Abstract
The manuscript discusses the issue learning from errors at work by starting from the fallibility of daily life. Errors are unavoidable, hence, employees and enterprises have to develop a way of dealing with errors which avoids their repetition. From a theoretical viewpoint a framework for the analysis of errors is developed which acknowledges psychological theories of acting. On this basis, opportunities for learning from errors can be discussed and connected to theories on workplace learning. Then, the state of empirical research on learning from errors at work is to be discussed. Finally, the manuscript ends with unsolved challenges for empirical field research.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, J. R. (1982). Acquisition of cognitive skills. Psychological Review, 89, 369–406.
Arndt, M. (1996). Aus Fehlern lernen. Pflege, 9(1), 12–18.
Aspden, P., Corrigan, J. M., Wolcott, J., & Erickson, S. M. (2004). Patient safety. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
Baldwin, T. T., & Ford, J. K. (1988). Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research. Personnel Psychology, 41, 63–105.
Barach, P., & Small, S. D. (2000). Reporting and preventing medical mishaps: Lessons from non-medical near miss reporting systems. British Medical Journal, 320(7237), 759–763.
Bauer, J. (2008). Learning from errors at work. Studies on nurses’ engagement in error related learning activities. Doctoral dissertation, University of Regensburg. Retrieved from http://www.opus-bayern.de/uni-regensburg/volltexte/2008/990/. Accessed on March, 24, 2014.
Bauer, J., & Gruber, H. (2007). Workplace changes and workplace learning: Advantages of an educational micro perspective. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 26, 675–688.
Bauer, J., & Harteis, C. (Eds.). (2012). Human fallibility. Dordrecht: Springer.
Bauer, J., & Mulder, R. H. (2007a). Modelling learning from errors in daily work. Learning in Health and Social Care, 6, 121–133.
Bauer, J., & Mulder, R. H. (2007b). Lernen aus Fehlern im Pflegealltag – Abschlussbericht zur Feldstudie in neun bayerischen Krankenhäusern (Projekt “Lernen aus Fehlern in der Pflege” Forschungsbericht Nr. 3). Regensburg: Universität Regensburg, Lehrstuhl für Pädagogik II.
Bauer, J., & Mulder, R. H. (2008). Conceptualisation of learning through errors at work – a literature review. In S. Billett, C. Harteis, & A. Eteläpelto (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on learning through work (pp. 115–128). Rotterdam: Sense.
Bauer, J., & Mulder, R. H. (2013). Engagement in learning after errors at work: Enabling conditions and types of engagement. Journal of Education and Work, 26(1), 99–119. doi:10.1080/13639080.2011.573776.
Bauer, J., Mehl, K., & Wehner, T. (Eds.). (2010). Aus Fehlern lernen [Special Issue]. Wirtschaftspsychologie, 12(4).
Bell, B. S., & Kozlowski, S. W. J. (2011). Collective failure: The emergence, consequences, and management of errors in teams. In D. A. Hofmann & M. Frese (Eds.), Errors in organisations (pp. 113–141). New York: Routledge.
Betsch, T., & Haberstroh, S. (Eds.). (2005). The routines of decision making. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Billett, S. (2006). Work, subjectivity and learning. In S. Billett, T. Fenwick, & M. Sommerville (Eds.), Work, subjectivity and learning (pp. 1–20). Dordrecht: Springer.
Boshuizen, H. P. A., Bromme, R., & Gruber, H. (Eds.). (2004). Professional learning: Gaps and transitions on the way from novice to experts. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academics.
Boud, D. (2006). Creating the space for reflection at work. In D. Boud, P. Cressey, & P. Docherty (Eds.), Productive reflection at work (pp. 158–169). London: Routledge.
Brodbeck, F. C., Zapf, D., Prümper, J., & Frese, M. (1993). Error handling in office work with computers: A field study. Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, 66, 303–317.
Brown, S. D., & Lent, R. W. (Eds.). (2013). Career development and counseling. Putting theory and research to work (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Wiley.
Burke, L. A., & Hutchins, H. M. (2007). Training transfer: An integrated literature review. Human Resource Development Review, 6, 263–296.
Cannon, M. D., & Edmondson, A. C. (2001). Confronting failure: Antecedents and consequences of shared beliefs about failure in organisational work groups. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 22(2), 161–177.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: HarperCollins.
