Learning has been influenced and enabled by technology for millennia. What separates digital information systems from previous technologies, for example, writing and painting are that they are interactive, enabling forms of communication and collaboration undreamt of in the past. Learning now increasingly takes place in a technology-enabled world of internet networks, websites and mobile devices, transforming school-based and work-based learning (Duval, Sharples, & Sutherland, 2017). Drawing on a new analysis of empirical research undertaken by the author, "Mathematics containing activities in an adult retail apprenticeship" (Arkenback-Sundström, 2017), this paper explores and analyse the role of digital devices and information technology in work-based learning, focusing the retail sector. Digitalised checkout practices refer to stores using cloud-based point of sale (POS) platforms intertwining the checkout activities with the organisation's management system. The education studied, is a sales assistant apprenticeships education at the upper secondary level within the municipal adult education in Sweden. The paper analyses and highlights how mobile technology,  POS-platforms, and digitalised business models transform work and work-based learning at the checkout in physical stores. It also discusses implications for the development of vocational education and adult education.

For a long time, technologically deterministic arguments have prevailed in research, as well as in work and policy documents, that assumes that when people have access to technology in the workplace, in school or at home, then other benefits will automatically follow (Grant & Eynon, 2017). For example, when introducing digital mobile devices and interactive information technology at a workplace, it is often assumed that the employees' experiences of using the Internet and smartphones in everyday life are sufficient ground to embrace the new technology. In supermarkets and grocery stores, the education time for cashier work at checkout has decreased as technology has evolved and automatized the work activities at the checkout. After one or two hours of training with the cash register and the point of sale (POS) system, the newbie is expected to work independently at the checkout (Andrews, 2014). In contrast to this trend stand the developers and vendors of cloud-based POS platforms, that suggests that an employer investing in a POS platform should set aside around a week to introduce the salespersons if they are to master it fully. However, a more holistic argument that recognises the complex relationships between technology and society is now emerging within the research field of technology-enhanced learning. 

Theoretical framework: 

The study takes a practice-theoretical approach by viewing salespersons´ work and work-based learning at the checkout as digitalised social practices. The Theory of Practice Architectures, theoretical standpoint and analytical tool for this study, builds on Schatzki's (2001) concepts of practice. It assumes that the social reality consists of a variety of practices that we daily, without further reflection, engage in and take for granted (Mahon, Francisco, Kemmis, & Lloyd, 2017). A practice is interactionally secured in practitioners´ characteristic: ‘sayings', ‘doings' and ‘relatings'. The practice architectures of a practice are the particular arrangements or resources that together make possible, shape and are shaped by that practice. They enable and constrain action and interaction in practice via cultural-discursive arrangements that prefigure and make possible particular sayings in a practice by constraining and/or enabling what it is relevant and appropriate to say (and think) in performing, describing, interpreting, or justifying the practice. Via material-economic arrangements that shape the doings of a practice by affecting what, when, how, and by whom something can be done, and via social-political arrangements that shape how people relate in a practice to other people and nonhuman artefacts (Mahon et al., 2017).

The paper is drawing on a new analysis of empirical research of an adult retail apprenticeships education between 2014-2015 using a combination of qualitative methods found in ethnographic research: participatory observation, shadowing, interview, photo, audio- and video recording, field notes and apprentice logbook. The study was conducted in a larger municipality in southern Sweden where two adult educational providers, North School and South School offered sales assistant apprenticeship education at upper secondary level. Six apprentices from each school, two teachers and supervisors from 15 workplaces participated in the original study. This paper builds on empirical data that was produced through action research in collaboration with the six apprentices from South School. During the 40 weeks of education, the apprentices had work-based learning four days a week at nine different retail workplaces (Sports, Fashion, Shoes, Home Electronics, Jewelry & Accessories, Home Furnishing). In the dual roles as researcher and mentor, I met the apprentices at school for 'Group Supervision' on the theme "Learning to Learn at Work" 90 minutes/week. I conducted 1-3 observations/apprentice of work-based learning at checkout practices, followed by interviews with the apprentice and the supervisor. Six complementary observations of checkout practices and follow-up interviews with two of the supervisors and one of the apprentices was conducted between 2016 and 2019. The empirical data consists of field notes, apprentices´ logbook notes, interview transcripts, photos, audio and video recordings.

The results show that digital devices and interactive information technology, that is, mobile POS platforms, is the “building frame” in digitalised checkout practices. Working at the checkout involves and requires digital and analogue conversations in parallel. The work-based learning, however, focuses on developing customer service and methods for handling money, customers, merchandises and situations, that is, the "soft skills" of salespersons. A conclusion is that digital POS systems (including the cash register) have transformed from being a tool to automate financial transactions. In the 2010s, the cloud-based POS system is a digital assistant in the checkout practice, a controller of work performance, and an instructor in the learning practice. Literacy, numeracy and digital knowledge and skills brought into the checkout practice by the apprentice/newbie and the supervisor are resources enabling and constraining the learning process. The results indicate that the knowledge and skills of using mobile technology and information technology in traditional work activities, for example, in the customer meeting on the sales floor, have to be trained and learnt out of the workplace. Knowledge and experience of using the smartphone in everyday life are not sufficient for learning how to become an engaged salesperson in the mobile checkout practice - the digitalised customer meeting.

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