Transfer of Learning From An Action Reflection Learning™ Program*

Learning transfer from training and development programs to the workplace is a central issue of concern for human resource development specialists. Action Reflection Learning™ (ARL™) is a form of action learning that places emphasis on the development of targeted competencies while teams of participants work on real problems which have been given to them by a sponsor. This article examines the kinds of learning and learning transfer that took place in an international food company that was striving to become a global organization. Data were collected through both field observation and formal interviews and analyzed by a team of researchers. Conclusions about the degree of transfer and the mechanisms and process supporting it are presented.     

Sustaining cultures of inclusion: The value and limitation of cultural analyses

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ways in which creating and sustaining authentic inclusion requires significant alterations to more than the programmatic regularities that characterize schools (Sarason, 1996). Data from ethnographic case, studies of inclusive schools in the United States, United Kingdom and Portugal are drawn upon to illustrate significant features that characterize these schools. The multiple dimensions of their inclusive cultures include both implicit and explicit assumptions, values and beliefs that are shown to be central to the ways school staff interact with one another and students.     

Delivering distance training to rural health care professionals

This article reports on a project that delivers distance training to rural health care professionals. Traveling to provide training on information-seeking skills to rural health professionals is time consuming and costly. In addition to face-to-face training, the University of South Alabama Biomedical Library's SAMNet project seeks to deliver multimedia training to rural health care professionals. The project uses information technology to package training courses combining PowerPoint slides and video instructions. This article describes the rationale, training module design and development, and the information technology and software used in the project. Multimedia packaged distance training courses provide a practical alternative to on-site training for rural health care professionals. It enables librarians to provide training without traveling long distance, thus saving time and money. Additionally, rural health care professionals may access the modules at a time convenient to them and proceed at a pace suitable to their learning style.     

Conditioned suppression of a VI baseline using a two-bar multiple VI shock-avoidance schedule

Albino rats were trained to respond on a multiple variable-interval (VI) shock-avoidance schedule, where VI responses were reinforced on one bar, and shock-avoidance responses were reinforced on another in alternating components. Tone-shock pairs were superimposed upon the VI components, and conditioned suppression was obtained. These results are in opposition to those obtained when stimulus-shock pairs are superimposed upon baselines in Ss with shock-avoidance histories where a single manipulandum has been used for both schedules.     

Book reviews

Declaring Independence: A Guide to Creating Community-controlled Science Journals Policy Approaches to Copyright in HEIs: A Study of the JISC Committee for Awareness, Liaison and Training by Ralph Weedon University of Strathclyde (available from The Centre for Educational Systems, University of Strathclyde, Alexander Turnbull Building, 155 George Street, Glasgow G1 1RD). ISBN 0-9538312-0-5 Internet Publishing and Beyond: The Economics of Digital Information and Intellectual Property edited by Brian Kahin and Hal R. Varian MIT Press, 2000. Pp. 229. Paperback £16.95. ISBN 0-262-61159-7 How to Present at Meetings edited by George Hall. London: BMJ Books, 2001. Pp. ix + 79. £12.95. ISBN 0-7279-1271-2 Dictionary of Printing and Publishing by Michael Barnard and John Peacock Pira International, UK, 2000. Pp. 216. Softcover, £80.00. ISBN 1-85802-3815