Citation
Cervai, S. and Kekäle, T. (2011), "Editorial", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 23 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/jwl.2011.08623eaa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 23, Issue 5
As we write this editorial, it is time to start preparing for the 7th Researching Work and Learning (RWL) conference. RWL 7 will take place on the 4-7 December 2011 in Shanghai, China, hosted by East China Normal University (ECNU). As in previous years, the JWL editors will be in attendance and, together with the conference chairs, will select the best papers to be published in a JWL double issue. You can find more information about the conference, including the submission procedure, time line and requirements for abstracts at the website www.rwlecnu.org
It has been a while since this last occurred, but we did not have enough papers to build a theme for this issue. We have a good amount of interesting papers currently at the review stage, but the reviewers are more critical than ever. This would not normally be a problem for most journals, but as we have started this habit, we would like to continue with it as much as possible. We believe that a thematically built issue is beneficial to readers and scholars who want to get an insight in the state-of-the-art (or -science) research in a certain field.
The articles included here have nevertheless been accepted by our double-blind review procedure, even if they do not compose a themed batch. We study trainer interventions as instructional strategies in air traffic control training in a paper by Inka Koskela and Hannele Palukka, and evaluate training effectiveness in the Spanish Health Sector in a paper by Pilar Pineda-Herrero, Esther Belvis, Victoria Moreno, Maria M. Duran-Bellonch, and Xavier Úcar. The third paper in this issue is “Lifelong learning through SMEs: exploring workplace learning in the UK” and is composed by Linda Ahlgren and Laura C. Engel. This mix of workplace learning and training papers is completed by a more practitioner-oriented paper “Assessing new employee orientation programs” by Jose M. Acevedo and Geoge B. Yancey.
We do not mean to complain. The reason why we have mentioned this lack of a theme in this issue is to motivate all readers to send in their research reports, as well as their suggestions for themed issues. The main rules are simple: we are looking scientific articles and our idea of “scientific” is quite uncomplicated. The research to be published must be based on earlier theory (i.e. must contain a theory part) and illustrate or test the theory using an empirical study (no matter if it is a case study, discourse analysis, or survey – we accept any method as long as it serves the purpose, but no purely conceptual papers please). Then it is up to our reviewers to check if the conclusions hold water. Naturally, we also publish (after a double-blind review) critique against articles that we have published previously, even if they do not contain an empirical section.
We hope you enjoy reading this issue and get lots of new research ideas from these four papers.
Sara Cervai, Tauno KekäleEditors