Course Guide
Inroduction
Designed for
The DoT course is designed for people who have already completed the course in Direct Trainer Skills, and have some experience of direct training. The Course is specifically intended for trainers who are required to undertake design and development of training for their institution or organization.
Facilitators
The facilitators certificated as competent by the Training Division of the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India.
Course Style
A comprehensive range of handouts and checklists will be given to participants to support their Course activities.
Participants will be evenly divided into ‘design teams’ for the Workshop, each team tackling a common work-related problem for which training is needed. Team members will also act as ‘consultants’ to other teams to provide feedback and widen their knowledge of training design.
The Workshop is based on an intensive series of individual and team activities. This requires full-time commitment for the full five days, including some evening study.
Therefore, the Course is residential. It is recommended that participants should attend this Course in a city other than their Headquarters.
On completion of the workshop participants will be required to complete an agreed design project for submission to the course tutor. Participants who satisfactorily complete both the workshop and the project will be awarded a Certificate, recognized by the Department of Personnel and Training, Government of India.
Aim
The aim of the Course is to equip the participants with the skills of designing a Training Course.
Training Objectives (TOs)
Enabling Objectives of the above Training Objectives:
T.O. 1 Prepare a Training Design Brief;
b) Explain the components of a Training Design Brief
c) Identify the ‘Constraints’ which influence training
d) Indicate solutions for tackling the ‘Constraints’
T.O. 2 Set ‘Objectives’ for the proposed training
a) Distinguish between 'performance objectives', 'training objectives' and 'enabling objectives'.b) Incorporate conditions and standards of performance in the Objectives.
T.O. 3 Develop the Learning Units required for training
a) Explain the differences between 'Training Programmes', ‘Training Courses’ and 'Learning Units',b) Describe the components of a Learning Unit
c) Identify the Learning Units required for a Training Course.
T.O. 4 Identify the measures required for smoothening the heterogeneity in the Entry Behaviour of the participant
a) Explain the relevance of Entry Behaviour for designing trainingb) Identify the factors under Entry Behaviour which make an impact on training
c) Indicate the assumptions that can be made about Entry Behaviour
d) List the methods by which Entry Behaviour can be assessed.
e) Identify the measures by which the heterogeneity in Entry Behaviour may be smoothened.
T.O. 5 Apply the Concepts of Andragogy, Categories of Knowledge and Skills, Mastery Learning and Transfer of Learning to training design.
a) Explain the conceptsb) Clarify the concepts with examples
c) Apply the Concepts in training design
T.O. 6 Design a Learning Event
a) Explain the components of Learning Eventb) Select Content for achieving the Training Objectives
c) Explain the ways in which content is required to be sequenced.
d) Identify the Media required
e) Describe the use of various training methods
f) Select the training method suitable under given conditions
g) Prepare a Learning event
T.O. 7 Select appropriate Performance Aid
a) Define ‘Performance Aid’b) Explain types of ‘Performance Aid’
c) Explain the importance of ‘Performance Aids’ in Design of Training
T.O. 8 Apply four levels of assessment to a design proposal
a) Describe the term ‘assessment’b) Describe the term ‘Internal Validation’
c) Describe the term ‘External Validation’
d) Describe the term ‘Evaluation’
e) Apply four levels of ‘Assessment’ to a training design proposal
T.O. 9 Present training design proposal
a) Prepare design proposalsb) Present design proposals
Assessment
The priority during the course is to help participants to develop their designing skills. Assessment is, therefore, concerned with informal feedback and guidance to individual participants.
Time Table for the Workshop
The workshop will normally start at 9.00 Hrs. on Monday. The starting time on other days can be mutually agreed through consensus. The closing time on every day depends upon the full coverage of the portion allocated for the day.
Participants should also expect some evening activities, either individually or within their design team. Please note that due to the intensive schedule of study, no provision has been made for visits. The following is an indication of how the time is allocated.
--- Table ---
Project
The Workshop gives participants an opportunity to develop an understanding of the concepts and practices of training design. The Project is intended to continue this development by requiring them to undertake a practical design project of benefit to their institution or organization. The choice of design left for participants and their management to decide, although it should be concerned with either a specific, task-related learning unit, or the more general design of a short course.
- The course tutor will require the following details of the proposed project:
- Name of Participant.
- Institution or organization for which the training is being designed.
Aim of the design.
A brief description of how the completion of this design will benefit the institution.
Please note that the final date for accepting the project will be agreed with the tutor. A Certificate recognized by the Department of Personnel and Training will be awarded go those participants who complete their project successfully.
Assessment of the project will be based on the Project Assessment Form. This gives the criteria to be used for assessment, although we will give emphasis to the imaginative application of these features, as we do not intend them to impose a rigid set of rules. The criterion score for an acceptable project is 70%.
DTS Reinforcemnt Exercise
Performance Problem
Enabling objectives
After reading this handout you will be able to:1. Explain the role of training in the context of organizational performance.
2. Explain what is a performance problem
3. List the various steps involved in Training Needs Analysis
4. List the factors which contribute to performance
5. Distinguish between Training Needs and Non-Training interventions
6. Describe the link between training Design Brief and Performance Problem
1. We are aware that the purpose of training is to enhance performance in the organizations. The definition of training with which we are already familiar states that:
“Training is a planned process to modify attitude, knowledge or skill behaviour through learning experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities.”
2. So, the purpose of training is to achieve effective Performance. This is certainly required where the present level of performance is ineffective. Alternatively, even when the present level of performance is up to the mark, organizations may like to improve performance. Training comes as a solution under both the above mentioned circumstances. Please note training comes as a solution; not the solution. This aspect will become clear when we proceed further.
3. When it is proposed to solve an existing problem (of inadequate performance) through training, it is known as reactive route to training. When training is thought of as a means of enhancing the presently acceptable level of performance, it is known as pro-active route to training. In this handout we will be dealing with the first mentioned situation i.e. training as a way of solving Performance Problem.
4. Performance is the major factor, often the only factor, determining the success or otherwise of the organizations. Human beings in the organization perform; various wings of the organization perform; the organization as such performs. Whenever the performance is below the prescribed level, there is a performance problem. A performance problem may be defined as the difference between what is and what ought to be. Mathematically we may put:
Performance Problem = What should be? – What is? = Standard - Actual
5. Some of the situations we come across in the organization are as under:
- The company should have achieved a profit of 50 lakhs; but the actual profit is only 47 lakhs
- Establishment wing should have completed the recruitment of new clerks before June; but actually it completed the process only in September.
- Disciplinary proceedings must be completed within six months; there are seven cases pending for more than one year.
- The typist should be able to type at the speed of 40 words per minute; we have five typists who cannot type at more than 30 words per minute.
6. The above concept can be graphically represented as under:
-- Picture--
7. The solution of the above mentioned performance Problems and other similar Performance Problems are possible only when the problem is identified and analyzed because.
YOU MUST FIRST UNDERSTAND HOW IT WAS TIED." - Narad in Surangama Sutra
TNA = IPP + APP + ITN
Where, TNA – Training Needs AnalysisIPP – Identification of Performance Problem
APP – Analysis of Performance Problem
ITN – Identification of Training Needs
9. The first stage in TNA i.e. the identification of Performance Problem requires knowledge about two things viz. what is the prescribed standard performance and what is the actual performance. Actual performance may be measured through direct observation, inspection, financial statements, Annual Reports etc. You may also prescribe reports for monitoring the actual performance. In fact, most of the control reports are prescribed by the management for assessing the performance of individuals as the performance of individuals as well as various wings of the organization. Assessing the Standard or prescribed performance possesses a problem. There may be charters of duty wherein the expected output of various categories of employees may be laid down. But there are many organizations where there is no prescribed level of performance. The following process will help in fixing the standard performance:
- Comparison with similarly placed organizations
- Comparison with one’s own past performance
- Benchmarking
- Comparison with Industry standards
- Work study
10. Once the Performance Problem is identified, it is required to be analysed. At this stage the following factors become significant:
- Level of the problem
- Dimension of the problem
- Symptom /Cause Analysis
- Identification of the Learning Needs
11. While going through the list of performance Problems as above, you might have noticed that the levels of the performance problems are different. The first problem (low profit) is at the organizational level i.e. it affects the entire organization. Besides it seems that the entire organization is responsible for the problem. The second problem (delay in recruitment) is at the level of a wing of an organization, viz. the establishment wing. The third problem (delay in finalization of disciplinary cases) is probably at the level of the persons conducting the Inquiry. The fourth problem (poor typing speed) is at the level of the Task. The Performance Problems may exist at any of following four levels:
- Organizational level
- Departmental level
- Job level
- Task level
12. During analysis of the Performance Problem you may be able to focus the problem from higher to lower levels. E.g. the first problem states that the profit in the organization is less than the desired quantum. On further examination of the problem, you may be able to attribute these to one or two problems at the departmental level. The above problem may be on account of:
- Failure of the materials division of the organization – they may be procuring the raw material at a higher cost
- Failure of the maintenance division – they may be failing in their duty with the result that there is higher cost of maintenance or the machine down time is going up.
