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From individual learning to social learning – reframing HRD theory and practice

I think that we can now claim with some confidence that HRD has moved beyond describing itself as an emergent field: scholars are not so preoccupied with defining the boundaries of our intellectual pursuit as they were five years ago (for an example of the latter see the debate in Human Resource Development International, Issue 4:3). However, while our intellectual focus is no longer emergent, we have certainly not arrived at a consensus on the scope of our field of inquiry, nor on the range of theoretical frameworks and methods of inquiry that we employ. This is clearly evident in the articles that we are including in this issue of Human Resource Development International. We are including papers that encourage us to reframe the scope of our field (Carmeli and Weisberg); that call for us to adopt greater rigour in the way we develop theory (Storberg-Walker); and that challenge some of the assumptions about individual learning of professionals and managers (Tillema; DeWolfe Waddill; Sadler-Smith and Smith). Deborah DeWolfe Waddill reports on exploratory research designed to find out whether web-based instruction could be blended effectively with action learning. Her study is an evaluation of an online management development course, supported by online delivery of action learning, in terms of the overall effect upon individual learning. This is an interesting project, as web-based instruction and action-learning appear at the outset to be embedded in two different ontological assumptions about what ‘learning’ involves: the individual and cognitive versus the distributed and social. Her findings reveal that although the experience did not result in the creation of a strong learning community, surprisingly, individuals did manage to learn the principles and processes of action-learning, and report evidence of behavioural change online. Particularly interesting was the finding that the asynchronous nature of interactions encouraged programme participants to engage in reflection, and that the whole approach provided a safe environment for practice. Another area where the tensions between individual and social learning are manifest, is in the field of professional learning. The prescriptive models of continuing professional education (CPE or continuing professional development – CPD – as it is known in the UK) rest upon implicit humanistic and experiential models of learning which have the individual at the core. However, increasingly we Human Resource Development International, Vol. 9, No. 2, 153 – 155, June 2006