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It is generally agreed that accelerating changes in industry, and indeed in society generally, often brought about or catalysed by new technologies, can be contained only by enhanced processes of education and training. It is argued that the key strategy must be to develop skilled learners, and a technique for utilising this approach is presented.

A survey to assess the future training needs of industry (1984) showed a swing away from the need to memorize facts and develop physical skills, to an increased need for the application of understanding. Describes the research into developing learning skills, which aimed at improving the processes of learning at the same time as learning products. Earlier work had identified the paucity of relevant learning skills. A mnemonic (MUD) helped to distinguish material needing different learning skills, while keys to understanding were developed to help learners structure their thinking and develop understanding of a topic. The work was replicated in South Africa in 1989 and the results showed improved learning skills, a reduction in training time and an improved perception by the trainers of the learners.

The proportion of individuals over 40 years of age is increasing with worldwide demographic changes, and employers are becoming more aware of the need to select, train and retain older workers. Discusses data on the performance of trainee fork‐lift truck drivers of various ages in this context, in the light of research into the performance of older people on complex psychomotor tasks and into the training of older workers. Details the results of a study which showed that older people did learn to drive fork‐lift trucks successfully; few age‐related decrements were found. Discusses reasons for the success of older learners, with reference to the design of successful training programmes for older workers, and outlines recommendations for programme design.

Learning rarely happens without mistakes being made. In some trial and error situations, the mistakes form an integral part of the learning process. A simple example is making an unfamiliar journey without a map. Some guesses have to be made; inevitably, some wrong turnings are taken with consequent retracing of steps once the error is discovered. If the journey has to be repeated some time later, fewer wrong turnings will be taken as the corrections originally made are remembered. The older the traveller, however, the less likely is he to adopt the proven correct route. He is more likely to repeat his original mistakes.

The aim of the Youth Training Scheme [1] is to provide young people entering the labour market with a broad‐based and integrated training programme which will:

This article describes the design of an induction programme for post school students and the research findings. The objectives were to help young people develop their skills and confidence in learning through an experiential approach. A very simple taxonomy was introduced based on things which need to be memorised, understood and done (MUD). This led to further exploration of ways of memorising, understanding and learning to do things.

Highlights the enforced alterations in education caused by technological change. Notes the shift from rote learning to developing greater understanding, and the demise of apprenticeships in favour of vocational qualifications. Discusses the confusion which arose in the 1980s as some students and teachers had difficulty grasping what required memory and what needed to be understood. Describes the “keys to understanding” approach, whereby both understanding of a particular situation and learning skills generally were enhanced. Outlines the need for flexibility and the increase in work teams, arguing that schools have not kept up with changes in industry.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.