- Failure of the personnel wing – there may be poor Industrial Relations which affects performance
13. Further analysis of the problem may reduce the level of the problem to still lower levels. The analyst should be able to reduce the level of the problem as low as possible so that the real cause of the problem could be identified.
14. Performance is achieved through a number of factors. Accordingly, a performance problem may also have a number of dimensions. Normally a performance problem may have one or more of the following dimensions:
Environmental dimension:
Environment is a factor of production. People need proper working place, equipment etc. for effective performance. When non-performance or poor performance is attributable to the following factors, performance problems are said to have environmental dimension:
- Rules do not permit them to do what they are required to do.
- Procedures prevent them from performing.
- Resources necessary for performance are not available.
- People do not know what is expected of them.
- People lack tools necessary for performance.
Motivational Dimension:
Over and above the resources such as equipment, funds, etc, people require motivation to perform. There may be situations where poor performance is attributable to lack of motivation. Some of the situations when performance problem is attributable to lack of motivation may be as under:
- Performance is punishing (by assignment of additional work)
- Non–Performance is not punishing (When there is no performance appraisal system in the organization, non-performance may not be detected at all and they may get off with their poor performance)
- Non–Performance is rewarded (erratic application of the reward and punishment system in the organization may lead to non-performers being rewarded)
- Performance is risky (a performer may commit mistakes and may be required to answer a number of inconvenient and embarrassing questions whereas a non-performer has neither done anything right nor wrong)
Behavioural dimension:
Lack of performance may be attributable to lack of knowledge and skill of the persons responsible for performance. It may be due to variety of circumstances such as:
- The complexity of the task to be performed
- Individuals concerned may be new to the organization
- The individuals may be new to the particular assignment
- The assignment is occasional in nature that one could not acquire mastery over the performance of the task and maintain it.
15. As seen above, the problems may have multiple dimensions. The solutions to the performance problem depend upon its dimensions. If frequent power cut is responsible for the Performance Problem, the solution might be to install a generator or construct a transformer. There may be a situation where some one is not able to perform because the assignment is new and complex. Training may be thought of as a solution. There may be also a situation where the problem is attributable to the old technology followed by the organization. The solution may be to introduce modern technology. This will give rise to another requirement i.e. training the employees in the new technology. Thus, a performance problem may have a purely Non-training solution; or a training solution or a combination of both.
16. You may appreciate that if training is to contribute for organizational growth, there must be active and effective integration between training and non-training interventions.
17. By now you might have guessed that Training can be a solution to a Performance Problem only when the problem has a behavioural dimension – either independently or along with the other dimensions. This is another point to be taken note of by the trainers. Trainers in their over enthusiasm should not suggest training as a cure-all for all the maladies in the organizations. Training can be a solution only to some of the problems of the organization and that too along with some other solutions.
18. In fact the solution to the problem is possible only when the cause of the problem is known. Very often, there might be confusion between a problem, its symptom and cause. Suppose there is always a big crowd in a particular branch of a Bank. Is it a problem or a symptom of a problem? Well, it may be neither. It may be a symptom of the efficiency of the branch. A symptom is what meets the eye – the factor that prompts you to examine the issue further. Suppose you wish to examine the symptom of big crowd in the branch of the Bank. The problem may be that the time taken for clearing cheques is long. To put it in the form of the equation we saw in previous para, "whereas a cheque ought to be cleared in 10 minutes, it is being cleared in 20 minutes”. This problem may be due to any one of the following causes:
- The ledgers required for making entries may not be handy
- The office layout and the seating pattern of the employees may pose a hindrance to free movement
- The person responsible for processing the cheque may be inefficient and hence slow
- The computers used for the purpose may be slow and may need upgradation.
19. The solution to the problem depends upon the causes of the problem. One cause may give rise to a number of problems and a problem may have more than one cause. It is also necessary to note that there may be a cause behind a cause. It is possible that there is delay in processing cases in an office because the old records required for processing are not easily available. The old records are not easily available because the Record room is not being maintained properly. The Record room is not being maintained properly because, it was constructed for holding 5000 records but presently there are 15000 records therein. The number of records in the Record room is disproportionate to its capacity because… and it goes on. This way you should keep on asking why? How? Why? How? Repeatedly till you reach the root cause. This will guide you to possible solutions.
20. The solutions, which emerge as a result of the analysis of the Performance problem, will contain several non-training interventions. There may be some solutions relating to the up gradation of the knowledge and skills of the employees. These are known as Learning Needs. There are several structured and unstructured informal ways of fulfilling these Learning Needs. Some of them may be as under:
- The employees whole knowledge and skills are to be enhanced, may be posted as an understudy to an experienced worker.
- Job Aids in the form of Tip Sheets, Task Guidance chart, etc. may be provided for reference when required.
- Information required for enhancement of performance may be provided to the employees in the form of brochures, circulars, manuals, etc.
- Mentoring assistance may be provided to the needy.
- Allowing more time for practice.
21. There may also be situations where such informal solutions may not work. The reasons may be:
- The skill to be acquired may be complex and call for regular, formal efforts to impart them.
- Informal methods may be costly – you cannot afford to put one experienced senior behind every new recruit. This will affect the productivity of the seniors.
- It may be time consuming.
- It may be risky – you may not like to train fire service personnel to learn things through self – practice.
22. The Learning needs which could not be fulfilled though the informal arrangements are known as Training Needs. Again there is no unique way for fulfilling these training Needs. There may be some organizations, which are already conducting training courses, which address the Training Needs identified by you. You may send your employees to such courses. Alternatively, you may have to arrange for a training course, which specifically addresses the Training Needs identified by you. Under such a circumstance, you may have to go in for designing a training course.
23. Normally TNA is carried out as a team activity. The team may include representatives of the organization, employees and training professionals. After identification of the Training Needs, the mantle will fall on the training professionals. Once a decision has been taken to go for designing a tailor made training course, a Design Brief is prepared. This is the first understanding between the trainers and the organization for which the training is proposed. The Design Brief, which is the end product of the TNA, will contain broad specification of the proposed and will contain the following:
- Context within which the training is proposed
- Performance Problem which has led to the Training solution
- Client Organization
- Training Needs
- Aim of the Proposed training
- Target Population
- Constraints in organizing / conducting the proposed training
Benefits, which will emerge out of the proposed training – benefits to the organization, the trainees and the society, etc.
24. After the Design Brief is agreed between the organization and the training professionals, detailed design activity commences. You will be holding detailed discussion about the design of training.
SELF ASSESSMENT QUIZ:
I. Please state whether the following statements are TRUE or FALSE.
2. Performance Problem may exist only with reference to individual employees.
3. A problem, its symptoms and cause are the same.
4. Performance problem is the difference between what ought to be and what is.
5. Standard performance may not always be available in all organisations.
II. Arrange the following stages of Training Needs Analysis in the chronological order:
2. Analysis of the Performance Problem
3. Design Brief
4. Identification of Performance Problem
5. Training Needs
6. Symptom of a Performance Problem
III. Please indicate the dimension of the following issues, which affect performance:
2. Your request for attending a three days Training Course in a local Institute has been rejected because there may be some urgent unforeseen work during that period.
3. The newly promoted Superintendent is very lenient to the subordinates which leads to some amount of indiscipline in the organization.
4. The production targets could not be met due to high time of the plant.
5. The plans for the export of your product could not materialize because a new legislation.
IV. Indicate the level of the following Performance Problems
2. The Accountant who would pass a Travelling Allowance Bill in 30 minutes takes more than 50 minutes.
3. Materials required in the shop floor do not reach in time.
4. Indents for purchase of new materials are erratic.
5. Officers get the mail addressed to them nearly a week after they are received in the officer.
V. Mention any four components of the Design Brief.
VI. Indicate any two ways in which the learning needs may be met without organizing a formal training course.
VII. What are the circumstances when the learning Need may not be met through informal arrangement.
Now, you can attempt what we expected you to do after reading the handout? (Please refer to items (a) to (f) on the top of the page-1
Introduction
Our ability to help a person learn is not simply a matter of our direct trainer skills, such as our ability to coach a person, give lectures, led discussions or to run group exercise. These are essential skills. But for them to be used effectively they should be based on well-designed training.
