ABSTRACT
In the current political context, there are pressures for scientific research to objectively identify effective learning, in the workplace as elsewhere, for example by measuring the attainments of such learning. Drawing upon empirical data, we argue that this is counter-productive. Workplace learning is complex, yet a research focus on measured attainments implicitly defines such learning in a narrow way, within an acquisition perspective. This severely restricts the range of learning that can be recognized. Ironically, the very types of learning likely to be excluded are some of the most common and significant. To gain a better understanding of workplace learning and to effectively improve it, we need to resist scientific reductionism, and work with more holistic theoretical and methodological approaches.
