eLearning Guild Research: Informal or “Less Formal” Learning?

The Guild’s newest research report, Informal Learning Takes Off, shows that when expertsuse the term informal learning, they don’t mean quite the same thing aseLearning and learning practitioners do. That’s according to the results of theApril 2014 eLearning Guild informal learning survey, with 402 respondents. Thesurvey results showed a wide understanding and interpretation of what the terminformal learning means.  For respondentsof the survey, informal learning mostly means a broad range of new approachesto workplace learning, from non-traditional approaches to training toautonomous, unplanned individual and team learning.

This survey research by Jane Hart is a follow-on from theGuild’s 2012 research report Smart Companies Support Informal Learning,which describes existing research about informal learning. The 2012 report usedthis definition of informal learning: “Informal learning includes situationswhere the learner determines some combination of the process, location,purpose, and content and may not even be aware that instruction has occurred.”

That previous research report stated that the vast majorityof learning in the workplace happens not in formal training environments but ininformal settings. When asked, many workers said that informal workplacelearning is far more important to them than workplace training programs. Thereport also showed that in informal learning, sometimes you know you arelearning and sometimes you don’t know, because you may not be actually settingout to learn. For example, when talking with colleagues, they may tell youthings that you didn’t already know, things that you may use later.

In this survey, just under 40% of participants worked insmall organizations with fewer than 500 employees, while around 45% worked inmedium-sized organizations with between 501 and 25,000 employees, and 15% workedin large organizations with more than 25,000 employees.

The first question asked respondents to select five words orphrases they felt best described the term “informal learning.” The purpose ofthis question was to see if respondents understood the term informal learning similarlyto how experts understand it. Figure 1 shows respondent responses.

Figure 1: Words and phrases to describe informal learning

The three words or phrases that were chosen most frequentlyby respondents included: On-the-job,In the flow of work, and An integral part of working. This showsthat respondents believe a dominant characteristic of informal learning is thatit takes place out of the classroom, inserted in the everyday workflow.

The next 10 most-selected words or phrases were: Just in time, Contextual, Continuous, Experiential, Self-paced, Social, Happens in small chunks, Individualized, On demand, and Casual. Ifyou look at the terms in Figure 1 belowthese terms, however, you will find terms that are more typically synonymouswith the term informal learning: Autonomous,Serendipitous, Accidental, Ubiquitous, Unintentional, and Unconscious(all terms that informal learning experts tell us are key features of informallearning). The previous 10 terms that respondents selected are more appropriatelycited as less formal learning concepts.

Smart CompaniesSupport Informal Learning describes the research showing how most learning in the workplace isinformal, so it’s becoming increasingly important that L&D and eLearningprofessionals know what it is and how to best support it. Although the myriadexamples provided by respondents in the new research report, Informal Learning Takes Off, are examples of less formal training rather than trulyinformal learning, they show a shift to some innovative approaches that you maywant to take note of and even replicate.