In this handout we’ll describe our approach to the design of training and introduce several concepts which will be covered during the DoT course. The mention of ‘our approach’ is important because there’s no definitive, established approach that can be used: each of us: when we are designing something, does so based on the following definition of ‘design’ taken from the Oxford English Dictionary:
‘A plan or scheme conceived in the mind of something to be done; the preliminary conception of an idea that is to be carried into effect by action.’
Therefore, as a designer of training, you are conceiving something in your mind to be carried into action. Perhaps both the design and implementation of training will be done by you, but often it will involve others, such as direct trainers, training institutions, departments and, most important of all, the trainees. What you conceive in your mind will affect the successful use of the time, effort and resources spent on training. The design of training is a vital part of the Systematic Approach to Training and as a training designer you will need to develop your own approach about how you can do the following:
- Conceive in your mind training suitable to meet identified training needs.
- Collaborate with a variety of client organisation to meet their requirements.
- Use available resources effectively and efficiently.
- Plan action for yourself and others.
- Ensure a satisfactory outcome from the training.
This handout is intended to link learning done on the Direct Trainer Skills course (DTS) with an approach and concepts you can use for the design of training. Here we will outline the broad framework of training design, mentioning concepts and techniques that will be later discussed in more detail. During this introduction to design we will use an analogy to illustrate issues which we consider important.
Analogy
This material has been prepared using WordPerfect 6.1 and we will use this fact as the basis for the analogy. You don’t need to know anything about WordPerfect or about word processing. We’ll use the analogy first to refer to the model of Systematic Approach to Training, introduced in the DTS course, illustrated in Fig.1 below. You will notice certain words highlighted to indicate their importance in training design: these will be discussed in detail later in the course.
Fig.1
Notice that PERFORMANCE is at the centre of the model. This is important because as designers we need to recognise that the outcome of our work should be improvement in performance – otherwise why bother wasting time and resources on training? For the analogy performance is therefore concerned with the use of WordPerfect 6.1, and this raises some design issues – for example:
- Who needs to be trained?
- What standard of performance is required?
Although these may seem straightforward questions, they pose major design issues that have to be tackled if training is to be successful. The first question, referring to who needs to be trained, assumes that training needs have been identified and individuals or categories of people are known and quantified. This information should let us know how many people need to be trained, or providing training at an inconvenient location causing unnecessary expense and loss of time.
The first question also raises concern about whether the prospective trainee needs to learn WordPerfect 6.1. What are they using now? What is their current standard of performance? Are they computer literate? Do they have adequate keyboard skills? Do they want to learn WordPerfect 6.1? As a designer you will need this information to enable you to establish a starting point for the training to be provided. There is a considerable difference between people already competent to use WordPerfect 5.1, who simply need an update on the new features and changes introduced with the new version, and others who have no experience of WordPerfect, or indeed no knowledge of word processing.
The second question is of increasing importance as organisations seek to improve efficiency and the quality of products and services they offer to customers – both internal and external. When designing training it is essential to know the standard of performance required to be achieved by trainees, bearing in mind that the higher the standard the higher will be the demand in time and resources needed. Establishing an agreed standard of performance is part of working out a design brief that specifies who is to be trained and the standards to be achieved and agree with the client.
A popular book on using WordPerfect 6.1 has over 1,000 pages of information about the program, including desk top publishing, graphics, tables, templates, equations, etc. As the designer you will need to negotiate with clients, heads of departments and trainees to agree aims and objectives for the training you are designing, which, adapting the OED’s definition, you will conceive in your mind to be carried into effect by means of action – the implementation of your design. One of the concepts to be introduced later is that of mastery learning which recommends setting a satisfactory standard of performance, compatible with requirements. So, if you were asked to design training for WordPerfect 6.1 users, what standards of performance could be set? Which features of the programme should trainees be competent to use? Although we have used WordPerfect 6.1 as an analogy, the situation applies to all design activities.
The Learning Curve
Everybody, when faced with learning a task, follows a learning curve such as the one illustrated below in Fig.2.
Fig.2
This shows a vertical axis to indicate improving performance and a horizontal axis to show the time needed to achieve this. The curve shown in the illustration is an idealized one, without taking into account learning plateaus, where a trainee is experiencing difficulties and not improving performance. Figure 2 is important for your work as a training designer – for example:
‘Performance’
The standard of performance will be set in consultation with others. You will be responsible for creating an appropriate Learning event to enable people to achieve the agreed standard.
‘Time’
The amount of time people need to learn something can vary considerably, but most of them, given a learning event suited to their needs, can achieve a satisfactory standard of performance. You are responsible for deciding how such learning events can be created, ensuring that as far as possible sufficient time is available to meet the learning needs of individual trainees.
‘Learning Curve’
The curve in Figure 2 shows a smooth curve, initially with a steep gradient gradually flattening out as the trainee approaches mastery. You have a responsibility for designing a pathway of learning opportunities and support to enable a trainee to make such progress towards a satisfactory standard of performance.
The learning curve can represent a short training session to enable a person to achieve a modest increase in performance, or it can represent a long period for professional development. In all except the simplest learning situations, you may find it useful to consider design through several building blocks, or learning units, each proving opportunities for progressive learning towards a satisfactory standard of performance. Figure 3, below, illustrates how this can be related to the learning curve.
Fig.3
The illustration shows two learning units, labelled ‘Training Course’ and ‘On Job Training’. Applying the analogy, a course has been designed to meet the basic, general needs of people needing to learn WordPerfect 6.1. The course can be run at a training institution, over a fixed period of, say, three days. The objectives set for this will relate to the limited time available and probably a wide variation in trainee’s entry behaviour.
Time Performance Learning CurveOn Job TrainingCourse
A course, by itself is unlikely to help people achieve a high standard of performance. For some, a high standard is not required and as a result of attending the course they are able to have limited but competent use of WordPerfect 6.1. However, due to the limited opportunity to practice skills, there is a risk that the performance of trainees will quickly deteriorate thereby negating the value of the training. So, instead of the learning curve continuing to rise to show an increasing standard of performance, it might fall as trainees forget vital pieces of information and lose their skills. For these reasons a course, by itself, rarely provides effective opportunities to help people develop competent performance.
Figure 3 shows that a second learning unit is designed to ensure that a trainee’s performance can be maintained or improved. In the analogy we are suggesting that this is by means of On Job Training (OJT). This will be done under supervision to ensure effective transfer of learning. A feature of the training, incorporated in the design, is the use of performance aids, which trainees can use to support their learning and help them use WordPerfect 6.1.
You will notice that the learning curve continue beyond the unit designed for OJT. This is because many tasks are highly productive and a person will probably continue to learn and gain more experience long after their formal training is completed. Remember, the book about WordPerfect 6.1 has over 1,000 pages! Also, by the time all of this has been studied and applied to job performance, another version of WordPerfect may have been introduced – or the organisation has decided to adopt a different program!
Perspectives for Designing Training
Depending on your role and status as a trainer, you could be designing training in several different contexts. For example, using the analogy:
- You could be a departmental training manager, planning a training programme to enable your organisation to fully utilize the potential of more powerful personal computers and the introduction of WordPerfect 6.1. Here you will be dealing with the broad design framework to specify the outcomes from the programme and agreeing a design brief with training institutions.
- You could be an institutional trainer asked to design a training course on WordPerfect 6.1. The course will be run at your institution, perhaps with the assistance of subject matter experts. Here you will be working from a given design brief and be responsible for designing the course and supervising its delivery.
- You could be involved in a department’s IT function, helping members of staff continue to develop their ability to use WordPerfect 6.1. Here you will be designing learning units to enable them to perform specific tasks, according to departmental requirements. Also, as the concept of competence is introduced, you might be involved in designing methods of assessment.
Therefore, rather than attempt to tackle training design as a single, all embracing activity, it seems more appropriate to consider some broad perspectives in which design activities can be undertaken. Figure 4, below illustrates them.
Fig.4
Based on the Systematic Approach to Training, in particular information from Training Needs Analysis, a broad, overall picture will be provided of training and development needs. The distinction between ‘training’ and ‘development’ should be noted as the analysis may provide information about current and anticipated performance problems – where training is needed, or it may highlight situations. Where the concern is the development of people, rather than for any particular training need. From discussing the situation with a client, a design brief can be agreed. This establishes the basis for design and a clear understanding of the outcomes to be achieved.
