Eraut's Dimensions of Non-Formal Learning
Eraut’s Dimensions of Non-Formal Learning
The four dimensions (Eraut, 2000)
- Timing of the stimulus: past, current, or future.
- How deliberate it is: tacit, reactive, or deliberative.
- Individual or social: solo and competitive, or group and cooperative.
- Implicit or explicit: stated outright, or read between the lines.
The base
Eraut built this from a study of learning in the workplace, where much learning is on the job.
Non-formal learning sits in a semi-structured space: more organized than everyday chatter, looser than a school. Michael Eraut (2000) mapped it along four dimensions, drawn from a study of how people learn at work. Each dimension is a sliding scale, not an on-off switch, so any real episode of learning falls somewhere along all four at once.
The Four Dimensions at a Glance
The four dimensions ask different questions about a piece of learning: when the push to learn arrived, how intended it was, whether it happened alone or with others, and whether it was spelled out or picked up.
| Dimension | The range it covers |
|---|---|
| Timing of the stimulus | Past, current, or future |
| How deliberate it is | Tacit, reactive, or deliberative |
| Individual or social | Learning alone or learning in a group |
| Implicit or explicit | Read between the lines, or stated outright |
Timing and Intention
The timing of the stimulus is the push that makes someone decide they need to learn, and it can come from three directions. A stimulus from the past is often regret: a person wishes they had done something and returns to learning years later to fix it. A current stimulus is the most useful, since the learner is in the right place at the right time and can act now. A future stimulus is a plan on hold: the learner does not need the skill yet but expects to, so they park it until later.
The second dimension is how deliberate the learning is. Deliberative learning is a clear choice: the person decides to learn something and does. Reactive learning is a response to others, such as seeing a relative succeed and deciding to follow. Tacit learning arrives by accident, with no one pushing or enticing the learner. Much on-the-job learning works this way: a person ends up in a role and starts picking up its fine details only because they have to deliver to stay.
The timing and intention dimensions often work together. A current stimulus paired with a deliberate choice tends to produce the most timely and successful learning.
Past, current, and future.
A past stimulus is often regret that pulls a person back to learning later. A current stimulus is the most useful, since the learner can act now. A future stimulus is a skill parked until it is needed.
Alone or Together, Spoken or Unspoken
The third dimension runs from individual to social. People learn both ways. Individual learning tends to be competitive, with each person on their own. Social learning tends to be cooperative, built through working with others. Since much of working life leans on cooperation, Eraut’s view suggests education should make more room for social learning, which often happens more easily outside a classroom than inside one.
The fourth dimension runs from explicit to implicit. No teacher can tell a learner every detail, so not all learning can be spelled out. A great deal is implicit, picked up without being stated. Reading a piece of literature is the classic case: a reader works out what an author meant between the lines, gathering meaning that was never written down directly. Good learning gives people both kinds of experience.
Explicit learning is stated; implicit learning is picked up unspoken.
A teacher cannot state every detail, so learners absorb much implicitly, from context and cues. Eraut’s example is reading between the lines of a text to reach meaning the author never wrote directly.
Eraut based this whole map on workplace learning, where much of what matters is learned on the job. That grounding is the reason the dimensions lean toward the accidental, the social, and the unspoken: it is how skilled people keep growing long after formal education ends.
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