Maximizing the Trainee’s Learning

1. Maximizing the Trainee’s Learning

2. 3 Main Questions of Interest • Is the individual trainable? • How should the training program be arranged to facilitate learning? • What can be done to ensure that what was learned during training will be retained & transferred to the job? • Trainability is a function of the individual’s ability and motivation. • Ability refers to the extent to which the individual possesses the aptitude or skills or perform the tasks at hand.

3. Many abilities that have been found to be associated with trainees’ capacity to learn include: • Reading level, educational level, educational preparation, aptitude • General intelligence • Cognitive ability • Ability to visualize how a piece of paper could be folded to form a 3-dimensional object, ability to infer a rule from patterns of letters, knowledge about mechanical facts & principles, ability to perceive changes in direction & position. • Conscientious, dependable, conforming, well socialized • Analytical learning strategy & learning anxiety.

4. Motivation - concerned with those variables which influence the trainee’s effort, persistence, and choices. • Variables: • individual’s need for achievement or competence • feeling of job involvement as well as their level of career interest • Individual’s expectancy that participation in training will lead to desired outcomes (feelings of accomplishment, greater responsibility, opportunity for advancement, etc) • Expect anxiety will interfere with most classroom-type learning, which generally consists of teaching concepts of a fairly complex nature.

5. The relationship between ability & motivation is expressed by the following formula: Performance = Ability x Motivation • According to this formula, a trainee’s performance will have a value of zero if either ability or motivation is absent, and it increases as each factor rises in value.

6. Measure ability & motivation levels in the individual before training occurs - - these are the INTERNAL conditions necessary for learning to occur by an individual. • 2nd major category of learning conditions is EXTERNAL to the learner. These are the environmental arrangements that the trainer can control so as to facilitate learning.

7. Learning – relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice. • Behavior – includes the knowledge & skills acquired by people. • Not referring to temporary changes but enduring behavioral changes.

8. To arrange the training program to facilitate learning: • Conditions of practice (active practice, overlearning, massed versus distributed practice sessions, size of the unit to be learned, sequencing the training sessions) • Feedback • Meaningfulness of the material • Individual differences • Behavior modeling • Maintaining motivations

9. Active Practice • Individual should be given the opportunity to practice what is being taught. • Trainer should be available to guide the trainee’s practice. • As practice continues, internal cues leading to errors are progressively discarded, and internal cues associates with smooth & precise performance are retained.

10. Active Practice works best when • Trainees are given advice before beginning practice about the process or strategy that should be used to achieve optimal performance. • Trainees have mastery goals that focus their attention on the process itself as opposed to outcome goals that focus their attention on only end results. • Expectations are clarified and roles are established among team members before team practice sessions. • Trainees practice skills on either the job itself or in an environment that simulates the functional & cognitive aspects of the actual one.

11. Overlearning • Providing trainees with continued practice far beyond the point when the task has been performed correctly several times. • It is relevant to those activities that must be practiced under simulated conditions (missile firing) because the real situation is either too expensive or too dangerous. • More crucial in tasks that are designed so that individuals cannot rely on lifelong habit patterns (emergency procedures).

12. Overlearning important: • Increases the length of time that training material will be retained. • It makes the learning more reflexive – the trainee will have to concentrate less strongly on the task as it becomes “automatic” with practice. • Trainees will be more likely to maintain the quality of their performance on their jobs during periods of emergency & added stress. • Helps trainees transfer what they have learned during training to their job settings.

13. Massed vs Distributed Practice Sessions • Determine whether to divide the practice period into segments or plan one continuous session. • Effectiveness of massed vs distributed becomes less clear-cut when learning factual information. • Less meaningful the material to be learned & the greater its length or difficulty, the better distributed practice becomes relative to massed practice. Moreover, the less trainability the trainee possesses, the more than person will benefit from distributed practice.

14. More orgs move from closed to open learning settings. • Open – • individuals work on their own to learn material that is presented to them through an interactive video system, by computer, via audio or videotapes or in writing. • Learners have more freedom to decide what is studied, when, where & at what pace they will progress.

15. Size of the unit to be learned • 3 basic strategies: • Whole • Pure –part training • Progressive-part training

16. Which strategy to use depends on 2 components of the task itself: task complexity & task organization. • Task complexity – difficulty of each of the subtasks comprising the total task • Task organization refers to the degree of interrelationship among the set of subtasks. • For highly organized tasks, the whole method seems more efficient than part methods. Both part methods are superior to the whole when task organization is low. (Very true as task complexity increases.

17. Sequencing the Training Sessions • According to Anderson’s theory of skill acquisition, learning occurs in series of 3 stages • Declarative learning- obtaining factual knowledge about a task. • Knowledge compilation- aimed at teaching the trainees to turn their declarative knowledge into a cognitive understanding. • Proceduralized knowledge- learning to carry through actual hands-on application. • Declarative & knowledge – cognitive abilities • Proceduralized – motor skill abilities.

18. Declarative learning - involved obtaining factual knowledge about a task. • Knowledge compilation- training sessions aimed at teaching the trainees to turn their declarative knowledge into a cognitive understanding of how they are to perform these safety & packaging procedures using the new equipment. • Proceduralized knowledge – involved learning to carry through the actual hands-on application.