Training Programme
Information from training needs analysis and discussions with clients, will identify performance problems and training or development needs. Usually, these problems will involve a number of people with often different needs.
Training ProgrammeTraining CourseLearning Unit
Applying the perspective of a training programme to design, the trainer is likely to be involved in the selection, specification, administration and assessment of courses and learning units which may be designed and implemented by others.
Training Course
Groups of people often have similar training needs which can best be met by means of a training course. Usually, a course is done off the job and is intended to meet general training needs. Ideally, a course should be set within a training programme so that performance problems and training or development needs are clearly identified and related to the training being provided. In addition, the programme would make provision for the objectives of the course to be linked to standards of performance. A course may also be designed for it to be free-standing and available on the open market.
The role of the designer of a course is to establish a clearly defined purpose and aim for a course, and then decide content and appropriate methods to achieve them.
Learning Unit
As training needs become more clearly defined by means of job and task analysis, more specific training can be provided. A learning unit can be designed for specific tasks or outcomes to provide a basic building block for both courses and programmes.
Applying the perspective of the learning unit to training design requires a trainer to clarify tasks to be performed, or outcomes to be achieved by trainees. The role of the designer is to create appropriate learning events, based on performance standards.
Training Sessions
In the context described so far there is usually an underlying need to design individual, detailed training sessions. These may be of only a few hours duration and implemented on the job, at a training institution, a resource centre or at a trainee’s home. All these sessions need to be designed to make optimum use of the time and opportunities available.
The role of the designer for a session is somewhat similar to that used for designing a learning unit. The difference is that the session is likely to be somewhat shorter in duration, a single location and intended to achieve a limited objective.
DESIGNING A TRAINING PROGRAMME
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of training is to help people to improve their performance. This might be done by helping them to solve performance problems, or by helping them to develop. The systematic Approach to Training is therefore concerned with performance and, as a designer of training, you have the responsibility of linking identified training needs with the implementation of training Consider Figure1, below:
Fig.1
This is the model we have used to illustrate the Systematic Approach to Training and you will notice that we have highlighted ‘Plan and Design Training’. This is to stress the importance of design and the influence you will have on successful training. As a designer you will be the focal point in the development and implementation of effective and efficient training. For example:
- You should obtain information about training needs.
- You must agree a ‘design brief’ with your client.
- You must design training that leads to acceptable performance.
- You will have to make efficient use of training resources.
- You will have to help others to design and develop training materials.
- You should design a system to assess the results obtained from the training.
There is an immense responsibility attached to these things you will do: there is also the potential satisfaction to be obtained from achieving a successful outcome from your endeavors. The design of training can be done at different levels for different purposes. We will use this handout to provide a broad explanation of training design, which we will discuss in more detail in other handouts.
What is a ‘Training Programme'?
The Glossary of Training Terms defines a training programme as:
“A schedule of the training specification in terms of units of instruction or learning experience, set out in chronological sequence and showing the time allowed for each, the place, the method of instruction to be used, and the person responsible for giving it.”
Isolating people and training them out of context, can result in the following situations:
People claim that they are not the ones who really need the training, along the lines; “Out boss should be here…” or “what’s the point in convincing us…..we won’t get our boss to agree’.- People arrive for a course without knowing the performance-related reason why they attending it.
- A person returns to work after attending a course with a greeting like “Did you enjoy yourself last week”?
- Learning opportunities, based on Open Learning, often fail because nobody takes responsibility for mentoring the trainees.
- Only part of the workforce attends a course due to ‘operational demands’.
- No attempt is made by trainer and management to follow up on the transfer of learning from a course to job performance.
A trainer - in particular one who is responsible for designing training- is functionally and professionally responsible for the solution of certain kinds of ‘people problems’ within the organization. Functionally responsible in the sense that the organisation is paying the trainer to attend to knowledge and skill’s deficiencies associated with performance. Professionally responsible in that trainers are expected to provide design expertise within the field of systematic training. A training programme is the means by which a trainer contributes to the solution of performance problems within an organization.
Figure 2, below, illustrates the position of a training programme in relation to performance problems or deficiencies, and the resulting solution into satisfactory performance. The training programme sets out to resolve the identified performance problem or need for training need where you, as the training designer, are dealing with the problem as a whole. Depending on the situation, the programme may involve other trainers who will contribute to it, and it must involve line management who are, ultimately, responsible for achieving a satisfactory performance.
Fig.2
It is therefore important that you have:
- Sufficient information about the whole of the problem, within the context of the organisation.
- Agreement with management about the causes of the problem and the extent to which you and line management are responsible for solving it.
- An overall plan and list of priorities that will form the basis for a training programme.
- Set specific training interventions within the context of an overall training programme.
Typical reasons for designing, developing and implementing training programmes include the following:
- Individual. The focus of attention is to devise a training programme to meet the training and development of individuals.
- Performance. Here a training programme is based on training needs analysis, which has identified a variety of training needs, perhaps involving a large number of people.
- Institutional. Training institutions offer a variety of training courses from which training or development programmes can be provided.
PERSPECTIVES FOR DESIGNING A TRAINING PROGRAMME
The need for training, can occur in every area of organizational activity that involves people. Therefore, you are likely to become involved with designing training programmes in a variety of situations. Consider the illustration in Figure 3, above.
Induction Training Needs:
The needs are probably short term and the purpose of an induction training programme is limited to helping a newly appointed, or transferred person adjust to a new working environment. Induction training programmes, from the organisations point of view, are concerned with helping people attain satisfactory performance as quickly as possible. This is also true from an individual’s point of view. However, a general training programme may fail to take account of the different individual training needs of people, as they start a new job. The difficulty of designing these programmes is establishing a reasonable compromise between meeting the needs of the individual, and providing cost effective training.
Job Training Needs:
The needs are directed towards attending to performance deficiencies associated with a particular job, current or potential. Although we may aim a training programme in this context at helping the individual job holder, other people are probably involved, however indirectly. The training programme has therefore to take account of these other people, and the design of the programme should prepare to meet all training needs, and other factors that may influence performance.
Occupational Training Needs:
The needs are concerned with a person’s occupation or profession rather than simply the job currently held. The context for a training programme may therefore be to develop occupational skills, and to provide opportunities for professional development. Occupational training and development programmes are likely to be arranged within the organisation as a whole, rather than necessarily one job or one department. (This can also apply to may short courses on, e.g. time management or report writing).
Career Training Needs:
Many people, particularly those with an academic, technical or professional background, work for a particular organisation to satisfy career aspirations. Their needs are not necessarily concerned solely with employment in the organisation, and a training programme for them may offer no immediate benefit to it. The context for a training programme to meet their needs would be limited only by the potential of each person to benefit from both educational and training opportunities that might be provided.
CONTEXT FOR DESIGNING TRAINING
Although we have stressed the importance of relating training design to performance problems, it is also necessary to keep any training activity within some overall context. The need for training may occur in any of the four areas shown in Figure 3, and the design of the programme should reflect the general context in which people are being trained. When designing training you are likely to encounter some common features, illustrated in Fig.4, below
- There should be a Design Brief agreed with the sponsoring or client organisation.
- The design brief will specify the outcomes intended to be achieved by a training programme.
- There will be a Boundary within which training will be organized.
- A training programme will be designed taking into account a variety of constraints, affecting what can be accomplished.
- In the boundary there will be certain key training activities to meet certain training needs. These are Learning Units and Courses.
- There will be opportunities for Practical Experience.
DESIGN BRIEF
The OED definition of design refers to ‘A plan or scheme conceived in the mind of something to be done… ‘Whose mind? It is possible for you to work in isolation, relying solely on what is in your mind about the subject or problem for which training is needed. This may unleash the creative spirit, but would not necessarily result in practical and acceptable design proposals. A more likely scenario finds you trying to unpick the mind of somebody else, your client, who has conceived something in the mind for you to do something about – precisely what this something is may be very specific or extremely vague.
Essentially, there are two people involved in the design process – you, the professional trainer with a range of skills and services you can offer to the second person, the client. Whether we call this second person the client, or the customer, or trainee- and whether it is one or a hundred, does not change the basis for the relationship. This is to identify and understand their performance problems, and therefore their need for training. This has to be done in sufficient detail for you to be able to design effective and efficient training. The training has to be effective; otherwise the client will still have the performance problem and it must be efficient, otherwise you are wasting resources- principally, money, equipment and time.
