" Formal" and" Informal" Learning

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EDITORIAL

“Formal” and ‘‘Informal” . Learning

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ontinuing education (the “in” description for programs to combat technical obsolescence) has taken firm root and is beginning to flower into a major activity. Universities, government, industrial employers, and professional and technical societies have all awakened to the pressing need for continual upgrading of working scientists and engineers, and are running or starting courses, seminars, and other programs. Meanwhile, significant experiments in electronic and programmed teaching also are under way. Two societies-the American Society for Engineering Education and the American Chemical Society-are representative of those taking aggressive approaches to the need. The ACS has instituted a highly successful range of ‘(short courses’’ and is expanding it as rapidly as resources permit. The ASEE, through its Continuing Engineering Studies division, deals with nearly every type of nondegree, formal training-in-plant seminars, local refresher courses, Professional Engineer pre-examination courses, correspondence courses, and others. Companies in general are increasing their support of these programs, both by providing their employees with company time and by providing facilities and, frequently, instructors as well. For many years the academic world and the government have both had formal ways of recognizing course work completed by their people. There is no doubt about the need for the value of continuing education. But there is a considerable body of experience that indicates that formal learning situations leave a great deal of ground uncovered. Several recent studies, for example, show that technical people turn to formal instruction only as the fourth most desirable method of learning. More commonly used means are customers, colleagues, and the literature, these studies show. (Customers and colleagues also include feedback from application and internal proprietary know-how.) Continuing education, therefore, has stiff competition from what it is now popular to term informal channels of communication; so, clearly, have we who deal in scientific and technical publishing, whether in the primary literature or through abstracting and indexing. Informal learning is today predominant, whether or not one considers that it should be. Yet very little in a quantitative sense is known of informal transfer of technical information. Indeed, because it is so difficult to treat quantitatively, quite a few studies in recent years have tried to hold informal transfer as an unknown constant during the study of other learning mechanisms. And the increasing emphasis on and availability of formal continuing education programs will make the ignoring of these mechanisms much easier. In sum, therefore, it seems wise for all of us, as we read about, use, and benefit from the organized programs of continuing education, to bear in mind that these programs will not absolve the individual professional from using all the other modes of learning that he can find. I n the last analysis, they will probably, by upgrading the overall level of proficiency within a profession, cause the other modes to become even more important than they have been. And considering how little we know about their use, that presents quite a challenge.

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