This chapter provides a theory of informal and incidental
learning and updates this theory based on recent research.
Informal and Incidental Learning
Victoria J. Marsick, Karen E. Watkins
Informal and incidental learning is at the heart of adult education because
of its learner-centered focus and the lessons that can be learned from life
experience. But learning from experience is so broad that everything from
Outward Bound activities to structured computer simulations is included
in the definition. In this chapter we define informal and incidental learning
and look at questions that arise when adult educators use this type of learn-
ing in research and practice.
What Informal and Incidental Learning Look Like
We define informal and incidental learning by their contrast with formal
learning:
Formal learning is typically institutionally sponsored, classroom-based, and
highly structured. Informal learning, a category that includes incidental learn-
ing, may occur in institutions, but it is not typically classroom-based or highly
structured, and control of learning rests primarily in the hands of the learner.
Incidental learning is defined as a byproduct of some other activity, such as
task accomplishment, interpersonal interaction, sensing the organizational
culture, trial-and-error experimentation, or even formal learning. Informal
learning can be deliberately encouraged by an organization or it can take
place despite an environment not highly conducive to learning. Incidental
learning, on the other hand, almost always takes place although people are
not always conscious of it [Marsick and Watkins, 1990, p. 12].
Informal learning is usually intentional but not highly structured. Exam-
ples include self-directed learning, networking, coaching, mentoring, and
NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ADULT AND CONTINUING EDUCATION, no. 89, Spring 2001 © Jossey-Bass, A Publishing Unit of
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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THE NEW UPDATE ON ADULT LEARNING THEORY
performance planning that includes opportunities to review learning needs.
When people learn incidentally, their learning may be taken for granted,
tacit, or unconscious. However, a passing insight can then be probed and
intentionally explored. Examples are the hidden agenda of an organization’s
culture or a teacher’s class, learning from mistakes, or the unsystematic
process of trial and error.
The origins of our theory of informal and incidental learning have been
reviewed by us (Marsick and Watkins, 1990) and by Garrick (1998). In
these reviews, informal and incidental learning have been linked to related
concepts, such as learning “en passant” (Reischmann, 1986), the distinc-
tions several others have made between formal, informal, and nonformal
learning (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974; Mocker and Spear, 1982; Jarvis, 1987),
social modeling (Bandura, 1986), experiential learning (Boud, Cohen, and
Walker, 1993; Kolb, 1984), self-directed learning (Candy, 1991; Knowles,
1950), action learning as a variant of experiential learning (Revans, 1982),
action science (Argyris and Schön, 1974, 1978) and reflection in action
(Schön, 1983), critical reflection and transformative learning (Mezirow,
1991), tacit knowing (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Polanyi, 1967), situated
cognition (Scribner, 1986; Lave and Wenger, 1991), and communities of
practice (Wenger, 1998). These concepts are related to informal and inci-
dental learning, but they are not synonymous with the terms in the way that
we use them here.
What We’ve Learned from Research
Mary Callahan (1999) identified almost 150 studies when doing her
research on this topic. A review of this research makes it immediately clear
that informal and incidental learning are relevant to practice in many cul-
tures and contexts: the private and public sectors, hospitals and health care,
colleges and universities, schools, professional associations, museums, reli-
gions, families, and communities.
Some specific studies illustrate how such knowledge enhances our
learning. Dana Diesel and Elizabeth Colbert, doctoral students at Teachers
College, Columbia University, are conducting a joint study in an experi-
mental elementary school in North Carolina. Colbert is one of the school’s
leaders, but all administrators also teach and all teachers also participate in
governance. Colbert and Diesel are studying how teachers learn informally
through reflection and action and ways in which their collaboration is nur-
tured in the culture. In many schools, professional development for teach-
ers is often limited to occasional, brief in-service sessions. The findings from
this study can be used to design policies, practices, and a culture that sup-
ports ongoing learning that is integrated with daily work routines within
the school.
Callahan (1999) studied incidental learning in a publicly funded
small-business incubator. Business incubators support new entrepre-
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INFORMAL AND INCIDENTAL LEARNING
neurial ventures by providing technical assistance, resources, and ser-
vices. The incubator provided opportunities and a culture for informal
observing and talking with others, particularly those who used the incu-
bator’s free office space with new ventures housed in the same space once
occupied by now successful startups. Callahan’s interviewees referred to
one kind of incidental learning as the “karma in the walls and halls.”
Observing other start-up companies provided participants with “a virtual
blueprint” to guide early entrepreneurial steps. “Bridging” learning
helped people with different professional backgrounds (in this instance,
technical entrepreneurs and venture capitalists) to understand one
another and work more effectively together. By providing opportunities
for interaction and sharing, adult educators built on the natural enthusi-
asm for learning of these technically-oriented entrepreneurs and moved
them from learning about their technical innovations to learning about
managing a business.
Maria Cseh’s (1998) study found that the learning of the owner-managers
of small, successful, private companies in Romania was stimulated mostly by
the context, particularly the ambiguity, of a quasi–market economy. One of
the major lessons learned by these owner-managers was that although there
were many changes after the collapse of the Communist regime, little changed
in the way human relationships in business were conducted. Thus, those
managers who did not have managerial experience in the previous regime had
to learn how to work with the government and state-owned companies, while
those who had previous experience had difficulty unlearning previous polit-
ically-driven practices that only worked half of the time. Cseh’s study poses
questions for research and practice around the nature and facilitation of
“unlearning.” As illustrated by the Eastern European managers in this study,
freeing oneself from existing mental models that constrain the way work is
done is not easy.
