20 scientific articles amply summarized by theme.
Theme 1: Training effectiveness and transfer of training
Burke et al (2007): Training transfer: an integrative literature review
Brown et al (2011): ‘Don’t forget to write’: how reflective learning journals can help to facilitate, assess and ...
Course Learning and Development Summary per theme
Contents
The course Learning and development deals with the following five basic topics in the field of
learning and development:
1: Training effectiveness and transfer of training
Many organizations spend a lot of money on training in order to upgrade employee skills and
knowledge and to improve positive work-related attitudes. In practice, however, the gap between
what is learned in training and sustained workplace performance is not easy to bridge. In the course,
we will discuss how to lessen this gap by addressing learner characteristics, intervention design and
delivery, and work environment.
2. Talent management and the strengths based approach
Many organizations try to achieve employee development by taking a deficiency approach, aiming at
assessing and fixing individual weaknesses. In contrast, organizations with a strengths-based
approach target the achievement of exceptional individual and organizational outcomes by a process
of identifying and valuing employee talents, developing them into applicable strengths and putting
these strengths into practice. In the course, we will discuss the pros and cons of both approaches.
3. Workplace learning and coaching
The most important sources of learning are the challenges of work itself and the interactions with
other people in the workplace. Managers play an important role in stimulating the development of
their employees. Managerial coaching has therefore become a popular concept to stress this new
role of the supervisor. In the course, we will address the question of how to enhance workplace
learning and the role that coaching and mentoring can play here.
4. Team development & team learning
Many organizations have adopted team based structures. One of the expected yields of a team-
based organization is the stimulation of collective learning. Since team members can interact with
one another, knowledge and skill gathered by one team member can be transferred to the other
team members. We will address the conditions for team learning and team performance. The topics
of team diversity, learning and performance and of multidisciplinary project teams will be dealt with
in two separate lectures.
5. Organizational learning & knowledge management
In our knowledge driven economy organizational learning processes that lead to knowledge creation
have become important for improving a firm's competitiveness. However, organizational learning
presupposes a specific organizational climate in which there is commitment to learning and a
tolerance for failure. We will address the organizational policies and practices that enhance the
success of organizational learning.
1
,Theme 1. Training effectiveness and transfer of training
Burke, L.A., & Hutchins, H.M. (2007). Training transfer: an integrative literature review. Human Resource
Development Review, 6 (3), 263-296.
LITERATURE REVIEW ABOUT TRAINING TRANSFER
ABSTRACT: In this literature review provide a review of factors impacting transfer of training. Relevant
empirical research for transfer across the management, human resource development (HRD), training, adult
learning, performance improvement, and psychology literature is integrated into the review. We synthesize the
developing knowledge regarding the primary factors influencing transfer—learner characteristics, intervention
design and delivery, and work environment influences—to identify variables with substantive support and to
discern the most pressing gaps. Ultimately, a critique of the state of the transfer literature is provided and
targeted suggestions are outlined to guide future empirical and theoretical work in a meaningful direction.
How to lessen the gap between learning and sustained workplace performance. learning investments continue
to yield deficient results, making training transfer a core issue for human resource development (HRD)
researchers and practitioners focused on designing interventions that support individual, team, and
organizational performance.
Research questions:
• What variables in the mature and diverse transfer literature have exhibited strong empirical support for
influencing transfer outcomes?
• Where are gaps most pressing across each factor affecting transfer?
• What methodological progress been made (since Baldwin & Ford, 1988) and what variables remain
understudied (since Ford & Weissbein, 1997)?
• How should future theoretical and empirical transfer research proceed given our findings?
Literature review
Training transfer generally refers to the use of trained knowledge and skill back on the job. For transfer to
occur “learned behavior must be generalized to the job context and maintained over a period of time on the
job”.
Taxonomy of major conceptual factors influencing transfer , specifically, we examine the developing
knowledge of three primary factors influencing transfer—learning characteristics, intervention design and
delivery, and work environment influences—as based upon influential conceptual models in the field. We
based our review on these frameworks because existing transfer research continues to fall within the three
broad categories of the individual, intervention, and environment factors.