The design process should start with a clearly defined brief – an understanding between you and your client of what he or she is expecting you to do. This should clarify the opportunities available for you to innovate and the main constraints that will influence the development and implementation of your design. The more clearly this brief is stated and, where necessary, renegotiate, the more likely you are to satisfy the client.
Features of a Design Brief
Ideally, a design brief is the product of training needs analysis, as it specifies a training programme in response to a client’s need. However, this may not be the situation and your activities are restricted to designing courses or task-related learning units. The following are features that could be included in a design brief, where appropriate:
- Information about the client
- Context within which training is being designed
- Details of identified training needs
- Details of people to be trained
- Perspective for the design- training programme, course or learning unit
- Significant constraints
- Aim of the proposed training
- Specific outcomes to be achieved
OUTCOMES
The outcomes of a training programme can be specified, following training needs analysis. This will identify training needs and performance standards required by a client organisation. For example, the outcome could include the following criteria:
- Number of people trained
- Competences achieved by the people trained
- Standards of performance achieved by individuals, working groups, or the organisation.
These are measures against which the success of a training programme can be assessed. An alternative, where a training programme is being run to meet a general training or development need, is for a sponsoring organisation to specify intended outcomes. As these are unlikely to be based on detailed training needs analysis, perhaps only the first two of the above criteria would be realistic outcomes.
Boundary
The rectangular outline illustrated in Figure 4 defines the boundary of a training programme. The dimensions of this will be determined by the nature of the training need. The size of the boundary be affected by a variety of factors, including:
Performance
This is of particular value at job level, where it is possible to establish accurate performance criteria, usually expressed in terms of performance objectives. The purpose of the training programme will therefore be to achieve specific, performance-related outcomes.
Time
Time is a factor needed to be considered when designing a training programme to meet training needs. This will vary from the sort time allowed to complete an induction programme to a relatively long period to fully meet career training and development needs.
Cost/Benefit
Financial resources available to sustain a training programme have to be evaluated in relation to the potential benefits that accrue. This is particularly important for the organisation(s) paying for it, where there may be other ways in which resources could be spent. The design of a training programme should include an identification of benefits to justify expenditure.
Resources
Training programmes often involve people not directly part of the training function. Material resources such as training rooms, loss of productivity, plant and machinery, are also required. The availability of support resources may therefore determine the boundary within which a training programme has to be designed.
Opportunity
This is of particular significance to longer term training or development needs, where training programmes are designed to occupational or career needs. Sufficient and suitable opportunities must be available to support a programme. Failure to provide them would lead to the termination of the programme and the potential loss of the person concerned.
Policy
An organization’s policy towards training, possibly influenced by government policies, may provide a significant factor that constrains or encourages certain types of training programmes. This may or may not conflict with what we have identified as training needs.
Numbers
Although we have stressed that a training programme is designed around the training needs of individuals, in reality this might not be possible due to the numbers of people involved. However, there is a fine balance between attending to performance deficiencies and dealing with large number of trainees. The emphasis in the design of a training programme should be towards helping individuals to improve their performance.
Constraints
Any training design activity will be influenced by a variety of constraints and identifying those relevant to a particular design brief will be important. The following are typical of ones you are likely to encounter.
Policy
Some organizations have a clearly defined training policy, others do not – or have one that is inadequate. If there is a training policy then you can use it as a point of reference, support and, on occasion, a source of power- you are designing training to meet policy requirements. Legislation can also act as a form of training policy. Unfortunately, the absence of a training policy, or one that is of little value, is likely to present a major constraint to your design. This can be especially true when you are attempting an innovate approach that requires resources and the support of management.
Priorities
If the training you are designing is seen as a priority then you are likely to find support and resources available to implement your design. However, if there have been no training need’s analysis and no design brief, then you may find the lack of priority a constraint.
Budget
Sometimes organizations are willing to provide funding for people to attend a course, but not for its development. Innovative design, using advances in technology, requires a significant initial investment that may not be available to you and therefore acting as a constraint to your design.
Trainees
The number of trainees and their entry behaviour can present design constraints. Often, if the number of trainees is low, there is no justification in developing resources: if the number is high traditional classroom-based proposals are unlikely to prove effective. Information about entry behaviour will assist your design, conversely a lack of this information will be a major constraint.
Trainers
Remember that often you will be designing training for other trainers to deliver. This design constraint is being able to overcome trainer limitations.
Time
Often, time is a constraint because others impose it on us. For example, you may have a client who asks you to ’design a 5 –day course’- how do we know we need five days before working through the design process. We may also require time for development of training resources that are an essential feature of the design.
Timing
Due to operational, climatic or cultural reasons, opportunities for training and development may occur at certain times of the year. These need to be identified and taken into account in both the design of both o and off-job training activities-involving trainees, trainers and others, such as supervisory staff.
Location
Training is often seen as something done at a training institution, thereby imposing a design constraints. The location for training should be a product of the design process, rather an unrealistic constraint.
Resources
Inevitably, resources will be less than ideal. Video films, computers, handouts, exercises, etc. are not available- constraint, money is not available for their purchase, another constraint and so on. Designing training may involve compromising between the resources you would like to what are available or can be developed. Increasingly, resources are the basis for effective training and many organizations are now developing learning resources centers.
Operational
As part of a design brief you may find that you have to modify your design to take into account operational factors. For example, although 6 people are needing training, only three can be spare at one time. This is likely to influence the cost or the relevance of their training.
Many other constraints will influence your design-for example, language, culture and gender. As you gain more experience of training design, you will be able to identify particular constraints. You should these take into account in reaching a proposal that provides effective training, acceptable to your client and using available resources efficiently.
Training Course
For the purpose of designing training it is advisable to make a distinction between the overall design for the programme and the more detailed design needed for training course. It would also be inadvisable to ignore the design implications associated with practical experience, on the job.
The only distinction in design terms between learning units and courses is that a course is usually done off the job, for a group of trainees and is probably less task specific. Courses can be either internal, done within the organization, or external where people attend probably a more general course run by a provider such as a college, an organization’s training center or training consultancy.
Learning Unit
Learning units attend to specific, task-related training to meet individual needs. These correspond to clearly identified performance objectives and serve as the principle ‘building blocks’ for the training programme. The number of units will vary considerably depending upon training needs.
A training programme may include a variety of learning units, including ones for refresher and remedial training. The introduction of training packages, distance learning and computer-based training has enable trainers to introduce more flexibility into training programmes. Generally, there is now less reliance on training courses to meet training needs.
Practival Experience
Courses, especially general external courses, do not address themselves precisely to the needs of the individual, nor necessarily to an organization’s performance problems. Care in the selection of courses and similar training activities can minimize this, but there may still be evidence of:
- A ‘gap’ between the objectives of a course and the needs of each individual participant.
- Lack of sufficient practical to achieve mastery for some individuals.
- Difficulties in transferring the learning to an individual’s working environment.
- The third element of a training programme is therefore concerned with the provision of practical experience to supplement learning units and courses. That is:
- Practical experience to develop newly acquired skills.
- Practical experience and opportunities for transferring newly learned concepts to the working environment.
- Practical experience to bridge the gap between training needs met by a learning unit or a course, and the full performance related needs of an individual.
Consideration of the boundaries of the training programme will have identified the resources and opportunities available to enable an individual to gain practical experience. Below are possible examples of how this can be organized:
- Participating in meetings to test ideas against different points of view
- Working with members of management to learn the realities and consequences of applying concepts and principles.
- Examining relationships and liaison with other departments.
- Undertaking and presenting the results of, projects and investigations.
- Developing new procedures to put ideas and concepts into practice.
We therefore develop a training programme around major block of learning, organized by means of learning units and courses, and practical experience provided in the normal working environment. These elements are governed by the boundaries of the training programme. We can make an analogy to building a wall, where the size and shape of the wall relate to the boundary of the programme; the blocks used in construction are the learning units and courses; and the mortar holding the blocks together is the practical work experience.
An effective training programme is not simply one that has well designed learning activities; it must also take into consideration the need to plan and implement them. Failure of the programme is likely to occur if the planning is too rigid, and we build too many assumptions into its implementation.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES FOR TRAINING
Enabling Objectives
After reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Define the terms ‘Aim’ and ‘Objective’2. Explain the difference between aims and objectives.
3. Distinguish between Performance, Training and Enabling objectives.
4. Describe three components of an objective.
5. List the essential points required to be observed when writing objectives.
Introduction
For all training activities it is essential that there is a clearly defined purpose - everybody concerned, management, learners and trainers should understand the intention of the training and the outcomes to be achieved. When designing training it is important to clarify in your own mind the intension of training you are designing, and defining the outcome to be achieved. It is important because it acts as a discipline, based on the design brief, and a focus on everybody’s expectations.