Damasio, A. (2010). Self comes to mind: constructing the conscious brain. New York: Pantheon Books.
Dochy, F., Gijbels, D., Segers, M., & van den Bossche, P. (2011). Theories of learning for the workplace. London: Routledge.
Edmondson, A. C. (1996). Learning from mistakes is easier said than done: Group and organisational influences on the detection and correction of human error. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 32(1), 5–28.
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behaviour in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 350–383.
Ellström, P.-E. (2006). The meaning and role of reflection in informal learning at work. In D. Boud, P. Cressey, & P. Docherty (Eds.), Productive reflection at work (pp. 43–53). London: Routledge.
Eraut, M. (2000). Non-formal learning and tacit knowledge in professional work. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 70(1), 113–136.
Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.). (1996). The road to excellence: The acquisition of expert performance in the arts and sciences, sports, and games. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R. Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 683–704). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ericsson, K. A. (2009). Enhancing the development of professional performance: Implications from the study of deliberate practice. In K. A. Ericsson (Ed.), Development of professional expertise (pp. 405–431). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frese, M., & Zapf, D. (1994). Action as the core of work psychology: A German approach. In H. C. Triandis, M. D. Dunnette, & L. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organisational psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 271–340). Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Gartmeier, M., Bauer, J., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2008). Negative knowledge: Understanding professional learning and expertise. Vocations and Learning: Studies in Vocational and Professional Education, 1, 87–103.
Gartmeier, M., Hetzner, S., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2009). Fehlerorientierung und Eigeninitiative im Bankensektor. Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, 53, 149–162.
Gartmeier, M., Bauer, J., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2010a). Workplace errors and negative knowledge in elder care nursing. Human Resource Development International, 13, 5–25.
Gartmeier, M., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2010b). Tracing error‐related knowledge in interview data: Negative knowledge in elder care nursing. Educational Gerontology, 36, 733–752.
Gartmeier, M., Lehtinen, E., Gruber, H., & Heid, H. (2010c). Negative expertise: Comparing differently experienced elder care nurses’ negative knowledge. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 26, 273–300.
Glendon, I., Clarke, S. G., & McKenna, E. F. (2006). Human safety and risk management. Boca Raton: Taylor & Francis.
Gruber, H. (2001). Acquisition of expertise. In J. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioural sciences (pp. 5145–5150). Oxford: Elsevier.
Hacker, W. (1985). Activity: A fruitful concept in industrial psychology. In M. Frese & J. Sabini (Eds.), Goal directed behaviour: The concept of action in psychology (pp. 262–283). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Hacker, W. (1998). Allgemeine Arbeitspsychologie. Bern: Huber.
Harteis, C., & Billett, S. (2013). Intuitive expertise: Theories and empirical evidence. Educational Research Review, 9, 145–157.
Harteis, C., Bauer, J., & Haltia, P. (2007). Learning from errors at the workplace – insights from two studies in Germany and Finland. In H. Gruber & T. Palonen (Eds.), Learning at the workplace – new developments (pp. 119–138). Turku: Finnish Educational Research Association (FERA).
Harteis, C., Bauer, J., & Gruber, H. (2008). The culture of learning from mistakes: How employees handle mistakes in everyday work. International Journal of Educational Research, 47(4), 223–231.
Harteis, C., Bauer, J., & Heid, H. (2012). Research on human fallibility and learning from errors at work: Challenges for theory, research, and practice. In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility. The ambiguity of errors for work and learning (pp. 255–265). Dordrecht: Springer.
Heid, H. (1999). Autorität – Über die Verwandlung von Fehlern und Verfehlungen. In W. Althof (Ed.), Lernen aus Fehlern. Beiträge und Nachträge zu einem interdisziplinären Symposion aus Anlaß des 60. Geburtstages von Fritz Oser (pp. 129–136). Opladen: Leske + Budrich.
Hofmann, D. A., & Frese, M. (2011a). Errors, error taxonomies, error prevention, and error management: Laying the groundwork for discussing errors in organisation. In D. A. Hofmann & M. Frese (Eds.), Errors in organisations (pp. 1–43). London: Routledge.
Hofmann, D. A., & Frese, M. (Eds.). (2011b). Errors in organisations. London: Routledge.
