The purpose of this study was to identify and to describe, phenomenologically, the essence of the learning experiences of machine design technicians which take place in their workplaces.
A phenomenological approach was used to gather data from 12 purposely selected working machine design technicians. They were given Seidman's three stepped in-depth interviews from March to July in 2002. Using phenomenological procedures, the essential meanings were disclosed via the phenomenological reduction.
As conclusions, the main variances of machine design technicians learning experiences are the interaction of the technicians with other men and surrounding things. Their diverse styles of learning experiences are the manifestation of the various social-psychological interactions in the real workplace. Their specific characteristics of learning experiences come from the dependence of machine design technique itself. The major drive of learning experiences for them is not only the vocational survival will but also their love of the work itself.
As recommendations, the study of adult vocational learning should be complemented by a phenomenological approach to disclose vocational field's characteristics. Enterprises should have learning organizations and learning cultures, where vivid inter-human and with-material interactions flourish, courageous learning losses are accepted, varieties of individual styles of working and learning are not suppressed, love of work itself is valued, work is praised not only for its economic benefits but also for its intrinsic benefits.