Training Transfer and Transfer Motivation: The Influence of Individual,Environmental, Situational,Training Design,and Affective Reaction Factors

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of individual, environmental, training design, and affective reaction factors on training transfer and transfer motivation. To determine the relationship between these factors and their influence on training transfer and to test the model, the researchers collected data from employees in the Malaysian banking sector. Structural equation modeling with Amos 16 was used to test the model and determine the relationship. The study suggested that training stakeholders should manage the training program effectively. Transfer is maximized when trainees have social support, high performance self‐efficacy, and transfer motivation. Stakeholders (e.g., trainers, trainees, supervisors, and peers) are important to the training transfer process, as are learner readiness, trainee reaction, instrumentality, and training retention. This study revealed that perceived content validity and transfer design work together and influence the trainee's performance self‐efficacy. In other words, if trainers want to improve the performance self‐efficacy level of trainees, they need to explain how the trainee can transfer the learned skills at the workplace and make sure the content of the training is similar to the actual job. The main objective of training programs is to align the employee's expertise with organizational goals. Organizations can achieve their desired objectives only when employees transfer the learned skills on the job. Unfortunately, employees often transfer only a small percentage of skills they have learned in training. To effectively manage their training programs, organizations need to identify and focus on the factors that resist effective training transfer.     

A Performance Approach to Job Analysis

When we think of conducting analyses with a performance view, we commonly lean toward tools like front end analysis, needs assessment, performance analysis, and several variations. Usually, this starts because of a performance problem or because of an anticipated new performance. What about existing training? We look to training evaluation in its various levels to determine whether people like it, learn from it, transfer it, and whether the organization is benefiting from it. This paper describes a scenario where existing training was occurring, people suspected it could be more efficient, and yet the individuals' performance was for the most part satisfactory. We wanted to determine where the training could be made more efficient, determine if there were other barriers to performance, and do this with valid and reliable data from a large workforce. The Coast Guard's Performance Technology Center was in its infancy and was given the permission to try out alternative methods of conducting its work. This article describes the lessons learned about the process, about the technologies employed, and even the logistics of carrying out a rather large‐scale effort in minimal time.     

Teacher intention to transfer ICT training when integrating digital technologies in education: The teacher transfer of ICT training model (TeTra-ICT)

The aim of this study is to propose a new structural model for how teachers transfer their ICT training (TeTra-ICT), shedding light on the factors that tend to affect their intention to integrate digital technologies in educational practices as well as train their colleagues. The proposed model exploits training programme design characteristics and ICT-related individual factors. A total of 117 new ICT instructors for primary and secondary education teachers in Greece were evaluated. The instructors participated in a national Teacher Training Programme on applying ICT in education. Results indicate significant effects of individual (ICT-related self-efficacy in teaching) and programme design characteristics (platform's ease of use, support, content, and resources) on the teachers' final motivation and intention to transfer their ICT knowledge and skills. The model also reveals significant correlations between individual and training characteristics, the teachers' post-training self-efficacy for transferring skills and their perception of the usefulness of the training programme. The examined constructs explain 86% of the variance in teacher intentions to transfer their ICT knowledge and skills, and 72% of their perception of the usefulness of the training programme. Interestingly, while there were no gender differences in individual ICT-related characteristics, women expressed significantly higher values than men in their perception of the usefulness of training, self-efficacy, motivation, and intention to transfer.     

Intention to Transfer: How Do Autonomous Professionals Become Motivated to Use New Ideas?

Although performance technologists recognize the importance of transfer, there are few studies of this complex process from the perspective of the individual, autonomous professional. For these trainees, intention to apply an idea is a vital part of transfer. Thus we asked: How do autonomous professionals learning from a training program form their intentions to apply? Over eight years we collected and analyzed 180 stories of application from 73 physicians attending a faculty development fellowship. In the majority of stories, Fellows said they formed their intentions to transfer during training sessions. Of those Fellows, most said they formed intentions toward a general target while listening to explanations. To form their intentions, Fellows weighed their experiences in training against job requirements, task experiences, self‐evaluations, and goals and values. As Fellows decided to use an idea, they considered its credibility, practicality and need. Based on our analyses of the stories, we present a model for the intention to transfer and discuss its implications for practice and research.     

A Moral Experience Feedback Loop: Modeling a system of moral self-cultivation in everyday life

This systems thinking model illustrates a common feedback loop by which people engage the moral world and continually reshape their moral sensibility. The model highlights seven processes that collectively form this feedback loop: beginning with (1) one’s current moral sensibility which shapes processes of (2) perception, (3) deliberation, (4) decision-making, (5) embodying action, (6) reflection on self-evaluation and other’s responses, and (7) consolidation into one’s moral sensibility of the lessons learned. Improvements on previous models of moral engagement include (1) recognizing moral sensibility as the grounding for moral engagement, (2) articulating a systems approach and (3) illustrating a feedback loop that brings the moral protagonist full-circle leaving her with a slightly changed moral sensibility with which to engage the next moral context.     

