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The significance of the literature on “transfer of training”
Addressing challenges resulting from the transfer of learning is a mammoth undertaking facing organisations that are determined to acquire gains from training programmes.
There is not only a need to reconceptualise training but also a need for those involved in training to reconceptualise their roles in the provision of training. Researchers have fore grounded alternatives to the transfer of training problem. Some maintain that it would lead to much better transfer of learning if all staff of one school could be included in one training group for all phases of training.
On face value this is not practical if one considers the costs involved but future explorations of the use of interactive video technology used elsewhere could make us reconsider this.
Burgin and Smith (1995: 52) emphasise management actions that support the transfer of training at the expense of the trainer and the trainee. It is, however, Broad and Newstrom’s (1992) approach which stands head and shoulders above the rest as it offers simple yet comprehensive alternatives to the barriers of learning implicit in the transfer problem.
They lay the groundwork by acknowledging the existence of a transfer problem in training programmes. They then proceed to focus on identifying and classifying the barriers to transfer, which as they suggest largely emanate from the perceptions of managers and trainers. Both researchers also advance the strategies of gauging the most likely time period in which the barrier would arise, that is, whether it arises before, during or after training, and the source of that barrier as emanating from the trainee, trainer, manager or organisation.
This is in acknowledgement of the fact that antecedent training conditions can be as important as (and in some cases more important than) those that occur during and after training. According to Tannenbaum in Salas (2001: 7), research has shown that activities that occur prior to training have an impact on how effective training turns out to be. These factors fall into three general categories: firstly, what trainees bring to the training setting, secondly, the variables that engage the trainee to learn and participate in developmental activities, and thirdly how the training can be prepared so as to maximise the learning experience. Broad and Newstrom (1992) however, state to the contrary that events that occur after training are as important as those that occur before and during training.
Having initially suggested the establishment of a transfer partnership between managers, trainers and trainees and emphasised that each partner has an important contribution to make, scholars remain strongly convinced that full transfer of learning requires that partners co-operate to maximise the application of new knowledge and skills on the job. Partnership is emphasised here as though the partners involved are equal. The fact of the matter is that they are not.
It is rare for trainees to suggest the need for training. Managers of organisations usually identify this need. It thus becomes obvious that the employees may never feel compelled to take up the training challenge with the enthusiasm expected. Both researchers further recommend that the trainers have to assume a new and highly visible role of the manager of transfer of training.
Comprehensive programme evaluation
Most evaluations focus on programme outcomes as their primary task. The critical aim of an evaluation study is the specification of whether the original intent is being, or has been realised. I think this reading is incorrect. There is more to evaluation than the study of effects or analysis of the extent to which intent is realised. The latter makes clarity of intent critical yet experience has shown that programmes change in midstream, as was the case with the EMD training intervention.
Even if programmes did not adjust to change in the environment as they evolved, and rigidly conformed to the prescribed set of intents, over time the users themselves would change their ideas about the results preferred.
Experience in implementing a programme often leads to a change of mind about what the programme can or should do. A revision or rather review of the outcomes helps in understanding intentions. In this case, the beginning and the summative review of a programme are parts of the same process. Having discovered what the outcome looks like, one can then reassess whether that objective seems either more or less important than when the programme began. The constructive message here is that a useful evaluation essentially requires learning about the experience of a programme from two perspectives:
• Why the programme, in this case the EMD, did what it did and what outcomes it achieved by taking into account a broad range of measures that reflect different interests.
• The interests relevant to evaluation are positional interests in a policy or programme development process. The interests of district management may not be the same as those of the principals of schools. It also needs to be taken into consideration that evaluators also have interests. As evaluators, we want to carry out evaluations with the tools we have.
The evaluator may therefore impose order on the world in the context of his/her disciplinary interest so that s/he may study it with the techniques and concepts at his/her command. In summary, evaluation cannot separate the programme interest that commissions the study from the disciplinary interests that organise the inquiry.
I intend taking cognisance of this accumulated wealth of knowledge on critical aspects of evaluation whilst placing the operational impact of the EMD training programme under close scrutiny.
The review has highlighted views from different authors on the two most significant aspects of training, these being the training transfer and its evaluation.
Most of the views cited would without doubt enable the formulation of a framework that is regarded as critical for hypothesis testing. I have attempted to challenge some of the definitions with the intention of clarifying issues and avoiding the ambiguities that might infest interpretations whilst analysing the research questions. I have cited as an example the significance of addressing the training suggested by this inquiry as an event taking place within an organisational context of educators and managers whose intentions are to become members of the professional learning community at individual learning sites as opposed to emphasising training at an individual level. This argument is motivated by the fact that policy discourages the antiquated approaches of viewing an educator as an autonomous being but encourages those of approaching him/her as a member of the professional learning community as Hargreaves (1998) postulates. I have also pointed to the significance of defining the boundaries of the learning environment as encapsulating pre-training, training and post training.
The literature review on the transfer and the evaluation of training is critical to the analysis of this inquiry in that the transfer of learning/training gap has been identified as an aspect of human resource development in dire need of attention.
CHAPTER ONE: An introduction to the study
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Policy Context
1.3. The Knowledge Base on Training
1.4. Conceptual Framework
1.5. The Training Context and Curricular Content
1.6. Research Design
1.7. Limitations
1.8. Organisation of the Dissertation
CHAPTER TWO: The Literature Context for the Study
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Training and Learning
2.3 Definitions of Learning and Concern for Transfer
2.4 Task-related Learning and Transfer
2.5 Management Training Methods and Transfer
2.6 Effective Transfer, its Scope and Limitations
2.7 The Significance of the Literature on “Transfer of Training”
2.8 Critical Issues related to the Evaluation of Training
CHAPTER THREE: Research Design and Methods
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Validity Concerns.
3.3 Limitations.
CHAPTER FOUR: Conceptual Framework
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Cascade Model of Training
4.3 Towards an Idealised Framework for Cascade Training
CHAPTER FIVE: Findings on Stakeholder Understandings
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Findings at the four different Levels
5.3 Synthesis
CHAPTER SIX: Findings on Operational Impacts
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Findings at the four different Levels
6.3 Synthesis
CHAPTER SEVEN: Significance and Implications of the Study
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Research Findings against the backdrop of an Idealised version of the Cascade Model
7.3 Contrasts between predicted changes in Understanding and Impact: An Explanation of the differences.
7.4 Educational and Methodological Implications for Policy Practice
7.5 Limitations of the inquiry
7.6 Implications for Further Research
Bibliography