The aim of a learning unit, course or training programme is the statement of intent. It describes what you intend that the learners should achieve, and communicates this intention to all concerned. The objective is what will be achieved as an outcome of the training, expressed in terms of performance. Consider the illustration in Figure.1.
Fig.-1
The intention, or aim, of the training is to help the person to perform the task of e.g. using the bow to shoot an arrow at the target. The outcome is for the arrow to be in or near the bull. It would be pointless to have only an aim, for example, ‘How to use a bow and arrow’, without having a clear performance in mind. This is the objective which, for example, states that on completion of training the person will be able to shoot 3 out of 4 arrows in the bulls-eye from 100m, in calm conditions. The aim expresses intention and the objective defines achievement. Thus objective is what will be achieved as the outcome of the training, expressed in terms of the performance of a task.
Aim
This provides the general link between training need and the provision of training. The way the aim is expressed may be dry and matter of fact, or dressed up to be as appealing as a TV advertisement. The purpose of the aim is to draw attention to the training being provided, and to communicate this intention to a target audience that will include learners, management and clients. Here are some typical examples:
To train clerical staff to use the photocopier.
To ensure that Community Health workers are able to preserve injections and medicines.
To improve the interviewing skills of officers involved in development programmes to enable them to identify the needs of beneficiaries.
To develop teamwork for all concerned with handling public grievances at camps and meetings.
All of the above examples are broad statements describing the intention of the training. The aim is important as it provides a means of communication. It can be considered as a short publicity statement that will appeal to the client and to prospective trainees.
Aims are of little value in designing the actual training, because they do not give sufficient information about what the learners will learn during their training and of even more important, what they will be able to do on completion. This requires information provided by the use of objectives.
Objectives
The distinction between an aim and an objective is that an aim describes the intention of training, whereas an objective defines the result or outcome to be achieved. An objective can be used to state what they will be able to do at three distinct, but very important points in their training:
1. On their return to work, when they are required to perform the task to the same standards as those of experienced, competent workers. The objective used to describe this is called a PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE.
2. On completion of their formal training, when they have achieved a satisfactory standard of performance under training conditions. The objective used to describe this is called a TRAINING OBJECTIVE.
3. On completion of a stage of the learning process when they have acquired certain knowledge or skills. The objective used to describe this is called an ENABLING OBJECTIVE.
Figure-2 illustrates the relationship between the three types of objective, each of which is important when designing training.
Fig.-2
Performance Objective
The ultimate aim of training is to help a person achieve mastery of the task so that he or she will be able to perform it to an acceptable standard in normal working conditions. However, under training conditions, this may not be possible for the following reasons:
The amount of time needed to gain experience. Formal training may last only a few days, whereas the complexity and variations of the task may occur over a much longer period. Additional time is needed for learning to continue long after ‘training’ has been completed.
The difficulty in simulating the real working environment for training purposes. Training may be done away from the pressures of the working environment where reality is simulated for learning purposes. Simulation can rarely replicate the actual situation involving ‘real’ people, nor can it take account of factors such as fatigue, pressures of the working environment and the often unpredictable nature of a person’s work.
The availability of machines and systems for training that truly replicate the ones actually being used. This is likely to be a problem when training is being done off the job and therefore away from ‘hands on’ learning experiences in the normal working environment. This is especially is the case when people attend open, off the job, training courses.
The performance objective is an important consideration when designing training, although it may be setting a higher standard of performance than you intend your learners to achieve at the end their training. For certain training situations, there can be no compromise between what is required for job performance and what has to be achieved at the end of training. Typical examples of this are found in training for emergency situations, where people have to tackle fires, engine failures, accidents, heart attacks, plant shutdown, criminal activity and many other situations where a task if performed once, only, and the standard of performance has to be exemplary, in view of the dangerous or costly consequences of failure.
Training Objective
Fig.3
Figure 3 illustrates of a typical learning curve, from a low standard of performance representing a person’s entry behaviour to attaining competence when the performance objectives is achieved. As the curve flattens out a considerable amount of time is taken up to gain only a small improvement in the standard of performance. Moving the training objective up or down has therefore a significant effect on the time taken for training and the costs incurred.
The performance objective sets the standard of performance the client would like to be achieved. The performance objective should state the minimum acceptable standard of performance, commensurate with the task being performed - under normal working conditions. It is important to note the reference to a minimum acceptable standard, as the purpose of cost-effective, systematic training is to attend to work-related training needs.
During Training Needs Analysis, or during meeting with the client, you may have to distinguish very clearly between what the client would like, and what can be realistically attained under training conditions. The client would be willing to accept more if it is offered at the right price, but equally willing to compromise down to a minimum acceptable standard. From trainer’s point of view, the distinction between the performance and the training objective is critical. You are imparting training to enable learners to achieve a certain objective, and the more clearly this is defined, accepted by the client and communicated to the learners, the more likely it will result in success. It is essential that the training objective is set to an acceptable standard, acceptable to you, your client and to the learners.
Enabling Objective
A repertoire of knowledge and skills is needed to enable a person to achieve the performance defined by the training objective. This repertoire will include the following categories:
‘Underpinning’ knowledge of the concepts and principles associated with the performance of the task.
Specific knowledge and skills needed to enable a person to perform the task.
Each significant element of these categories can be identified and designated as an ‘enabling objective’. The cumulative effect of completing all of these enabling objectives is to enable a person to achieve the training objective. The relationship between the Training Objective and enabling Objectives is illustrated in Figure 4, below.
Fig.4
Figure 4 shows a training objective with four enabling objectives, but the actual number can be two or more. The number will depend on the complexity of the task to be learned, the training objective, the assumed entry behaviour of the learner, and the way you decide to break the learning event into suitable sessions.
Writing Objectives
An objective should be a precise, clear statement of what the learners will be able to do at the end of a learning event. This may be an ‘enabling objective’, because it is at the end of a particular knowledge or skills training session, or it can be the ‘training objective’, defining the task the learner will be able to do at the end of a learning unit. For all objectives, there are three elements to be included, or at least considered: a statement of the performance, the conditions under which it will be done and the standards which will be applied.
Examples of Performance Statements:
- The learner will be able to type a demi-official letter.
- The learner will be able to name the component parts of pentium computer.
- The learner will be able to calculate the amount of Income Tax on a stated salary.
- The learner will be able to state the fire safety regulations for the department.
- The learner will be able to drive a motor car.
- The learner will be able to demonstrate the correct procedure for operating an Overhead Projector
All the verbs in bold in the examples above indicate clearly specified actions required of the learner. The statement of performance is an essential part of an objective and must be written in this manner. Statements that can be interpreted in more than one way must be avoided. Consider the following examples of objectives, each of which contains a poorly defined action:
Learners will understand objectives (what is ‘understand’? Will learners be expected to say what objectives are, for just name the components, or must they be able to write objectives?)
The learner will have a working knowledge of copying equipment (What is ‘working knowledge’)?
The learner will appreciate the need for safety. (What is meant by ‘appreciate’? quite a number of people appreciate the need to wear seat belts in a car, but fail to put them on)
The learner will know the theory of electronics. (What are the limits of ‘knowing’?)
These examples are vague and could be interpreted by ten different trainers in ten different ways. It is therefore, necessary to state clearly what the learner will be able to do on completion of training. The difference between effective and ineffective training can often be traced back to poor statements of objective.
EXAMPLES OF CONDITIONS
The ‘conditions’ part of the objective is concerned with specifying the circumstances under which the learner has to carry out the performance. Generally speaking the conditions give information in one or more of the following categories:
a) The range of learning to be covered.b) The tools, equipment and clothing to be used.
c) The performance aids and manuals that can/cannot be used.
d) The environmental conditions in which the task is being performed.
e) Any special physical or social demands.
(a) Range of learning
Obviously it is a waste of time for example, to train a person to operate all types of copying equipment when, on the job, all that will be used is, say, a Xerox 3600. So, in the conditions it should be specified that this is the only piece of equipment on which the learner will carry out the performance. Again, all that may be necessary is that the trainee should operate it. Someone else may service it, repair it, trace faults on it, etc. Similarly, if we want the learner to state the fire regulations for a particular department there is no point in providing information on the fire regulations for whole factory, so this would be made clear in the conditions part of the objective. Again, if MS word is the only word-processing package being used in an office, there is no benefit in training people on other packages. It is important, therefore, to state the range of learning that learners will have to undergo - by doing this, training can be geared to what is required.