Hommel, B., & Nattkemper, D. (2011). Handlungspsychologie. Berlin: Springer.
Høyrup, S., & Elkjaer, B. (2006). Reflection: Taking it beyond the individual. In D. Boud, P. Cressey, & P. Docherty (Eds.), Productive reflection at work (pp. 29–42). London: Routledge.
Järvinen, A., & Poikela, E. (2001). Modeling reflective and contextual learning at work. Journal of Workplace Learning, 13, 282–289.
Keith, N., & Frese, M. (2008). Effectiveness of error management training: A meta analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(1), 59–69.
Kirkpatrick, D. L. (2005). Transferring learning behaviour: Using the four levels to improve performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). The Kolb learning style inventory – Version 3.1 (2005 Technical Specifications). Haygroup: Experience Based Learning Systems Inc.
Kolodner, J. (1983). Towards an understanding of the role of experience in the evolution from novice to expert. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 19, 497–518.
Kühl, S. (2002). Sysiphus im Management. Die verzweifelte Suche nach der optimalen Organisationsstruktur. Weinheim: Wiley.
Leicher, V., Mulder, R., & Bauer, J. (2013). Learning from errors at work: A replication study in the domain of elder care nursing. Vocations and Learning. Studies in Vocational and Professional Education, 6, 207–220.
Lipshitz, R. (1997). Naturalistic decision making perspectives on decision errors. In C. E. Zsambok & G. Klein (Eds.), Naturalistic decision making (pp. 151–169). Mahwah: LEA.
Löber, N. (2012). Fehler und Fehlerkultur im Krankenhaus. Wiesbaden: Gabler.
Medvedev, G. (1991). The truth about Chernobyl. New York: Basic Books.
Mehl, K., & Wehner, T. (2010). Über die Schwierigkeiten, aus Fehlern zu lernen. Auf der Suche nach einer angemessenen methodischen Vorgehensweise zur Untersuchung von Handlungsfehlern. Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik, 19(3), 265–273.
Mehl, K., & Wehner, T. (2012). Research on errors and learning from them: Methodological perspectives. In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility: The ambiguity of errors for work and learning (pp. 91–106). Dordrecht: Springer.
Meurier, C. E., Vincent, C. A., & Parmar, D. G. (1997). Learning from errors in nursing practice. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26, 111–119.
Mezirow, J. (1990). How critical reflection triggers transformative learning. In J. Mezirow (Ed.), Fostering critical reflection in adulthood (pp. 1–20). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative dimensions of adult learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative theory out of content. Adult Education Quarterly, 46, 60–62.
Miller, G. A., Galanter, E., & Pribram, K. H. (1960). Plans and the structure of behaviour. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Minsky, M. (1994). Negative expertise. International Journal of Expert Systems, 7(1), 13–19.
Norman, D. A. (1981). Categorization of action slips. Psychological Review, 88, 1–15.
Norman, D. A. (1984). Stages and levels in human-machine interaction. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 21, 365–375.
Oser, F., & Spychiger, M. (2005). Lernen ist schmerzhaft. Beltz: Weinheim.
Oser, F., Näpflin, C., Hofer, C., & Aerni, P. (2012). Towards a theory of Negative Knowledge (NK): Almost-mistakes as drivers of episodic memory amplification. In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility. The ambiguity of errors for work and learning (pp. 53–70). Dordrecht: Springer.
Panko, R. R. (1998). What we know about spreadsheet errors. Journal of End User Computing – End User Development, 10(2), 15–21.
Perrow, C. (1984). Normal accidents: Living with high risk technologies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Peters, T. J., & Peters, T. (1987). Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a management revolution. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Pfeiffer, Y., & Wehner, T. (2012). Incident reporting systems in hospitals: How does learning occur using this organisational instrument? In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility. The ambiguity of errors for work and learning. Dordrecht: Springer.
Putz, D., Schilling, J., & Kluge, A. (2012). Measuring organisational climate for learning from errors at work. In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility. The ambiguity of errors for work and learning. Dordrecht: Springer.
Rasmussen, J. (1987). Cognitive control and human error mechanisms. In K. Rasmussen, J. Duncan, & J. Leplat (Eds.), New technology and human error (pp. 53–62). London: Wiley.
