On July 27th, Lourdes Murillo Pedrosa defended her doctoral thesis.
The thesis by Lourdes Murillo Pedrosa, entitled “Learning at the workplace. Its specification in the Department of Justice and Social Services in Catalonia [El aprendizaje en el puesto de trabajo. Su concreción en el Departamento de Justicia y en los Servicios Sociales de Cataluña]” has been directed by Dr. Joaquín Gairín. The thesis was read to the tribunal, constituted by Dr. Trinidad Yolanda Mentado Labao (University of Barcelona), as the president; Dr. Aleix Barrera Corominas (Autonomous University of Barcelona), as the secretary; and Dr. María Domingo Coscollola (International University of Catalonia), as a board member.
Have you stopped to think about how you learn everything you need to know to carry out the functions required by your position? Do you consider that your organization offers sufficient resources to facilitate the acquisition of the competences and/or skills you need on a daily basis? These are some of the questions this doctoral thesis attempts to answer.
As shown by Jennings and Wargnier (2012), professionals no longer need to step out from their working environment in order to learn, as their training can also take place at their workplace. The aim of this study is to focus on workplace learning models and their implementation in the Department of Justice and Social Services in Catalonia. In this respect, it analyses the mechanisms through which knowledge related to daily professional activities is created, bearing in mind the role of informal learning. At the same time, concepts are reviewed, and the problems involved in using, promoting, and fostering informal learning linked to the workplace and professional and institutional improvement are examined in depth.
Specifically, the study starts from a mixed methodological approach and includes a progressive or successive exploratory design, with the qualitative approach as predominant (quan-QUAL), thus establishing an evolution and integration between quantitative and qualitative data The results are not generalizable to all the contexts of the Catalan public administration; nevertheless, they offer a first approximation to the object of study and allow us to appreciate certain particularities or trends in both departments analysed. The documentary review, the results obtained from the study, and the conclusions derived from it allow the proposal of a specific improvement model for the promotion of on-the-job learning of professionals in these areas.
