The Best Training Tactics According to the Evidence

 

Trainings can be time consuming and costly endeavors. It is imperative that the valuable resources of time and money are not wasted. What follows are a few vital points drawn from the empirical literature on “training,” which practitioners can use when implementing training programs. These are tools that can help organizations improve the ability of their workers to transfer training to actual work situations.

       I will start by defining two important terms, Transfer of training and Generalization. Understanding these concepts will help you understand and apply the information in this brief. Conceptually, Transfer of training refers to the extent to which trainees apply, generalize, and maintain knowledge, skills, and abilities gained via training to their work.1 Generalization is the process of recognizing when knowledge, skills, and behaviors gained in one place or context can be applied to other situations.

To support transfer, trainees' individual characteristics should be considered and tended to during the recruiting and selection processes. There are at least five specific areas that affect the outcomes of training:

  • Cognitive abilities— an individual’s overall intelligence; their capacity to comprehend complex ideas, adapt to their environments, learn from experiences and employ assorted modes of reasoning.2
  • Self-efficacy— represents an individual’s belief or judgment that they have the ability to successfully perform a given task.3
  • Motivation— the processes that reveal an individual's vigor, direction and capacity for staying the course in their efforts towards accomplishing a goal or objective.4
  • Instrumentality— the perceived usefulness or value associated with participation in training events.
  • Expectancy— an individual’s belief that their efforts will result in the attainment of resources and capabilities that will bolster their performance, leading to desirable rewards.5, 6

While I touch on each of the five strategic areas, this brief primarily focuses on self-efficacy and motivation.

Key tactics associated with the successful transfer of training
  1. Transfer of training is facilitated when:
    • Trainees’ recognize the relationship between training lessons and performance outcomes.
    • Trainees’ view the acquisition of these new skills as valuable.
    • Trainees’ recognize the connection of acquired skills to their job success.7 8
    • Remember—organizational leaders must clearly convey the objectives and significance of the training from the outset and throughout the process.

     

  2. Conduct a needs analysis to determine your organization’s training needs.
    • A needs analysis or assessment can help determine if the organization’s needs, goal, and objectives can be met via training.9
    • A needs analysis can also reveal if an organizational problem can be solved through training.10
    • A needs analysis can be divided into three steps—
      • An organizational analysis, e.g.,
        • Which organizational goals can be accomplished through training?
        • Where in the organization is training needed?
      • A task analysis, e.g.,
        • What learning targets that will improve trainee’s job performance?
      • Personnel analysis, e.g.,
        • Which individuals need training?
        • In what area do they need training?
    • Remember—by first assessing the needs of trainees or causes of under-performance, trainers can determine what training intervention is most suitable for the objective that managers or their subordinates aim to accomplish.

     

  3. Design or choose training paradigms with strategies that incorporate behavior modeling:
    • Provide trainees with operative models demonstrating the effective use of targeted behaviors, opportunities to observe and practice the skills during the training event.11
    • Provide them with well defined motives + explicit objectives and explanations of behaviors to be learned.12
    • Give trainees a chance to establish personal goals related to the overarching training goal(s) and provide opportunities that contribute to the development of training related practice regimes.
    • Provide trainees with opportunities to generate their own practice scenarios during training.13
    • Grant them in-training opportunities to practice learned skills, plenty of time for in-training practice scenarios, and provide them with performance feedback.14
    • Important Note—evidence suggests that behavioral modeling is most effective when positive (exemplary or correct) and negative (non exemplary or incorrect) models are presented to trainees.15
    • Important Note—there also strong evidence suggesting that displaying multiple scenarios for trainees enhance training outcomes.16 17 18
    • Note— According to the empirical literature on behavioral modeling training, the transfer of training is greatest when trainees' supervisors’ also receive training.19

     

  4. Allow for and support an error management post-training atmosphere:
    • Let trainees make mistakes (opportunities for trainees to experience potential problems) and provide them with insight or instructions on how to manage their mistakes.21  Error management training bolsters trainees' ability to anticipate and address potential problems they may encounter later in real-world situations.22
    • Provide trainees a safe environment to realize the benefits of acquired knowledge.23
    • Error management is particularly potent during post-training debriefing exercises, rather than during the primary training modules.24
    • Remember— Error management strategy can reveal common problem-solving errors of the uninitiated. Providing information about incorrect behaviors is nearly as important as communicating target behaviors.25 Transfer of training is facilitated when trainees are given information about errors they may encounter and how to deal with them.

     

  5. Provide learners with a contextually relevant practice environment:
    • The training environment should be as realistic as possible, closely matching the circumstances that workers will encounter in real-life situations.26 27
    • Practicing new skills in a realistic setting promotes active learning.28

     

  6. Make sure to challenge trainees throughout the training process:
    • Incorporate a high degree of variability to practice trials.29 This means using variations in the initial conditions of a task during training practice so that parameters are continually changing.30

     

  7. Measure the impact of the training:
    • Incorporate a high degree of variability to practice trials.29 This means using variations in the initial conditions of a task during training practice so that parameters are continually changing.30

     

 

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is an individual’s judgment of their capabilities to succeed in specific situations or achieve a task.31 A person’s assessment of self-efficacy influences the degree of effort and persistence they will commit to a challenging task, as well as their resilience to failures.32, 33 When facing difficulties, a person experiencing low self-efficacy (having serious doubts about their abilities to surmount the challenge) will decrease their efforts if not give up altogether. Conversely, when in the same situation, the person with a high sense of self-efficacy will expend greater energy to master the challenge.34 If the person with high self-efficacy does fail, they will likely attribute their failure to an inadequate effort, while the person with low self-efficacy will attribute their failure to their lack of ability.35 In other words, the person with a low sense of self-efficacy is likely to think 'I failed because I just can't do it', while their counterpart with a high sense of self-efficacy will think 'I can do it, I just have to try harder.'