(b) Tools, Equipment and Clothing
When special tools, equipment and clothing have to be used, they must be specified. Sometimes all regulations, procedures, tools and equipment should be detailed - this depends on particular circumstances. Where these are standard and commonly used then they need not be listed - but, if in any doubt, list them.
(c) Performance Aids and Manuals
Many job holders use aids and manuals to assist them in the job e.g. checklists, workshop manuals, advice on correcting faults, etc. In training it would be nonsense to expect the learner to work without them because their use makes the job easier. Whenever aids and manuals may be used, then it must be stated under the conditions. Equally important, if the job holder is not allowed to use them then the learner must be denied the use when we are assessing whether or not he or she is sufficiently trained to do the job. Again the fact that they are not allowed should be stated.
(d) Environmental Conditions
There are some jobs where the performance of a task can be affected by environmental conditions. For example, limitations of working space; extremes of temperature; noisy surroundings; movement; low level of lighting, etc. Whenever these or similar conditions apply to the job they have to be built into the training (whenever possible) and they must be included in the objectives.
(e) Special Physical or Social Demands
Some tasks have to be performed with the body in uncomfortable positions or after particular exertion. Also social factors may influence performance, such as dealing with an angry customer, dealing with a riot, etc. Here again, such conditions should be stated.
EXAMPLES OF STANDARDS
The standards of performance state the minimum level of acceptable performance the learner must attain at the end of a learning unit, course or programme. In setting standards two main factors have to be considered:
Do we want the learner to perform at the standard of a competent worker?
OR
Can we accept a lower standard at the end of training, leaving it to experience on the job to improve the standard and achieve competence?
As far as training objectives are concerned the answer to the questions can be given only by the client and management. They are the only ones who can say what the minimum standard should be.
Types of Standards
Generally speaking standards can be classified in terms of:
(a) Accuracy, (b) Speed.(a) Examples of Accuracy Standards
The task must be completed without error.All measurements must be to within 0.01 mm.
Must work within the technical specifications for the job.
Must state the sequence in the correct order.
Must be able to name 14 of the 18 components correctly.
With not more than three corrected errors.
(b) Examples of Speed Standards
The task must be completed in not more than 10 minutes.Must be typed at not less than 40 words per minute.
The overhaul to be completed in not longer than the time schedule for the job.
The learner must check not less than five items per minute.
The learner must produce not less than 20 components per hour.
Not all objectives will require a statement of accuracy and speed. On the whole, accuracy will be included in most objectives but speed may not be important. This is particularly so when testing knowledge at the end of a learning unit - here the trainer should allow sufficient or reasonable time for all to answer.
COMPONENTS OF ANY OBJECTIVE FOR TRAINING PURPOSES
As stated above all objectives contain three components:-
1. A statement of the PERFORMANCE to be carried out by the learner.2. A statement of the CONDITIONS under which that performance must be carried out.
3. A statement of the minimum acceptable STANDARDS of performance a learner must attain.
The first of these is essential and the other two should be used where appropriate.
A precise statement of the Performance a learner will be capable of at the end of training enables the correct information and instruction to be given during training.
A statement of relevant Conditions in a task enables the learning event to include all conditions which are needed for maximum transfer of learning to the job.
A precise statement of acceptable Standards of performance enables the trainer to check accurately if the learner has achieved the objective. Equally important, it tells the learner what is expected to be achieved.
It should be noted that all objectives must include a statement of performance. They need not always state the conditions and standards. The reason for this is that at times you are stating the obvious and risk becoming pedantic, and other times, especially with open courses, conditions and standards may be difficulty to determine in any practical sense. The extent to which you may need to include conditions and standards will depend on whether the training is being directed to the performance of one, specific task, or whether, as with most open courses, training has to be more broadly based to cater for different training needs.
WRITING PERFORMANCE RELATED OBJECTIVE
An objective is a statement of what the learner will be able to do on completion of training. The statement describes and defines what the learner will have to accomplish in order to demonstrate competence. Writing objectives is an essential feature of effective training as they provide a means of communication between the trainer and the learner. When writing objectives the following points may be kept in mind:
Each statement should deal with a single, specific task.
Avoid repetition of “be able to” or “the learner will” or other such phrases at the beginning of each statement, when the objectives are given in a list. It wastes time and space, because all the objectives should be written in terms of what the learner will be able to do.
A learner and the trainer should be able to read the statement, and relate it to a specific task.
Use only acceptable terminology which is familiar to the people concerned.
Try to avoid using double verbs, such as “remove and repair”. Use the more inclusive of the two (repair implies removing and replacing).
Do not include any phrases that have to do with the knowledge needed to perform the task; focus on the skill. Knowledge is not observable so, for example, do not say “Will know Russian”, say instead “Will speak Russian”, or “Will write Russian.”
Avoid repeating any mention of performing a skill safely. Safety, whether it is procedures or general knowledge of it, will be an integral part of training. The safety requirements may need to be specified in the standards.
Avoid vague and flowery terms such as “correctly”, “accurately”, and so on. The objective specifies competence to perform a task, to a precise standard. The level of accuracy required for example, should be specified.
All statements of objectives, whether they are Performance, Training or Enabling, must include an ‘active verb’, that clearly states what the learner is able to do. Active verbs can either be focused on knowledge or skill and the following lists may be of assistance.
Appendix A lists a selection of active, performance related verbs that can be used for writing objectives.
Appendix-A
Accept | Conduct | Find | Manage | Relate | Treat |
Adapt | Connect | Fit | Mark | Remain | Troubleshoot |
Adjust | Construct | Fix | Match | Remove | Turn |
Administer | Contrast | Follow | Measure | Renovate | Type |
Adopt | Convert | Form | Meet | Repair | Unlock |
Align | Cook | Formulate | Mention | Repeat | Untangle |
Allow | Copy | Free | Mix | Replace | Use |
Alter | Correct | Freeze | Moderate | Reply | Utilise |
Analyse | Correlate | Generalise | Modify | Report | Validate |
Answer | Create | Get | Mount | Resist | Ventilate |
Apply | Cut | Give | Name | Resolve | Verify |
Appraise | Decide | Go | Negotiate | Respond | |
Arrange | Define | Grade | Obtain | Restate | |
assemble | Demonstrate | Greet | Open | Review | |
Assert | Describe | Group | Operate | Revise | |
Assess | Design | Hand | Order | Rework | |
Assist | Determine | Handcuff | Organise | Roll | |
Associate | Develop | Handle | Originate | Run | |
Attach | Devise | Haul | Override | Schedule | |
Bake | Diagnose | Heal | Package | Select | |
Balance | Diagram | Help | Perform | Sell | |
Bend | Differentiate | Hide | Pick | Serve | |
Boil | Direct | Identify | Pin | Set | |
Bore | Discuss | Illustrate | Place | Shape | |
Build | Disinfect | Indicate | Plan | Sit | |
Calculate | Dismantle | Infer | Plot | Site | |
Calibrate | Dismiss | Inspect | Position | Sketch | |
Call | Dispense | Install | Position | Solve | |
Cast | Distinguish | Instil | Post | Sort | |
Categorise | Divide | Instruct | Practise | Specify | |
Change | Draw | Insure | Predict | Split | |
Check | Dress | Interpret | Prepare | Stand | |
Choose | elevate | Involve | Press | Start | |
Cite | Employ | Isolate | Print | Sterilize | |
Classify | Ensure | Issue | Propose | Store | |
Clean | Enumerate | Itemize | Punctuate | Straighten | |
Cleanse | Equate | Judge | Question | Supervise | |
Climb | Establish | Label | Quote | Switch | |
Collect | Estimate | Level | Raise | Synthesize | |
Combine | Evacuate | Light | Rank | Take | |
Compare | Examine | Lighten | Rate | Talk | |
Compensate | Execute | List | Realise | Tell | |
Compile | Explain | Listen | Rebuild | Trace | |
Complete | Expose | Load | Recall | Transcribe | |
Compose | Express | Loosen | Receive | Transfer | |
Compute | File | Maintain | Recondition | Translate | |
Conclude | finalise | Make | Record | Transport |
SETTING TRAINING OBJECTIVES
Introduction
Once upon a time a Sea Horse gathered up his seven pieces of eight and cantered out to find his fortune. Before he had travelled very far he met an Eel, who said.
"Psst. Hey, bud. Where'ya goin'?"
"I'm going out to find my fortune", replied the Sea Horse, proudly.
