The purpose of the study, reported in this article is to explore development engineers' and product designers' conceptions of their learning in a work context from a process-oriented perspective. The empirical data consist of 6 weeks' observations and interviews with 18 employees in two companies in Finland. Phenomenographic analysis of the interviews yielded six categories of descriptions: learning through doing the work itself, learning through co-operation and interaction with colleagues, learning through the evaluation of work experience, learning through taking over something new, learning through formal education and learning from extra work contexts. The results reported here suggest that all the categories are relevant dimensions of the learning phenomenon, while the construction of competencies through work experience and learning as participation and collective action will receive closer scrutiny at a subsequent stage of this research effort.
Reprints and Corporate Permissions
Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?
To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:
Academic Permissions
Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?
Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:
If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.
Related Research Data
Related research
People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.
Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.
Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.