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
