Unlearning as a lifelong learning strategy : an important pathway for transitions

Unlearning is of increasing interest to educators and human resource development professionals alike. Whilst recognition of prior learning is widely accepted, it is less likely that development programs acknowledge this prior knowledge as a potential block to the acquisition of new knowledge and behaviours. A paper presented at the 2004 International Lifelong Learning Conference (Windeknecht and Hyland, 2004) proposed a model of unlearning. As a result of subsequent research, the model has been further developed.This paper shows the evolution of the model and presents initial findings from a range of case-study individuals.