Web 2.0 and Transfer: Trainers' Use of Technology to Support Employees' Learning Transfer on the Job

We steer transfer research in a new direction by examining the use of Web 2.0 technologies for supporting learning transfer resulting from formal training. We report survey results from training professionals (N = 83) on how their organization uses such methods to cue and support workers’ application of learned knowledge and skills on the job. Guided by the technology acceptance model (TAM) theory, we examined predictor variables found to influence technology use based on empirical and theoretical support in the information technology (IT) literature. Results indicate that trainers are influenced by several individual factors (computer experience, computer anxiety, and computer self‐efficacy), as well as their organization's learning climate, to use Web 2.0 tools to support transfer of learning. Trainers also prefer to use social media, networking applications, and visual media to support transfer among learners. We discuss implications for using Web 2.0 technologies in support of learning transfer and provide directions for future workplace learning research.     

How Trainees Transfer What They Have Learned: Toward a Taxonomy of Use

Researchers have consistently advocated for clearer concepts and better operational definitions of measures of training transfer. To clarify what trainees actually do on the job, we defined transfer as use on the job of what was learned in training and developed a prototype taxonomy of use. To form the taxonomy we asked, “How do relatively autonomous workers, taught open skills, use in their work what they have learned from training?” To create categories of use, we analyzed, defined, and reorganized former trainees’ stories of application from studies by Yelon and others (Yelon, Reznich, & Sleight, 1997; Yelon, Sheppard, Sleight, & Ford, 2004; Yelon, Ford, & Golden, 2013). We identified, as part of the prototype taxonomy the actions, content, conditions, tasks, purposes, and beneficiaries of different types of use. We discuss how this multidimensional framework provides a way of conceiving of and measuring transfer as use and the implications for practice and research.     

A Comprehensive Model for the Transfer of Training

The transfer of newly learned skills from a training situation to actual on-the-job performance is one of the most important aspects of training design and development, since this process is the ultimate goal of nearly any training session. Based on an extensive literature review in a variety of educational and corporate content areas, the following article presents a model for the effective transfer of newly learned skills from the training classroom to worksite implementation. The model includes three overall stages (pre-training, training, and post-training) and specific strategies in each stage for use by trainers, managers, and other corporate professionals. While useful in a variety of settings, this model should prove particularly helpful to instructional designers and corporate trainers involved in developing instruction to improve the performance of employees at all levels.     

M.A.S.S.: A Model for Producing Transfer

Transfer is the application in the workplace of the knowledge, skills and attitudes learned in training. With transfer, trainers hope to link training to increased job performance. However, training alone will not produce transfer. To affect job performance as a result of training, trainers must intentionally promote transfer using a variety of strategies based on known principles of human performance technology. The MASS model, presented in this paper, brings together four of these principles. According to the MASS model, trainers who promote transfer (and who thereby become performance technologists) 1) Motivate trainees to learn and use the training material; 2) increase trainees' Awareness of when to use new skills and ideas; 3) enable trainees to master and to apply Skills; and 4) give trainees psychological and physical Support on the job. When performance technologists follow the MASS model, they can expect to produce trainees who apply at work what they have been taught in training. Use of the model is illustrated with two examples.     

Medical Fellows Tell Stories of Application: A Grounded Theory on the Dynamics of Transfer

In this exploratory study, researchers collected and analyzed physician's stories of how they had applied what they had learned from a medical fellowship. We describe and explain the patterns shown in five cases of application. Based on these cases we form a theory of transfer for autonomous professionals learning an open skill. The findings support the claim that transfer is a dynamic process. We view transfer as part of a continuous learning and motivational process extending to a learner's past and projecting into a learner's future. The theory, in brief, is that professionally oriented learners follow an iterative constructive pattern of application when applying knowledge: learners perceive the usefulness of an idea, become ready to use the notion, make the application, and learn from its implementation. We also briefly describe practical and theoretical implications of the theory.     

Building and verifying capability to perform

This article summarizes a project to qualify manufacturing process operators in all job duties for a given area. The challenges were regulatory requirements, an inaccessible work environment, existing unalterable procedures, a short fixed deadline, complex work, and lots of tacit know‐how. In our favor were leadership support, skilled operators, and an enthusiastic team. We learned the importance of training on the “why's” and tried out an accelerated object‐based development process. Ultimately we delivered a 44% return on investment.     

Skill Acquisition in Physical Education: A Speculative Perspective

How we learn motor skills has always been of interest to physical educators. Contemporary conceptual frameworks about motor skill learning draw from earlier behavioral and cognitive psychology learning theories. As a point of departure this paper foregrounds complexity theorizing, arguing that skill is contingent upon the performer's physical and social context. Drawing on nonlinear dynamics systems theory, ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979), its associated perception/ action coupling (Kugler and Turvey, 1988), an adaption to Gibson's ecological theory (Withagen & van der Kamp, 2010), and the sociological framework of Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1990, 1998, 2000), it is argued that ecological perspectives and social theories that take account of the complexity of the performance contexts have a part to play in explaining how physical skills are performed and learnt. The relational properties between the learner and the context are essential elements of skill.     

