LearningInCrowdWorkplace

LEARNING IN THE CROWD
WORKPLACE
Anoush Margaryan
Professor of Learning Sciences
Director, Centre for Research on Learning in the Platform Economy (LeaP)
University of West London, UK

WHAT IS PLATFORM ECONOMY?
The businesses that:
a) rely on data, the Internet and IT as the core of
their business models; and
b)are built on digital infrastructures that enable
them to act as intermediaries between
different users, e.g. buyers, sellers, advertisers,
producers, suppliers.
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Cambridge: Po

Platform economy
Advertising platforms
(Google, FB)
Cloud platforms
(AWS, Salesforce)
Industrial platforms
(Siemens, GE)
Product platforms
(Spotify, Rolls Royce)
Lean/gig platforms
Online coordination -
Online delivery of
work (Mturk, Upwork)
Online coordination-
Offline delivery of
work (Uber)
____ Focus of my research

Platform economy
Advertising platforms
(Google, FB)
Cloud platforms
(AWS, Salesforce)
Industrial platforms
(Siemens, GE)
Product platforms
(Spotify, Rolls Royce)
Lean/gig platforms
Online coordination -
Online delivery of
work (Mturk, Upwork)
Online coordination-
Offline delivery of
work (Uber)
____ Focus of my research
Crowdwork
Gig-work

MICROWORK
 Low skill
 Low pay
 Short/micro-task
 Anonymous
 Algorithmically-
supervised

MACROWORK/ONLINE FREELANCING
 Highly skilled &
professional
 Higher pay
 Larger units of work
 Identities transparent
 Human-supervised

ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE
• 5-9% of the EU and 5% of the US population are
involved in gig-work (Huws et al, 2016; Pew Research
Centre, 2016)
• 26% growth annually (Lehdonvirta, 2017)
• Estimated $15-$25 billion gross services revenue by
2020 (Kuek et al, 2015)
• Raising global annual GDP by up to $2.7 trillion
(Manyika et al, 2015)
• 540 million individuals worldwide could potentially
benefit from this form of work (Manyika et al, 2015)

WHY STUDY LEARNING PRACTICES OF
CROWDWORKERS?
• No access to traditional organisational
workplace learning support – learning is
entirely the responsibility of the worker
• Powerful real-world environment to study self-
regulated learning behaviours (core research
interest)
• Novel area of research internationally

KEY RESEARCH THEMES…
1. What people learn in crowd workplaces
2. How people learn in crowd workplaces
3. Why people learn in crowd workplaces
4. With whom people learn in crowd workplaces

…AND KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Theme 1. WHAT crowdworkers learn
• What knowledge, skills and dispositions
are required in crowdwork?
• Which of these knowledge, skills and
dispositions do people develop through
their work on platforms?

Project: CrowdLearn, Jan 2018-Dec 2019
Funder: CEDEFOP/EC
Funding: €300,000
Collaborators: Oxford Internet Institute,
Upwork, Twago, People per Hour, Fiverr

Theme 2. HOW crowdworkers learn
• What workplace learning activities do
crowdworkers undertake?
• What behavioural self-regulated learning
strategies do they use to plan, organise,
implement and reflect on their learning?
• What are the antecedents - individual and
environmental -underpinning these learning
activities and strategies?

Theme 3. WHY crowdworkers learn
• What are the individual motivations to engage in
workplace learning on the platforms?
• What are the workers’ life course trajectories that lead
them to take up crowdwork?
• What are the socio-economic and other key
environmental factors that drive people to take up
crowdwork?
• How does platform design constrain or enable
workplace learning and skill development?

Project: Learning in crowdwork,
2016-2018
Funder: Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation (ongoing at UWL)
Funding: €60K via a Senior
Fellowship
Collaborators: University of
Frankfurt Chair of Work Sociology

Theme 4. WHO crowdworkers learn with
• What are workers’ self-organisation processes
and practices to support their learning?
• What networks do workers draw on to learn
and how do they develop and maintain these
networks?
• How are these networks shaped and
constituted and how do they enable/constrain
learning?

METHODOLOGY & KEY OUTPUTS
• Questionnaire survey with crowdworkers
• Interviews with crowdworkers
• Interviews with other stakeholders:
• platform owners, clients, EU policymakers, trade unions,
professional bodies, etc.
• Document review:
• training and development provisions by platforms, EU policies,
etc.
• Policy recommendations to EU (via CEDEFOP)
• Work design recommendations to platforms

STUDY 1: HOW DO CROWDWORKERS
LEARN?
• Total respondents: 295
• Microworkers (CrowdFlower), n=260
• Online freelancers (Upwork), n=35
• Gender:
• Women, 45%
• Men, 55%
• Age range: 1949-1999
• Millennials (1980+), 72%
• Gen X (1965-1979), 23%
• Baby-boomers (1949-1964), 5%
• Countries: 40+, largest groupings
from:
– Venezuela, 16%
– Serbia, 9%
– India, 8%
• Categories of crowdwork tasks:
– Data categorisation
– Transcription
– Image annotation
– Admin support
– Software development
– Writing

Within the last 3 months, how frequently have you undertaken
these workplace learning activities in your work on the
platform?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Acquiring new information
Following new developments
Reading professional literature
Performing novel tasks
Trial-and-error
Reflection after task
Working on tasks alone
Collaborating with others
Asking others for advice
Receiving feedback from others
Observing/replicating others' strategies
Attending workshops/courses
Taking online courses
Paying for online tutorials
% Freq/Very Freq

Within the last 3 months, how frequently have you undertaken
these workplace learning activities in your work on the
platform?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Acquiring new information
Following new developments
Reading professional literature
Performing novel tasks
Trial-and-error
Reflection after task
Working on tasks alone
Collaborating with others
Asking others for advice
Receiving feedback from others
Observing/replicating others' strategies
Attending workshops/courses
Taking online courses
Paying for online tutorials
% Freq/Very Freq
Crowdworkers learn by:
• working alone on novel tasks
• acquiring new information
• following new developments
in their fields
• trial-and-error, and
• reflecting deeply on their
work.