Studies by Carter (1995) and Menard (1993) illustrate that informal
and incidental learning are often the result of a significant unplanned or
unexpected event. Carter studied stroke survivors whose newsletter title
speaks to their surprise trigger to learning: “A Stroke of Luck.” Her study
found that stroke survivors more often than not had to figure out on their
own a solution to the problems they encountered, despite health care sys-
tems that intended to be supportive. Menard’s study looked at the informal
and incidental learning of nurses in Vietnam. Numerous critical incidents
identified the satisfaction the nurses found in their own ingenuity in invent-
ing tools or techniques to accommodate for the lack of critical supplies in
MASH units.
Finally, a study by Watkins and Cervero (2000) sought to determine
whether two different organizational settings of CPA practice produced sub-
stantially different or equivalent learning opportunities for a practicing CPA.
The study was conducted to provide expert testimony for a lawsuit. The
CPA worked for approximately two-and-a-half years in a registered CPA
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THE NEW UPDATE ON ADULT LEARNING THEORY
firm, at which point he became an employee of a financial services firm that
was not a registered CPA firm. The questions raised in the lawsuit had to do
with the time needed in either environment for professional certification
(labeled “experience credit” by CPAs–or time-learning-by-doing account-
ing). Watkins and Cervero constructed a survey of thirty-one possible for-
mal, informal, and incidental learning opportunities. For example, they
asked whether the CPA had opportunities to learn from instructional videos,
from being assigned increasingly difficult accounting projects, and from cri-
tiquing sessions with supervisors. The new CPA participated in twenty-one
out of the twenty-five learning opportunities available at both organizations.
Learning was intricately woven into the fabric of work in both organiza-
tions. Watkins and Cervero concluded that there was a strong culture and
support for learning at both organizations, and no substantial difference
between the firms in the formal, informal, and incidental learning opportu-
nities available.
Adult educators and organizations can learn from the structures and
strategies supported by professional service firms and from the research
presented briefly here. The organizational context produces different
work assignments, which, in turn, lead to different opportunities and pri-
orities for learning. The organization can provide different incentives for
learning, such as tuition reimbursement, and resources, such as a library
of reference material, subscriptions to professional journals, video
courses, or computer-based courses. In particular, the organization can
encourage peers to work and learn collaboratively (Marsick and Watkins,
1999; Watkins and Marsick, 1993, 1996).
Informal and incidental learning take place wherever people have the
need, motivation, and opportunity for learning. After a review of several
studies done on informal learning in the workplace, Marsick and Volpe
(1999) concluded that informal learning can be characterized as follows:
• It is integrated with daily routines.
• It is triggered by an internal or external jolt.
• It is not highly conscious.
• It is haphazard and influenced by chance.
• It is an inductive process of reflection and action.
• It is linked to learning of others [p. 5].
Model for Enhancing Informal
and Incidental Learning
Figure 3.1 depicts a model for enhancing informal and incidental learning
that Marsick and Watkins developed initially in 1990 and have subsequently
modified, most recently in collaboration with Cseh (Cseh, Watkins, and
Marsick, 1999). The model is rooted in the thinking of John Dewey (1938),
Argyris and Schön (1974, 1978), and Mezirow (1991).
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INFORMAL AND INCIDENTAL LEARNING
The circle in the center represents our belief that learning grows out of
everyday encounters while working and living in a given context. A new life
experience may offer a challenge, a problem to be resolved, or a vision of a
future state. The outer circle represents the context within which the experi-
ence occurs, the personal, social, business, and cultural context for learning
that plays a key role in influencing the way in which people interpret the sit-
uation, their choices, the actions they take, and the learning that is effected.
The model depicts a progression of meaning making that, in practice,
is often more of an ebb and flow as people begin to make sense of a situa-
tion. With each new insight, they may have to go back and question earlier
understandings. The model is arranged in a circle, but the steps are neither
linear nor necessarily sequential.
In this newest version of our model, we have integrated the incidental
learning process since it is clear to us that it is always occurring, with or
without our conscious awareness. For example, we note that learning begins
with some kind of a trigger, that is, an internal or external stimulus that sig-
nals dissatisfaction with current ways of thinking or being. This trigger or
experience encountered is often a surprise, such as the sudden departure of
a leader. But in the model, preceding this is our worldview, our way of see-
ing things that frames what we pay attention to, how we will see this new
trigger. This frame is a pivotal point in the model since it can also be influ-
enced by the lessons learned at the end of a learning cycle. Our model
shows that people diagnose or frame a new experience that they encounter.
They assess what is problematic or challenging about it. They compare the
Framing the
business context
Triggers
Context
➚
➚
➚
➚
➚
➚
➚
➚
Interpreting
the
experience
Examine
alternative
solutions
Lessons
learned
Assess intended
and unintended
consequences
Produce
the proposed
solutions
Learning
strategies
Figure 3.1. Marsick and Watkins’s Informal and Incidental Learning
Model as Adapted with Cseh
