Design Plan / Proposal

This study will examine the collaborative and individual learning experiences of retail store staff in one telecommunications retail organization. The study will aim to propose recommendations for organizations that wish to foster spontaneous collaborative learning environments.


The telecommunication retail sector in Australia is represented by organizations such as Vodafone, Telstra Optus and Virgin Mobile. These organizations also operate traditional brick & mortar mobile phone retail stores that employ staff to sell mobile phone devices and connect customers to the providers network. The rate of change in this competitive sector is quite rapid as new mobile devices, promotions and plans that mobile phones are sold on are introduced each month.

The challenge for telecommunications retail staff is to constantly keep up-to-date with new mobile phones and their associated features in order to effectively promote the devices to potential customers. The challenge for telecommunication retail organizations is to effectively and efficiently support their staff in learning new mobile device features and potential benefits so they can use this knowledge to sell to potential customers. Traditionally this has been achieved through group training sessions, one-on-one training and more recently through online learning initiatives that introduce new technologies. These organisational driven training initiatives are often designed to apply to all staff regardless of previous knowledge or skill levels.

Intro to Cooperative Learning

In an ideal cooperative learning environments store staff would work in a group, learning about new handset devices being introduced into their stores, in an atmosphere of mutual respect and autonomy while they discover solutions to questions and generate new ideas together. In this environment they would be able to develop relationships between new and previously learned information, to internalise ideas and feedback, and also to enhance their perceptions of positive support from the other group members (Tang, K. C. C, 1993, p.115).

Questions to address:
What inhibits cooperative learning?
What factors need to be present for spontaneous collaborative learning to be successful?
Why isn't spontaneous collaborative learning more widespread?
What would be the most effective research strategy for this study considering telco retail store environments can be quite busy with staff rostered at different times?

Design Plan / Proposal

This study will examine the collaborative and individual learning experiences of retail staff in one telecommunications retail organization.


Telecommunications retail staff are required to quickly learn the features of new mobile technology being introduced into their stores and apply this knowledge through their sales technique. This study will evaluate the experiences of participants within collaborative learning environments and propose recommendations for organizations that wish to foster spontaneous collaborative learning environments.

The research strategy for this study will take the form of a case study involving store staff of one retail store being divided into two groups, a self study group and a collaborative learning group.

- The self study group will learn about the features of a new handset individually.

- The collaborative learning group will learn about the features of a new handset collectively.

Collection of data will be through multiple data collection approaches including:

- Results of a written assessment which the staff will complete after the activity

- Researcher observation recordings during the activity

- Semi-structured interviews conducted before and the activity