Within the last 3 months, how frequently have you
undertaken these learning strategies in your work on the
platform?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Set own performance standards
Short-term learning goals
Long-term learning goals
Devise a learning plan
Review progress on my learning goals
Think about what I need to learn before task
% Most of the time & Always
Crowdworkers are
learning-oriented and self-
regulated

platform?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Reflect if there were better ways to do task
Think about what I've learned after task
Reflect on how learning from crowdwork impacts my other jobs/tasks
Reflect on how learning from crowdwork fits with my development
Consider if my learning may be of interest to peers
Share learning from crowdwork with others
Share my reflective notes on my learning with others (eg. blog)

platform?
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Confident can handle my work demands
Prefer learning-intensive tasks
Prefer challenging tasks
Important to learn new things in my tasks
Able to use learning from crowdwork in future
I meet my learning goals
Crowdworkers are
self-efficacious and
intrinsically
motivated

STUDY 2. COMPARING CROWDWORKERS
AND CONVENTIONAL KNOWLEDGE
WORKERS
• Crowdworkers, n=113 (Margaryan, 2016; forthcoming)
• Financial services professionals, n=170 (Milligan et al,
2015)
• Educationalists participating in Change 11 MOOC,
n=35 (Milligan et al, 2013)
• Healthcare professionals participating in a MOOC
‘Fundamentals of Clinical Trials’ by Harvard University,
n=350 (Milligan et al 2014; 2016)

LEARNING STRATEGIES
Strategy Crowd-
work
(% Yes)
Finance
(% Yes)
Education
(% Yes)
Health
(% Yes)
Chi-squares
I set personal
standards for
performance in
my job
98.2 99.4 100.0 96.3 X2 (3, N=652)
= 0.99, p >
.05
I set short-term
learning goals
96.5 - 91.4 94.6 X2 (2, N=498)
= 0.96, p >
.05
I set long-term
learning goals
93.8 99.4 80.0 - X2 (2, N=318)
= 0.55, p >
.05
I write down a
plan of how I’ll
achieve my
learning goals
68.1 99.4 - - X2 (1,
N=283) =
0.005, p  .05

LEARNING STRATEGIES
Strategy Crowd-work
(% Yes)
Finance
(% Yes)
Education
(% Yes)
Health
(% Yes)
Chi-squares
I adapt my learning
strategies to each
specific task or
problem I am
working on
100.0 98.8 94.3 - X2 (2, N=318) =
0.96, p > .05
I am able to handle
most of the demands
in my job/course
(self-efficacy)
99.1 100.0 91.4 99.1 X2 (3, N=668) =
0.97, p > .05
It's important for me
to learn new things in
this job/course
99.1 100.0 97.1 99.7 X2 (3, N=668) =
0.97, p > .05
When I have
to learn/do the task I
ask others for help
84.1 90.0 77.1 82.9 X2 (3, N=668) =
0.81, p > .05

LEARNING STRATEGIES
Strategy Crowdwork
(% Yes)
Finance
(% Yes)
Education
(% Yes)
Health
(% Yes)
Chi-squares
I ask myself how what I
am learning is related
to what I already know
92.9 95.9 100.0 99.1 X2 (3, N=668) =
0.94, p > .05
I apply lessons learned
from my previous
experience
98.2 100.0 100.0 98.6 X2 (3, N=668) =
1.0, p > .05
I consider how what I
have learned may be of
interest to my peers
81.4 100.0 - 90.0 X2 (2, N=633) =
0.26, p > .05
I think about what I
have learned
95.6 96.5 94.3 98.0 X2 (3, N=668) =
0.99, p > .05
I ask myself if there
were better ways to do
the tasks
92.0 97.6 - 94.9 X2 (2, N=633) =
0.89, p > .05
I think about what I
have learned fits into
the ‘bigger picture’ of
my professional
92.0 - - 98.9 X2 (1, N=463) =
0.52, p > .05

CONCLUSIONS
• Crowdwork is learning-intensive
• Crowdworkers are highly self-regulated and learning-oriented
• Crowdworkers’ learning incorporates a notable social dimension
• Crowdworkers appear to be similar to conventional knowledge workers in terms of use of
learning strategies
• Crowdwork settings may not provide the support mechanisms for learning that the
traditional workplace do, yet crowdworkers are proactively seeking and finding
opportunities to develop their skills and to learn individually and with others.
• Whilst some crowdwork tasks may not require advanced skills to complete, it is
misleading to suggest that workers performing these tasks are low-skilled or have no
opportunities to apply their own skills, know-how or experiences when working on the
platforms.

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