  • Self-efficacy has been continually linked to transfer outcomes.36 37
  • For trainees to transfer new competencies to the job, they have to believe that they can successfully acquire and perform the new skills.38
  • Interventions aimed at bolstering learner self-efficacy can improve training performance.38
  • Self-efficacy is important because it can be an indicator of a trainee’s persistence or commitment to the training process. Remember, those with a low level of self-efficacy have a higher likelihood of lessening or discontinuing the training as the process increases in difficulty. Conversely, those demonstrating a higher degree of self-efficacy are more likely to expend extra effort as the process becomes more challenging.39
  • Remember— Self-efficacy refers to trainees' judgment of their ability to acquire new knowledge, skills, or abilities. The greater the trainee's self-efficacy, “… the more confidence they will have in their ability to successfully acquire targeted skills and perform trained tasks”.40
  • Beware— of trainees having too much self-efficacy, which can result in over-confidence and consequently, less motivation to learn, and diminished engagement in training exercises.
  • Be cognizant— that self-efficacy alone is not a reliable predictor of trainees' likely success or failure to effectively transfer learned knowledge, skills, or abilities into valuable performance outcomes. The importance of self-efficacy to training and knowledge transfer is nuanced; for instance, research has found that the predictive power of self-efficacy decreases as the complexity of the task increases.41

 

Motivation

Motivation is the processes that explain an individual's vigor, direction and the endurance of their effort towards accomplishing a goal or objective.42 The strength of an individual’s motivation is expressed via the goals, the courses of action they choose, and the amount of energy and persistence of their effort.43 Individual’s pre-training characteristics, particularly motivation, influences their learning outcomes. Pre-training motivation refers to trainee’s attitudes, expectancies, and self-beliefs, which impact their willingness to participate in, and learn from training.44 Additionally, pre-training motivation and self-efficacy are linked. Pre-training self-efficacy is an individual’s belief that they have the capability to learn or acquire the knowledge, skills, and behaviors targeted during training. When trainees believe they can successfully achieve learning outcomes, their motivation is strengthened and it is likely they will exert the effort needed to gain the relevant knowledge, skills, and behaviors.35

  • Motivation is associated with the degree of diligence, direction and persistence trainees dedicated to achieving training objectives.46
  • A 1995 study of 967 people found a moderately strong positive relationship between pre-training motivation and training transfer as measured by supervisors; in other words, pre-training motivation explains about 20% of variance in training transfer.47
  • According to the same 1995 study, it is important that trainees believe that their training efforts will lead to positive, performance-enhancing outcomes, as well as believing they are capable of learning the new material in order for transfer to occur.48
  • Recent studies of the effects of trainee characteristics on training effectiveness have found that trainees’ motivation to learn and motivation to transfer exert a significant influence on training outcomes.49 50
  • Research suggests motivation can be impacted by interventions. Note— There is strong evidence that goal setting is a viable strategy for strengthening motivation.51 However, there are limitations and moderating factors associated with goal setting interventions, including being too narrowly focused, or “the psychological costs associated with goal failure.52 Additionally, goal setting should be used in situations where trainees’ efforts to accomplish the goals are transparent. Situation where trainees are held accountable for specific outcomes reduces the likelihood that they will engage in unethical behavior to reach the goals.53

 

Conclusion

I know that I have covered a lot of information in this brief, but don’t feel overwhelmed. By keeping some salient points in mind, you will gradually improve the learning outcomes of your training events.

       When you are designing and implementing a training, keep three major overarching areas in mind: your audience, environment, and goals. While considering these three areas, ask critical questions, collect some evidence that tests your assumptions, interview stakeholders, and take the information you gather and apply it to the design of your training.

       When considering your audience, do some pre-training leg-work so that you can accurately answer a few critical questions about trainees’ self-efficacy, motivation, and the value they expect to reap from the training. During this information gathering process, you can also collect data related to your goals by conducting a needs analysis.

       Next, make sure to establish a training environment that supports the transfer of training— designing the training to match the context of practice as closely as possible. During the training, model the behaviors or skills you want trainees to learn, either via practice scenarios, videos, computer simulations, and case studies. Throughout the training, challenge trainees by continually changing characteristics of the task being trained.

       Make trainees feel comfortable making mistakes and use these errors as opportunities to have open discussions or group brainstorming events. Be sure that multi-directional feedback is a part of the process— giving trainees constructive feedback about their performance in practice scenarios and collecting evaluations from trainees about the training.

       Finally, remember the measure the effectiveness of the training. As you get better at the process, routinely revisit the information in this brief, gradually applying more of the strategies.