The Effects of Combined Strategy and Attribution Training on LD Adolescents' Spelling Performance

This investigation was intended to evaluate the effects of attribution training combined with spelling strategy training on spelling performance, strategy transfer, and effort attributions. Thirty-four adolescents with learning disabilities in Grades 7 and 8 were stratified by grade level and randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: spelling strategy training, spelling strategy plus attribution training, or a traditional study control condition. Individually administered training sessions were conducted over 3 consecutive days. Participants in the two strategy training conditions received instruction in a five-step study strategy that included explicit training for strategy transfer, whereas participants in the control condition received training in the use of traditional spelling study procedures. Spelling performance was assessed across the training days and on an unprompted general- ization task that occurred 1 week following instruction. Results indicated that significant differences occurred on spelling recall scores across the training days, favoring the strategy training condition. No performance differences emerged on numbers of words learned on the unprompted generalization task or on posttest numbers of effort attributions. Significant differences were detected on numbers of participants who employed the trained strategy independently on the unprompted task, favoring the strategy attribution condition and the strategy training condi- tions. In this study, attribution training did not result in greater spelling perfor- mance, strategy transfer, or numbers of attributions to effort. Limitations are discussed in addition to implications for future research and classroom practice.     

Teachers' perception of the new teacher evaluation policy: A validity study of the Policy Characteristics Scale

Teachers' perception of the educational policy is vital to understand the success or failure of the policy's implementation. In this article, we describe the development and use of the Policy Characteristics Scale to measure teachers' perception of a new teacher evaluation policy. An exploratory factor analysis (n = 347) and a confirmative factor analysis (n = 263) revealed a three-factor structure of teachers' perception of the new educational policy: policy's practicality, need, and clarifying function. Our research results indicated that teachers confirm the policy's need. They perceive the reform as clear but they have questions about the policy's implementation. Implications for policy makers and school leaders are discussed.     

Presidential Address: BERA. Who are we? How did we get here? Where are we going?

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the British Educational Research Association (BERA), Vivienne Baumfield's inaugural presidential address reflects on who we are, how we got here and where we are going. On one level the answer to these questions is straightforward. BERA is a learned society established in 1974 to support educational research by building capacity, advancing quality and promoting engagement with a strategic plan identifying priority activities over the next 5 years. So far, so good, but does this tell us what we need to know? Delivered at the BERA Conference 2022, the address explores through these questions some implications of belonging to BERA as a ‘learned society’ in the twenty-first century.     

Reflecting on Practice: using learning journals in higher and continuing education

The purpose of this study is to report on the use of learning journals as vehicles for encouraging critical reflection among non-traditional students and to compare variances with studies among traditional students. An objective of the study was to understand how adult students in a 'technical' computer class responded to the requirement for learning journals. Qualitative research focused on whether learning journals prove to be an effective teaching tool in science-based, adult learning. The study was conducted at Columbia University's Computer Technology programme in Continuing Education. Results suggest that non-traditional students are more skeptical than traditional students about using learning journals and more likely to use them as study tools. An implication of this study is that student perception and skepticism of the assignment can affect the objective of developing reflective thinking. This implication stresses the need to account for student perception in studies on learning journals and critical reflection.     

Effects of process-oriented worked examples on troubleshooting transfer performance

In the domain of electrical circuits troubleshooting, a full factorial experiment investigated the hypotheses that (a) studying worked examples would lead to better transfer performance than solving conventional problems, with less investment of time and mental effort during training and test, and (b) adding process information to worked examples would increase investment of effort during training and enhance transfer performance; whereas adding it to conventional problems would increase investment of effort, but would not positively affect transfer performance. The first hypothesis was largely confirmed by the data; the second was not: adding process information indeed resulted in increased investment of effort during training, but not in higher transfer performance in combination with worked examples.     

Compatibility Effects in Young Children's Tool Use: Learning and Transfer

An inherent component of tool-use actions is the transformation of the user's operating movement into the desired effect. In this study, the relevance of this transformation for young children's learning of tool-use actions was investigated. Sixty-four children at the age of 27–30 months learned to use levers which either simply extended (compatible transformation) or reversed (incompatible transformation) their operating movements. Data revealed a compatibility effect as well as transfer effects originating from the two different types of transformations. Furthermore, results suggest that young children's tool-use learning is not a uniform process, but has to be regarded individually depending on the type of transformation.     

How Far Have We Moved Toward the Integration of Theory and Practice in Self-Regulation?

In this article, we address four main questions, including: What is self-regulated learning for? What key strategies do students need to guide and direct their own learning process? What cues in the learning environment trigger self-regulation strategies? What can teachers do to help student to self-regulate their learning, motivation, and effort in the classroom? We illustrate that answers to these questions have changed over time and that changing conceptualizations of the self-regulation process have influenced the assessment tools that were used. We also point to changing classroom conditions as a factor that has affected the assessment of self-regulation. Finally, we formulate some questions that need to be tackled in research on self-regulation and introduce the articles and commentaries in the special issue that provide some cutting-edge work on the use of assessment to register self-regulation over time.