Epistemological agency and the new employee
Author(s)
Smith, Raymond
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2005
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The necessary learning actions new employees must undertake to meet the performance requirements of their new job may be said to constitute an epistemology of necessity. This view forms a useful basis of inquiry into new employee workplace learning as it seeks to explicate the significance of what new employees 'do' in and through their learning. This paper briefly outlines the rationale and findings of one such inquiry. It proposes that what new employees 'do' may be best conceptualised as exercising their epistemological agency. An interpretive analysis of this 'doing', through a framework that identified the mediating ...
View more >The necessary learning actions new employees must undertake to meet the performance requirements of their new job may be said to constitute an epistemology of necessity. This view forms a useful basis of inquiry into new employee workplace learning as it seeks to explicate the significance of what new employees 'do' in and through their learning. This paper briefly outlines the rationale and findings of one such inquiry. It proposes that what new employees 'do' may be best conceptualised as exercising their epistemological agency. An interpretive analysis of this 'doing', through a framework that identified the mediating factors of new employee learning, characterises the new employee-learner as a manager of their personal workplace learning agenda. It gives new emphasis to the role of the individual in the social construction of knowledge. Such an understanding of the new employee-learner suggests possibilities for enhancing a sociocultural constructivist view of learning that seeks to account for the personal purpose and consequence of learning.
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View more >The necessary learning actions new employees must undertake to meet the performance requirements of their new job may be said to constitute an epistemology of necessity. This view forms a useful basis of inquiry into new employee workplace learning as it seeks to explicate the significance of what new employees 'do' in and through their learning. This paper briefly outlines the rationale and findings of one such inquiry. It proposes that what new employees 'do' may be best conceptualised as exercising their epistemological agency. An interpretive analysis of this 'doing', through a framework that identified the mediating factors of new employee learning, characterises the new employee-learner as a manager of their personal workplace learning agenda. It gives new emphasis to the role of the individual in the social construction of knowledge. Such an understanding of the new employee-learner suggests possibilities for enhancing a sociocultural constructivist view of learning that seeks to account for the personal purpose and consequence of learning.
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Journal Title
Australian Journal of Adult Learning
Volume
45
Issue
1
Subject
Education Systems
Curriculum and Pedagogy
Specialist Studies in Education