In workplace learning, learning needs and desires
are more objective oriented and considerably
inspired by learning environments. From the
viewpoint of Malcom Knowles’s adult learning
study, adult learners are goal-oriented, relevancy-
oriented and practical. Needs and desires of adult
learning are distinct from college students learning
in that in organizations. Employees learn in the aim
of immediate application. Learners in school context
may put more emphasis on understanding of theories
and concepts and habitually aim at higher grades
(Constantine, 2004). From the perspective of
expectancy model in workplace learning transfer
theory (DeSimone et al., 2002; Kontoghiorghes,
2002), employees are motivated to learn if they
believe skills and knowledge learned can be utilized
back to job and are linked to intrinsic and extrinsic
rewards, and skills and knowledge learned can help
to enhance individual and organizational
performance. Other workplace learning theories
include learning is driven by learners’ needs of
meaning making(Winch and Ingram, 2002) and
social identity establishing (Brubaker and Cooper,
2000) in organizations.
To sum up, most significant learning needs and
desires in workplace learning are neither domain-
dependent (knowledge proficiencies of course
content) nor domain-independent (personal traits
such as cognitive abilities and preferences), rather,
they are driven by job contents, working
performances, achievements and recognitions in
organizational settings. Therefore, it might be hard
to deduce needs and desires in a workplace context
using assessment approaches in typical adaptive E-
learning systems.
In terms of learning contents, knowledge in
workplace is environmental contextual and dynamic
(Wang et al., 2005, 2006). Situated learning theory
believes that knowledge is defined under a specific
setting or context and facts are determined by
cultural standards and social practices (Tyre and
Hippel, 1997). (Lave and Wenger, 1991) have
described workplace learning as a process of
“changing participation in the culturally designed
settings of everyday life” and indicated that knowing
is created and intertwined with doing and knowledge
emerges during practices in communities. Working
knowledge is local and constantly created and
recreated inside communities eventually (Fenwick,
2001). Explicit knowledge can be generalized,
codified and formally transmitted within
organizations (Brookfield, 1992; Megginson, 1996;
Rigano and Edwards, 1998). In contrast, tacit
knowledge embeds in actions and practices of
specific social and cultural context in an
organization and is hard to capture. Much research
efforts have been put into how to convert tacit
knowledge into explicit knowledge with the
intention that to utilize tacit knowledge to benefit the
organizations (Nonaka, 1994; Eraut, 2000).
In brief, rather than pre-defined and fixed course
materials in conventional school instructions,
workplace learning contents dynamically generate
from working environments and are in explicit or
tacit forms inhabiting in various carriers such as
work documents, employees’ experience, experts’
advice etc. They are discrete and independent pieces
of information loosely distributing in an
organization. Although each piece of information
can be treated as an LO, it is difficult and less
meaningful to organize them within a knowledge
structure defining interdependent relationships such
as learning sequences or abstract levels.
4 ADAPTIVE WORKPLACE
E-LEARNING MODEL
In light of all this background considerations, we
propose an adaptive workplace E-learning model
driven by the performance measurement system in
organizations. The underlining hypothesis is that the
performance measurement results are the indicator of
employees’ in time working proficiencies, learning
needs and desires. Learning contents are contributed
by employees, stored and organized in the system
tagged with contributors’ performance measurement
results, and adaptively delivered to employees
relying on their performance expectations.
Performance measurement is a crucial procedure
for organization development and a main driver of
employees’ learning activities (Stephanie, 2005).
(Slizyte and Bakanauskiene, 2007) have summarized
it as a systematic procedure to improve performance
by setting performance objectives, assessing
performance, collecting and analyzing performance
data, and utilizing performance results to drive
performance development. There is a diversity of
performance measurement systems, such as Key
Performance Indicators (KPI), Balanced Scorecard
(BSC), and Excellence Model (EFQM) etc. Different
system emphasize on measurement of different
aspects. For example, BSC assesses performance
from perspectives such as financial, customers,
processes, learning and growth; EFQM focuses on a
range of elements such as people, leadership,
products etc. KPI is a flexible performance
measurement system which is used to assess almost
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