Rausch, A. (2011). Errors, emotions, and learning in the workplace – findings from a diary study within VET. In E. Wuttke & J. Seifried (Eds.), Learning from errors at school and work (pp. 111–126). Opladen: Barbara Budrich.
Reason, J. T. (1990). Human error. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reason, J. (1997). Managing the risks of organisational accidents. Hampshire: Ashgate.
Reason, J. T. (2005). Human error: Models and management. British Medical Journal, 320, 768–770.
Reichers, A. E., & Schneider, B. (1990). Climate and culture: An evolution of constructs. In B. Schneider (Ed.), Organisational climate and culture (pp. 5–39). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Rybowiak, V., Garst, H., Frese, M., & Batinic, B. (1999). Error orientation questionnaire (EOQ): Reliability, validity, and different language equivalence. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 20, 527–547.
Sadler-Smith, E. (2010). The intuitive mind. West Sussex: Wiley.
Schank, R. (1999). Dynamic memory revisited. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith.
Schüttelkopf, E. M. (2008). Erfolgsstrategie Fehlerkultur. In G. Ebner, P. Heimerl, & E. M. Schüttelkopf (Eds.), Fehler Lernen Unternehmen (pp. 151–314). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Seifried, J., & Baumgartner, A. (2009). Lernen aus Fehlern in der betrieblichen Ausbildung – Problemfeld und möglicher Forschungszugang. Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik online (bwp@), 17.
Seifried, J., & Höpfer, E. (2013). The perception of error in production plants of a chemical organisation. Vocations and Learning, 6, 159–185.
Senders, J. W., & Moray, N. P. (1991). Human error. Cause, prediction, and reduction. Hillsdale: LEA.
Tjosvold, D., Yu, Z.-Y., & Hui, C. (2004). Team learning from mistakes: The contribution of cooperative goals and problem solving. Journal of Management Studies, 41(7), 1223–1245.
Tucker, A. L., & Edmondson, A. C. (2003). Why hospitals don’t learn from failures: Organisational and psychological dynamics that inhibit system change. California Management Review, 45(2), 55–72.
Türling, J. M., Seifried, J., & Wuttke, E. (2012). Teachers’ knowledge about domain specific student errors. In E. Wuttke & J. Seifried (Eds.), Learning from errors at school and at work (pp. 95–110). Opladen: Barbara Budrich.
Tynjälä, P. (2013). Toward a 3-P model of workplace learning: A literature review. Vocations and Learning. Studies in Vocational and professional Education, 6, 11–36.
Van Dyck, C., Frese, M., Baer, M., & Sonnentag, S. (2005). Organisational error management culture and its impact on performance: A two-study replication. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1228–1240.
Van Woerkom, M. (2003). Critical reflection at work. Bridging individual and organisational learning. Twente: Twente University Press.
Van Woerkom, M. (2012). Innovation by learning from mistakes. In J. Bauer & C. Harteis (Eds.), Human fallibility. The ambiguity of errors for work and learning (pp. 127–140). Dordrecht: Springer.
Wehner, T., Mehl, K., & Dieckmann, P. (2010). Handlungsfehler und Fehlerprävention. In U. Kleinbeck & K.-H. Schmidt (Eds.), Arbeitspsychologie (pp. 785–820). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Wuttke, E., & Seifried, J. (Eds.). (2012). Learning from errors at school and at work. Opladen: Barbara Budrich.
Yeung, N., Botvinick, M. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). The neural basis of error detection: Conflict monitoring and the error-related negativity. Psychological Review, 111, 931–959.
Zapf, D., Brodbeck, F. C., Frese, M., Peters, H., & Prümper, J. (1992). Errors in working with computers: A first validation of a taxonomy for observed errors in a field setting. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 4, 311–339.
Zhao, N. (2011). Learning from errors: The role of context, emotion, and personality. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 32, 435–463.
Zhao, N., & Olivera, F. (2006). Error reporting in organisations. Academy of Management Review, 31, 1012–1030.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Harteis, C., Bauer, J. (2014). Learning from Errors at Work. In: Billett, S., Harteis, C., Gruber, H. (eds) International Handbook of Research in Professional and Practice-based Learning. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_26
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8902-8_26
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-8901-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-8902-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)