19. During declarative learning & knowledge compilation stages, trainers will need to encourage trainees to use their cognitive abilities • During proceduralized stage, the same individuals need to rely more on their motor skills abilities

20. Feedback or knowledge of results is critical for both learning & motivation. • Feedback serves 3 functions in promoting learning & motivation. • Tells if responses correct, allowing to make necessary adjustments • Learning process more interesting to maximize willingness to learn • Leads to setting specific goals for maintaining/improving performance.

21. Feedback should be provided as soon as possible after the trainee’s behavior. Not necessarily instantaneous but close enough that the behavior & feedback be clearly evident to the learner. • Trainee can derive knowledge of results from the trainer (extrinsic) as well as from the task itself (intrinsic).

22. Meaningfulness of the Material • Factual material more easily learned & remembered when meaningful to trainees. • Structured to maximize is meaningfulness • Provide overview of material presented • Presented using examples, terms & concepts familiar to trainees • Sequenced in a logical order • Complex intellectual skills invariably composed of simpler skills, and the attainment of these subordinated skills is necessary before complex skills assimilated.

23. Individual Differences • Learning styles • Activists • Reflectors • Theorists • Pragmatists

24. Behavior Modeling • Large majority of our behavioral repertoire can be acquired through observing others. We learn by imitating those actions of others that we see leading to desirable outcomes.

25. Maintaining Motivation • More readily learn ideas when feel relevant to you. Conversely, when disinterested – little progress made, despite your ability to learn what was being taught.

26. 3 Theories of Motivation • Goal Setting • Reinforcement Theory • Expectancy Theory

27. Goal setting • Individual’s conscious goals or intentions regulate one’s behavior. Goal is anything individual is consciously trying to achieve. • 3 implications of motivating trainees • Objectives conveyed clearly at outset of training & various strategic points throughout training. • Difficult to challenge & derive satisfaction from the achievement of objectives • Distal goal of finishing the program (include periodic subgoals like quizzes, sample tests) • Self-efficacy: person’s conviction he/she can master a task.

28. Reinforcement Theory (behavior modification or operant conditioning) • Approach for stimulating a trainee’s desire to learn. • Major principle – frequency of behavior is influenced by its consequences • Consequences of behavior can be categorized into 2 major types • Positive reinforcers & punishers.

29. Expectancy theory • An individual will act in a certain way based on the expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual. Effort -------> Performance linkage (How hard will I have to work?) Performance -------> Reward linkage (What is the reward?) Attractiveness (How attractive is the reward?)

30. Theories are compatible • All can be applied for motivating learning by making certain that trainees see the value for them of participating in training, understanding goals/target & clearly perceiving link between their actions during training & receipt of valued rewards. • Most training programs based on assumption that what is taught in training will be used by trainees when they complete the training program.

31. Retention & Transfer of Learning • Transfer refers to the extent to which what was learned during training is used on the job • 3 Transfer possibilities (p.107) • Positive • Negative • Zero • Negative or zero is either detrimental or of no value to an organization from cost-benefit viewpoint.

32. Optimize possibility of Positive Transfer BEFORE • Conduct needs analysis including multiple constituencies. • Seek out supervisory support • Inform trainees regarding nature of training • Assign tasks prior to training session • Maximize organizational commitment & eliminate cynicism.

33. DURING • Maximize the similarity between training session & job situation • Provide as much experience as possible with the task being taught. • Have the trainees practice their newly learned skills in actual situations they will encounter on their jobs. • Provide variety of examples. • Label/identify important features of task

34. DURING (cont) • Make sure general principles are understood before expecting much transfer. • Provide knowledge, skills & feelings of self-efficacy to self-regulate their own behaviors back on their jobs • Design the training content so trainees see its applicability • Use adjunct questions to guide the trainee’s attention.

35. AFTER • Give opportunity to practice trained tasks on the job (breadth, activity, type of tasks). • Trainer collaborate w/ each of trainees in using the applicable plan principle • Make certain trained behaviors & ideas are rewarded in job simulation. • Use relapse prevention strategy, which relies heavily on behavioral self-mgmt.

36. Pay & Promotion & Environmental constraints affect transfer of training to job as affect trainee outcome expectancies • Pay & Promotion • High outcome expectancies are critical to the transfer of training to the job setting. • Newly acquired skills should be incorporated into merit pay plans in order to increase the probability that these skills will be used on the job.

37. Environmental Constraint • Have deleterious effect on trainee’s outcome expectancies. • At least 11 constraints that can hinder the transfer of training to job setting (p. 114)

38. Social Variables Affecting Transfer of Training • Peer Group – can support & reinforce learning & applying knowledge to job. Conversely, failure to secure support can result in alienation during training & on the job. • Supervisory Support – increase probability of transfer of training to work, supervisors need to reinforce application of what was learned, supervisors must be fully aware of the training objectives as well as content of training to obtain objectives

39. Transfer Climate • Those situations & consequences which either inhibit or facilitate the transfer of what has been learned in training to the job. • Positive transfer climate has various ques (goal, social, task & structural, self control) • Consequences (+/-, punishment & no feedback) serve to remind trainees to use their new knowledge when return to their jobs.

40. Continuous Learning Work Environment • Knowledge & skill acquisition is major responsibility to each employee, learning is supported through social interaction & work relationships - - there are formal systems that reinforce achievement & provide opportunities of personal growth, & innovation & competition exits both w/in & outside the organization

41. Learning Organizations • Companies that can overcome inherent obstacles to learning, develop dynamic ways to pinpoint the threats that face them & can recognize new opportunities. • Integrated corporate framework structured around: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning.