Investigating Learning for Employability: Method and Procedures

This chapter sets out means by which learning across working life might be understood. It draws upon on a 3-year project addressing the research goals associated with (a) what needs to be learnt across working lives, (b) processes that support and realise that learning, and (c) the practice implications and policy focuses to assist in achieving those outcomes. This chapter describes, elaborates and justifies the overall method and procedures adopted in each of the three phases of data gathering and analysis. Given the complexity of “practice” informing policy and policy being shaped by evidence, it was necessary to intertwine these three concerns in the research design. They are addressed through triangulations amongst observational, grounded interview data, and quantitative survey used to identify what workers need to learn and how it can best be learnt through workplace experiences and educational provisions, thereby informing workplace and education practice and policies. The chapter sets out not only the procedures adopted, but also demographic information about those who provided worklife histories, were interviewed about phases of their worklife and others who responded to the survey. This chapter also then introduces the procedures adopted in other chapters reporting different perspectives of the data analyses. This includes a description and justification of the worklife history approach adopted in the first phase, including interviews and progressive data gathering; the selection and development of items and their administration through an online survey in the second phase; and then workshops and seminar to advance how worklife learning promotes employability in the third.