational and occupational experiences of young adults in contrasting local labour markets in the UK—and a project funded by the University of Ottawa to replicate aspects of the UK study in the Canadian context, using similar instruments, constructs and methodology. The author is a member of the core research team for the 16–19 Initiative, and assisted the University of Ottawa team in establishing the parallel Canadian project with British Council support. A subsequent Canadian Studies grant from the Canadian Department of External Affairs enabled the author to spend a period working with the Canadian team, to lay the foundations for comparative analysis. Main data collection sites in Ottawa, t...

Work‐based learning in Canada and the United Kingdom: a framework for understanding knowledge transfer for workers with low skills and higher skills

The purpose of this study was to investigate how knowledge of different kinds is put to work in workplace education programmes for adults with low skills and adults with higher skills. A novel framework, which has moved beyond narrow conceptions of ‘transfer’ to concentrate on different forms of knowledge and the ways these are recontextualised as people move between sites of learning, was used to examine three work‐based programmes in Canada. The aim was to compare the Canadian results with those obtained from six work‐based exemplar programmes previously analysed according to the framework in the United Kingdom. Results indicate that the seven elements in the framework hold some explanatory power across a wide variety of workforce upskilling programmes as well as across learner skill levels and at the same time help to focus in on four kinds of knowledge recontextualisations.

Exploring the Experiences of Students and Professors in a Blended Learning Graduate Program: A Case Study of a Faculty of Education

The purpose of this study was to explore the current experiences of students and professors in a Faculty of Education graduate program that has adopted blended learning. It was also intended to uncover some of the enablers and constraints faced by faculty administration in implementing a university wide blended learning initiative. Using a qualitative case study research design, a large faculty of education in a mid-sized university in Eastern Ontario, Canada was the site of the investigation. A constant comparative data analysis technique was used on three data sources, namely: key informant interviews, artefacts and field notes. Results indicated that the graduate student has specific learning requirements that necessitate attention to certain aspects of this new teaching method and that professors who teach in a blended learning format are working towards meeting the needs of such students. Enablers and constraints from an administrators perspective in further developing blended learning are also addressed.

A Pathway Towards Implementation of Blended Learning in a Medium Sized Canadian University

As blended learning increases in higher education, there still remains a dearth of empirical evidence that focuses on how institutions actually adopt such initiatives. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore the key factors that led to the adoption and implementation of a blended learning initiative in one medium sized Canadian university. Three research questions guided the study that was nested in the Community of Inquiry framework. Data sources included a total of 83 semi-structured interviews with students, professors, and administrators; 32 student and instructor artefacts and documents and three sets of researcher field notes. Findings indicate that a university-wide initiative needs to integrate both the lived experiences of undergraduate and graduate students in blended learning which are very different. Adoption also recognizes that as professors come to understand the meaning of blended learning, their knowledge needs and teaching practices change. These changes need to be reflected in as training is developed. In addition, widespread implementation involves several critical factors that happen at both the institutional and individual faculty level. The discussion focuses on several key markers that need to be considered along a university-wide pathway towards blended learning.

What Does it Mean to Become Skilled for Young People in Canada, England and Germany?

ABSTRACT Through the lens of the institutional structures for education and training, this study sought to examine the processes, content and meaning of becoming skilled for young people in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Using a close matching methodology and comparative case analysis, eight occupational fields ranging from nursing to electrician were selected. Subjects were gainfully employed in the area having completed their training. Findings are reported under three major categories: transition behaviours from school; significant college learning experiences; and integration into the labour market. Two occupational case histories are also described. Results support the further construction of ideal typologies of how people become skilled in different segments of the labour market in different countries.