How Researchers Frame the Types of Learning

Researchers do not agree on how many types of learning exist or which one matters most. Some treat informal learning as central to adult life. Others deny it is real learning at all. These positions, drawn from the work cited in the source, shape how education systems value what happens outside the classroom.

Two Views That Drop Informal Learning

Michael Eraut (2000) worked with two categories, formal and non-formal, and did not use informal at all. His main claim was that most real learning happens outside formal settings, because a classroom is an artificial place that limits how far learning can go. He built this view around the workplace, where people keep learning long after their schooling ends.

Billett (2001) went further and argued there is no such thing as informal learning. In his view, all learning takes place inside social organizations or communities that already have some formalized structure, so nothing is truly unstructured. What a person picks up formally and non-formally tends to stick, because they carry it forward and improve it through use.

Eraut and Billett land in a similar place from different routes: both keep the focus on structured learning and treat the unstructured kind as either limited or non-existent.

Flashcard

How did Eraut (2000) treat informal learning?

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Answer

He left it out and used only formal and non-formal.

Eraut argued that most learning happens outside formal settings, since a classroom is an artificial place. His framework, built around workplace learning, kept just two categories rather than three.

Views That Value Learning Beyond the Classroom

Other researchers push the opposite way. The European Commission’s 2001 framework for lifelong learning treated learning in all three modes as essential, on the grounds that no one leaves school knowing everything they will need. Learning has to continue across a working life, whether it happens formally, non-formally, or informally.

Livingstone (2001) held that all three types keep operating for adults, not just for children. Learning begins in the family, where each household passes on its own customs, traditions, and ways of handling people and events, and it carries on through adult life.

Beckett and Hager (2002) made the boldest claim of the group. They argued that informal learning is more common than formal learning and, in their view, also more effective. Their reasoning is social: formal learning is often something you do alone, while informal learning happens in a group and builds the social skills the job market actually rewards.

These claims about effectiveness come from the studies cited in the source and reflect their authors’ positions rather than a settled fact. The safest reading is that the value of each mode depends on the learner.

Flashcard

Why did Beckett and Hager (2002) rate informal learning highly?

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Answer

Because it is social and builds skills the job market rewards.

They argued informal learning is both more common and, in their view, more effective than formal learning. It happens in groups, so it develops the cooperation and people skills that solo classroom study often misses.

Who Decides Which Mode Wins

The disagreement never fully resolves, and it may not need to. People differ. Some learn far more in structured settings and little from unstructured ones; for others it is the reverse. Because learners have their own preferences and ways of working, the question of which mode helps most is best answered one person at a time.