ABSTRACT
In relation to workplace learning there seems to be a broad agreement that the most important general condition determining the realisation of learning possibilities is the learning environment offered by the individual workplace. Ever since the publication of Marsick and Watkins’ now classic book Informal and Incidental Learning in the Workplace (Marsick and Watkins 1990), it has been an underlying understanding in most of the literature that the quality of the workplace learning environment is directly decisive for the everyday learning and thereby also indirectly has a strong influence on more specific and goal-directed learning initiatives. This has been discussed from many perspectives in several publications (for example Garrick 1998; Boud and Garrick 1999; Rainbird et al. 2004; Billett et al. 2008), and the concluding chapter of the book Improving Workplace Learning includes a very useful description of how more expansive learning environments can be developed through a process of five stages (Evans et al. 2006, p. 169ff.). In the following I shall discuss what essentially characterises a good and supporting workplace learning environment.