1 LEARNING CHARACTERISTICS. A learner’s characteristics influence training outcomes; that is, one of the
more enduring conceptualizations in the psychology literature is that an individual’s ability and motivation
affect performance. Thus, the primary learner characteristics influencing training transfer examined here
include the trainee’s:
Intellectual ability (cognitive ability): measure of intelligence best predicted training success/effectiveness
Self-efficacy or judgments trainees make about their competency to perform tasks (regarding the training
task): positive relationship between pretraining self-efficacy and ultimate training mastery. Selfefficacy is a
malleable learner characteristic (in contrast to trainees’ innate intelligence).
- support for including self-efficacy development methods to enhance transfer have been
demonstrated: (a) when mastery experiences and supportive feedback were included as a transfer
intervention, (b) when goal setting and self-management strategies were used in a posttraining
transfer intervention, and (c) when participants used verbal self-guidance as part of a transfer
intervention
2
, Motivation. Training motivation refers to the intensity and persistence of efforts that trainees apply in
learning-oriented improvement activities, before, during, and after training.
- Influence of pretraining motivation—or the learner’s level of intensity and desire as measured before
the training intervention—on actual transfer outcomes.
- Motivation to learn as a key variable linking pretraining characteristics and training outcomes.
- Motivation to transfer is learner’s intended efforts to utilize skills and knowledge learned in training to
a real world work situation. Less research, but significant predictor of positive transfer at one year.
- Extrinsic and intrinsic factors on transfer; favor intrinsic factors (lead to higher motivation to attend
training and learn), extrinsic rewards and benefits not significantly related to pretaining motivation.
Intrinsic more pretraining motivation and retention of training. However, meta-analysis of behavioral
modeling training methods: transfer outcomes were greatest when extrinsic components (such as
transfer being notated in performance appraisals) were instituted in the trainees’ work environments.
Personality
- Anxiety produced negative correlations with every training outcome, including transfer; and anxiety
linked to reduced training motivation.
- Negative affectivity (i.e., the dispositional tendency of individuals to feel negative emotions) as
predictor of posttraining transfer implementation intentions. High positive affectivity to have higher
motivations to improve their work performance through learning.
- Openness to experience allows trainees to better capitalize on earlier learning successes and to acquire
necessary skills faster. Intellectual curiosity.
- Trainees who were highly sociable (extroverted) higher training performance. Extroversion influences
trainees’ motivation to improve their work performance through learning, which is typically a social
process. Positive influence of sociability on transfer: training in heterogeneous groups resulted in
better transfer performance for low-ability individuals than did training in homogeneous groups.
- Conscientiousness has been shown to positively impact training proficiency as well as trainees’
confidence in their ability to learn, but not impact all training outcomes, including skill acquisition.
Perhaps conscientious trainees are unrealistic when assessing their actual learning improvement,
engage in more distracting self-regulatory activities, or are more focused on imminent task completion
versus developing new skills.
- Perceived Utility/Value. Transfer can be influenced by the perceived utility or value associated with
training. Who believes in the utility of training or value the outcomes training will provide are more
likely to apply skills learned in training. Relevance of training, immediate training needs, Perceived
value or utility of training can be influenced by trainees’ evaluation of: (1) the credibility of the new
skills for improving performance, (2) a recognized need to improve their job performance, (3) a belief
that applying new learning will improve performance, and (4) the practicality of the new skills for ease
of transfer
for maximal transfer, learners should perceive that the new knowledge and skills will improve a
relevant aspect of their work performance.
Learner utility reactions (i.e.,the extent trainees felt like training was useful to helping them perform on
the job) were associated with transfer of learning more than trainees’ affective or emotional reactions.
Career/Job Variables
Training transfer is also influenced by job and career variables in that trainees who rated high on these
variables tended to perceive more potential benefits from a training intervention to enhance their current or
future job performance.
- Career planning deals with the extent employees create and update specific plans for achieving their
goals and career exploration refers to the degree of career value and skill self-assessment activity. Link
with transfer.
- Transfer is positively influenced by trainees’ job involvement, which refers to the degree to which an
employee identifies with her job, actively participates in it, and considers job performance important
to her self-worth.
- Learners’ degree of organization commitment, produces an interested learner who wants to gain and
use new knowledge at work. positively link to transfer
- Locus of control. Internal LOC exhibited higher levels of transfer when using a posttraining transfer
intervention (more motivated to learn). However moderate influence external LOC.
Job/career variables and personality traits that largely affect trainee motivation.
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