L6: Training Flashcards
Why is so much money invested in training and development?
It is a source of competitive advantage. Well-designed training (e-learning particularly) is effective for improving performance
What is driving the demand for well-designed training?
- growing demands for personal and profession development such as through opportunities for learning and growth which offers an advantage for talented employees
- effects of digital technology at work which transforms businesses
- greater use of teams, so learning how to ask for ideas, offer help, listen and providing feedback, considering others is important
What is training?
Immediate/near-term needed KSAs, attitudes, or social behaviour. It is narrowly focused and oriented towards short-term performance concerns
What is development?
Broadening a person’s skills for future responsibilities, which around 70% is informal learning the ropes
When is training effective?
The extent to which training produced the intended results. Usually effective when: satisfied with training experience, increasing motivation, enhancing knowledge and skills. Usually a transfer of training means that the training was successful, and can look at organizational outcomes
Declarative knowledge
Knowledge about what (facts, meaning of terms)
Procedural knowledge
Knowledge about how such as performing skilled behaviours
What is important for training success?
- being capable of learning the new material
- being motivated to learn the material
- receiving support from supervisors/peers
What are the general stages of training?
- defining what is to be learned like the overall goal of T and D in the organization
- needs assessment: determining training needs and specifying objectives
- design: decomposing the learning task into components + sequence, informed by theoretical models
- delivery: how will the training be given such as videos, workshops, case studies
- evaluation: reaction of trainees, learning knowledge or skills, seeing behaviour in work, results like reduced asenteeism, experiments etc
What does the needs assessment exactly involve?
- assessing which aspects of job performance would benefit the organization with training
- checkign whether there is a need for training before spending money
- important but not always done
- needs assessment should be conducted using experienced SMEs, many methods should be used
- helps set goals for training + trainees ready to participate for pre-training motivation
How does needs assessment demonstrate to employees the value of training?
By reducing anxiety about training, and increasing motivation if they perceive it as relevant to their job. It can help shift goal orientation to mastery rather than completion
What are training objectives?
It should be identified after the needs assessment. This specifies what is going to be learned, and should describe: desired behaviour, conditions under which behaviour should occur, standards by which behaviour is to be judged
Pre-training motivation
Individual attitudes, expectancies, and self-beliefs likely to influence willingness to attend training and actual learning
during training. It affects enthusiasm, attention, reinforces what is learned. This should be considered before designing a training program
What factors can influence pre-training motivation?
Self-efficacy: belief in one’s capabilities, that one can learn content
successfully (effort + persistence)
Reactions to prior training courses
Trainee personality
Locus of control (internal, perceived benefits of training)
Age (fear of failure?, increased willingness to participate)
Anxiety can disrupt cognitive functioning & attention
Goal orientation (mastery vs performance)
Valence of training (desirability of training outcomes )
Job involvement: Psychological identification with work & importance of
work to a person’s total self-image (increased feelings of job performance, self-worth)
Org. commitment
What is important to consider when designing training?
- Creating an optimal environment for training & learning
- Decompose & sequence the training in an efficient manner
- Use theoretical models to guide training
What is an ideal environment for training and learning?
- Trainees understand objectives
- Meaningful & relevant content (e.g., exercises, examples)
- Give cues to aid learning & recall (e.g., mindmaps, diagrams)
- Opportunities to practice
- Provide feedback on learning (e.g., from trainers or task itself)
- Observe and interact with other trainees
- Training program is properly coordinated & structured
What is important for team training?
- increasing emphasis on team performance
- if there are opposing or conflicting goals then the efficiency of the unit will suffer
- in team training important to look at interactions among team members
Steps in designing team training?
- conduct team training needs analysis -> identifying interdependencies and skills to master coordination of team tasks and identifying cognitive skills and knowledge to interact as a team
- develop training objectives for task and teamwork skills such as adaptability, shared awareness of situations, coordination, communication, attitudinal skills
- designing exercises and training
- evaluating team effectiveness such as collective efficacy, shared knowledge structures, team situational awareness
What are some examples of training?
- Team-coordination training (focus on teamwork skills that facilitate info. exchange, cooperation, coordination)
- Cross-training (exposure to teammates’ tasks, roles & responsibilities to increase shared understanding & knowledge)
- Guided team self-correction (review team events, identify errors & exchange feedback, develop plans for future)
What are the theoretical models which can guide training?
- Trainability & individual differences
- Error management training
- Self-regulation
- Knowledge of results (feedback)
- Goal-setting
- Behavior modeling
How can trainability and individual differences affect training performance?
- includes abilities, interests, personality differences, prior achievement, skills level, training expectations and motivation
- this predicts success in training
- allows us to see the behavioural baseline to adapt training
- results in learning differences like verbal learning, kinesthetic learning, trial and error
What is error management training?
- strategy for improving + maintaining performance in changing/dynamic environments
- encourages trainees to make errors and engage in reflection to understand the causes + strategies to avoid them in future
Why is error management important?
It results in better performance on training tasks than error avoidance. There is usually a transfer of skills to similar tasks, and promote metacognition. Differs to traditional training as that focusses on teaching correct methods and avoiding errors
What is self-regulation?
This is the extent to which executive level cognitive systems monitor and exert control on the learners attention and active engagement of training content to maintain trained behaviours. Involves becoming aware of relapses, situations that sabotage transfer, awareness of vulnerability to breakdown and self-monitor behaviour
What is the relationship between self-regulation and error management?
Self-regulation found to mediate the relationship between error mgt.
training and performance
Why is knowledge of results/feedback important?
It is essential for learning to occur and can enable learners to correct mistakes if they know why they were wrong and how to correct the behaviour in the future. Feedback improves performance and its importance is underestimated by managers. Experienced learners can have some info withheld to critically reflect on their own performance
What is important for goal setting?
It increases motivation, should be SMART, challenging but not impossible, and be able to provide feedback on goal attainment. Is linked to 10% average increase in productive, with higher performance for specific and difficult goals. But can be counterproductive for complex, not well-learned tasks
What are different goals?
Participative (more acceptance for complex tasks with difficult goals)
Assigned (simple tasks)
What are some goal-setting tips?
- make training objectives clear at the start
- challenging goals not not too difficult
- supplement the ultimate goal at the end of training with subgoals during training-> confidence increases in attaining ultimate goal
What has research found about goal setting?
- there can be dramatic improvements in performance after goal setting-> sustained years after the goal was set
- feedback improved group effectiveness but goal setting improved group effectiveness even more in air force crews
What are the aims of behavioural modeling?
- to demonstrate desired behaviour
- give trainees a chance to practice and role-play those behaviours and get feedback
- effective for procedural and declarative knowledge
What are the basic components of behaviour modeling?
Learning points -> written descriptions of key behaviours. (better retention as have cognitive scripts)
Modeling (show positive behaviour for reproduction; positive & negative examples for generalization of rules & concepts)
Practice & role-playing (practice & rehearse)
Feedback & social reinforcement (praise & constructive feedback)
Transfer of training … (need encouragement, feedback & support to
use newly acquired skills on the job, otherwise no transfer)
What are important goals for the delivery?
Motivate the trainee to improve performance
Clearly illustrate desired skills
Provide for learner’s active participation
Provide an opportunity to practice
Provide feedback on performance during training
Provide ways of reinforcing the trainee
Be structured from simple to complex tasks
Be adaptable to specific problems
Enable transfer of what is learned to other situations
What are information presentation methods?
Lectures, conference methods, correspondence course, reading lists, intranet and internet, videos/CDs. Important to balance need for learning control with guidance and give opportunity to practice
What is technology-based training?
Creates a dynamic learning environment, facilitating collaboration, enables customization and learner control (trainees have more control over how and what to learn such as self-pacing exercises, choosing when/where to do training). There are many different forms of technology-based training
What is an issue with tech-based training?
There can be negative effects on learning for low-ability or inexperienced learners as they can make poor decisions about what and how to learn, skipping materials or moving too quickly
How can this issue be resolve?
By using adaptive guidance, so providing trainees with info that helps them interpret their past performance and what they should be studying/practicing to improve future performance. Effort and time in learning is important + meaningful organization of material + practice, constructive feedback
What are simulation methods?
Case studies, role-playing, experiential exercises (simulations of experiences like in-basket test, business games) and online simulation games
What are some important considerations for simulation games?
They increase post-training efficacy, knowledge of facts, skill-based knowledge and retention, but expensive to develop. Those who completed more practice opportunities learnt the most. Promoting active learning (deliberate cognitive processing) to motivate, be mastery-oriented and mindful
What are some examples of on-the-job training?
Orientation training, internship, on/near-the-job training, job rotation, executive coaching (leadership-development activities)
What are group-building methods?
Adventure learning -> experiential learning method focusing on teamwork & leadership skills via structured activities (e.g., cooking class, wilderness training)
Action learning -> teams work on actual business problems, commit to an action plan & carry out that plan
Why is evaluation important?
It enhances the benefits of training from the perspective of stakeholders like trainees, instructors, organizations which influences future training + motivation (but 3 months are needed for on the job behavioural changes)
What is Kirkpatrick’s 4-levels evaluation model?
- reaction is the most simple and common approach about how the trainees felt afterwards
- learning is the measurement of the increase in knowledge or intellectual capability from before to after the learning -> measured with achievement tests
- behaviour is the transfer of training + application of learned matter (observation, interviews, surveys, critical incidents)
- results is the effect on the business or environment due to improved performance -> return on investment
What is return on investment (ROI)?
extent to which training provides
knowledge & skills that create a competitive advantage & a culture
ready for continuous change
What are the designs for evaluating trainings?
Experimental (random assignment of people and treatments to groups) and quasi-experimental (difficult to randomly assign). Important to make meaningful inferences + rule out alternative explanations for outcomes. Important to show practical significance-> show that the effects of training make a difference to organizational goals. Multiple dimensions should be focussed on to evaluate the training
What is the transfer of training?
The extent to which new knowledge and skills learned during training are applied on the job. The training efforts are not useful is KSAs are not appropriately transferred to other job activities. Supervisor and peer support are important moderators between training and transferring back to the work environment. Important to maximize similarity between training situation and job situation by encouraging participation + interactive activities
How to ensure the transfer of training?
Through a positive transfer climate (reinforcement on the job from leaders and rewards).
Preparing for a transfer of training by: increasing confidence in newly learned skills, highlighting situations in where they can use skills, strong links between training content and work content, increase perception that job & org performance will benefit from new skills and feedback
