Abstract:
A current ARC Discovery project is investigating learning at work. Detailed case studies of
learning in a range of workplaces are being constructed. These will be used to test and
refine a theory of learning at work that conceptualises it, at its best, as a growing capacity
to make appropriate context-sensitive judgments. This research views judgments, along
with activities, narratives, and traditions, as being nested in practices. The understanding of
practice used in this project grows from the work of Macintyre (1981. 1990. 1999). A practice
is defined by the following joint characteristics: (a) it includes any form of human activity that is
identifiable by a single word or phrase, (b) it is identifiable through reference to some purpose
and some community that shares a common way of doing thinqs, and (c) and it has a tradition
of maintaining both internal and external goods. Maclntyre's work suggests that those
practices in which internal goods predominate are more likely to lead to productive learning
than those in which external goods predominate. This paper will illustrate the value of these
ideas for understanding learning at work by applying them to some case studies on judgment
at work developed in previous research.
