The essential nature of on-the-job thinking: A phenomenological study of health and fitness professionals engaged in learning experiences.

For as long as learning is considered to include a cognitive element, then questionsabout how, and indeed, why, we think, remain crucial considerations for stakeholdersin education, learning, and professional development. This study explores thinking inthe specific context of on-the-job learning, or in other words, the essential nature ofon-the-job thinking. Research generally portrays on-the-job learning, and the thinkingassumed to take place therein, as an increasingly complex and poorly understoodprocess. Beginning from a position rooted in health and fitness sector-specificresearch, and subsequently venturing into the wider landscape of fundamental theoriesin education and learning, a review of literature identifies the tendency for on-the-joblearning to occur predominantly tacitly, as a main contributing factor to an evidentimpasse in our attempts to understand or study it further. The review subsequentlytraces this tacit-ness problem to its roots in cognitive science, or more specifically, indual process theories which depict thinking as an action that is either conscious orunconscious (tacit). Despite a clear juxtaposition of doing and thinking, and theapportioning of comparative importance to the two, theories and models in educationand learning seeking to expound the learning process, typically rely on definitions ofthinking that are unclear or inconsistent, and fundamental concepts, typicallyoriginating from cognitive science, that are obscure and/or paradoxical. It is argued,therefore, that in order to further our understanding of on-the-job learning, a clearerand more robust definition of thinking is warranted, as an alternative theoreticalfoundation for modern education and learning theories, based not solely onexplanations derived from cognitive science, but also on descriptions derived frommore philosophical endeavours, namely, phenomenology. Following a deep andreflective phenomenological analysis of personal fitness trainers' accounts of their onthe-job thinking, using modern as well as classical phenomenological methods, thestudy aims to, first, uncover a re-conceptualised and less problematic description ofon-the-job thinking, and second, to evaluate the actual implications of such a reconceptualisation.The description that results, which is also presented in the text asan analogy, casts light on the centrality of feelings, as well as concepts either generalor pertaining to self, as key influential factors guiding on-the-job learning outcomes,portrays on-the-job thinking as an integrated activity that is not isolated or separatedfrom interaction with self, other, or the world, and finally, challenges traditionalconceptualisations of thinking in light of the challenging notions of consciousawareness and volition. In so doing, the results of this study provide an alternativeview of thinking in the context of on-the-job learning by personal fitness trainers, orindeed other professionals, from a conceptual/theoretical standpoint, while alsorevealing specific features of the phenomenon with immediate and more practicalapplications as prospective constituents of existing initiatives or interventionsdesigned to facilitate and enhance on-the-job learning in the health and fitness sector,and perhaps further afield.