"You're in luck", said the Eel. "For four pieces of eight you can have this speedy flipper, and then you'll be able to get there a lot faster".
"Gee, that's swell", said the Sea Horse, and paid the money and put on the flipper and slithered off at twice the speed. Soon he came upon a Sponge, who said,
"Psst. Hey, bud. Where'ya goin'?"
"I'm going out to find my fortune", replied the Sea Horse.
"You're in luck", said the Sponge. "For a small fee I will let you have this jet-propelled scooter so that you will be able to travel a lot faster".
So the Sea Horse bought the scooter with his remaining money and went zooming through the sea five times as fast. Soon he came upon a Shark, who said,
"Psst. Hey, bud. Where'ya goin'?"
"I'm going out to find my fortune", replied the Sea Horse.
"You're in luck", If you'll take this short cut," said the Shark, pointing to his open mouth, "you'll save yourself a lot of time.
"Gee, thanks," said the Sea Horse, and zoomed off into the interior of the Shark, there to be devoured.
The moral of this fable is that if you're not sure where you're going, you're liable to end up someplace else - and not even know it.
Preparing Instructional Objectives
Robert Mager
Fearon Publishers
Training Objectives
As Robert Mager so colourfully illustrates in the Sea Horse Saga, if you as the trainer do not know where you are going, there is little chance of the learner knowing either. Neither you nor your learner will finish up in a shark's mouth, but you will almost certainly have wasted your time, your learners' time and probably a considerable amount of your employer's money. Unless you have a clear, unambiguous objective both you and your learner will act like the Sea Horse.
A training objective states what a person is, or will be able to do - a statement of performance expressed in terms that are :
- Clear
- Observable
- Measurable
An objective uses behavioural terms to describe a person's performance; it defines this by means of an action verb linked to knowledge, skills or attitudes. All objectives must include an action verb to describe a person's performance, or behaviour on completion of their training. Typical action verbs include:
For Knowledge: Define, Describe, Explain, Identify, List, State, Select,For Skill: Adjust, Assemble, Check, Fit, Load, Maintain, Operate, Repair
For Attitudes: Agree, Distinguish, Help, Indicate, Recognize, Verify
Generally, bearing in mind the need to make objectives observable and measurable, behaviour is normally expressed to specify either knowledge or skill. Notice that both of these categories of behaviour can be measured.
ACTIVITY
How could you measure each of the following examples of action verbs dealing with knowledge or skill?
Describe ___________________________________________________
List ___________________________________________________
Adjust ___________________________________________________
Operate____________________________________________________
You could ask a person to describe knowledge verbally, or in writing. This can be at a fairly low order of learning where people recall information, or it can be at a higher order where they have to respond to 'what if' situations. The only problem with measuring verbs, such as 'describe', is the time needed to listen or read the description, and the usually subjective criteria being used to assess what has been described.
Another factor to measurement is when you wish to do the assessment. For example, a written description can be assessed later at your convenience, whereas a verbal description has to be listened to and assessed on the spot - one learner at a time.
List is a much easier action very to use, as it requires a learner to simply recall the list - although it depends on the length of the list. For example, we could ask you to list the four parts of a Learning Unit, but it would probably be unreasonable to ask you to list all the regulations given in the Highway Code.
Adjust is a skill-based objective that can be assessed both during the performance or afterwards. For example, you could put several known faults into a TV receiver as the basis for measurement. The person could then be assessed by observing 'process' whilst adjusting, or by means of the 'product' of the performance - seeing whether the receiver is working correctly.
A similar situation applies for the measurement of another skills objective, 'operate'. Here you would probably place more emphasis on assessing the process than the product. You could observe someone operating a cash till, for example, and assess their performance.
Choosing the Action Verb
You will have noted from the above examples that there are certain implications in the choice of action verbs for an objective. For example, if you choose 'operate' then assessment has to be to observe the performance - often a costly and time consuming activity. However, if the action verb is changed to 'describe', you can now carry out assessment in, say, a classroom. The problem is that a person may be able 'to describe' - for example, how to drive a car - but this does not mean that he or she is "able to drive" a car.
If you compare the examples of action verbs used for knowledge and skill with those for attitude, you will also notice that the latter are more difficult, if not impossible, to measure. This is one of the reasons why trainers prefer to help people acquire knowledge or skill to meet their needs - most of them would run a mile rather than attempt to change a person's attitude.
Consider an example of an objective based on the task of 'meeting the customer':
Objective: "The learner will be able to understand the importance of gaining rapport with a customer".
Three questions may have immediately occurred to you:
- What is the learner capable of doing?
- Can this be observed?
- Can it be measured?
The basis for answering these three questions is to focus attention on the action verb in the objective. Can the action stated be served? Can it be measured? Does it relate to the real situation?
As the verb in question is to 'understand', the answer to the questions is "No". There will be no observable indication that the learner has achieved the objective, nor will there be a practical way of measuring it. 'Understanding' is purely in the mind of the learner and is useless as a specification of a practical outcome to learning. Let us change the verb and reconsider the objective.
Objective: "The learner will be able to establish rapport with a customer".
The intention of this objective is the same, but the verb has been changed to 'establish'. So, can this action be observed and measured? The answer is probably "Yes", as we can observe the learner meeting a customer and see whether standard procedures are being followed. The performance can also be measured by means of a checklist which lists the steps essential to effective performance. This attempt to set an objective is therefore a more useful basis for training, both for the trainer and the learner.
The choice of verbs, describing the performance of the learner is an important aspect of setting objectives. The words should result in observable actions by the learner, and also be capable of being measured. It may be necessary to change the verb, either to make it more related to action or to focus on practical performance.
ACTIVITY
The following is a list of verbs that could be used when setting objectives. Tick the ones you consider can be observed and measured.
1. Define, 2. Know, 3. Appreciate, 4. List, 5. File, 6. Realise, 7. Select, 8. Recall, 9. Perceive, 10. AssembleOf the ten verbs listed only six of them would be suitable for use in objectives (Define, List, File, Select, Recall, Assemble) - because they are measurable. Verbs such as Know, Appreciate, Realise and Perceive are not observable, nor can they be measured. Such words are best avoided. It's important to note when setting objectives.
The required outcome of the training, based on training needs. Whether the learner's achievements can be observed and measured.
However, as trainers, we often inadvertently set objectives for ourselves. There is a danger, therefore, of expressing objectives in terms suited to our use rather than for the benefit of learners. Consider an example:
Objective: "Learner's will be shown the correct way to establish rapport with customer".
Notice the emphasis is now on what the trainer will do - "Learner's will be shown" (i.e. by the trainer) - rather than concentrating on the intended achievements of the learner. It's a natural temptation to describe what you, as the trainer, intend to do rather than concentrate the objective on what the learner should be able to do. However, it's a habit to resist when setting objectives yourself - and one to discourage when they are being set by others.
ACTIVITY
So you should set objectives for the benefit of the learner rather than yourself. What are the advantages of setting such objectives? Suggest three ways objectives can contribute to effective learning, from the point of view of (a) the trainer and (b), the learner.
For a Trainer:
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
For a Learner
___________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
You may have thought along the following lines: when helping people to learn, the use of objectives gives you, as the trainer, the following benefits:
- Objectives specify, precisely, what the learner has to achieve.
- Objectives focus attention on the outcome of training, rather than the process itself.
- Objectives impose a professional discipline on the provision of training.
- Objectives act as a basis for communication between trainers, learners, management and awarding bodies.
- Objectives require trainers analyse what a person should be able to do, in terms of performance.
Learners also benefit when objectives are used. For example:
- Effectiveness of training is improved if you give learners the objectives for what they are expected to learn.
- Objectives are written in learner terms and are primarily intended to help the learner.
- Objectives can include criteria for assessment; learners therefore know how their performance will be measured.
- You can arrange for a list of objectives to be published to describe the content and results expected from a course or training package.
- Learners may be encouraged to negotiate and develop their own objectives.
We have said that the basic definition of an objective is that it is a statement of what a learner must do to show that he or she has learned. This is a statement of the performance or outcome to be achieved. We have looked at a few typical examples of action verbs. In Appendix A you will find a list of other suitable action verbs which will help you to write learner oriented objectives.
ACTIVITY
Look at the following examples of objectives and tick the ones you consider comply with the following criteria?
- Is the objective expressed in learner terms?
- Is there a clear statement of performance?
- Is the performance observable?
- Can it be measured?
Note down why you think each objective complies/does not comply with the above criteria, and any reservations you may have.
1. The learner will be able to drive a car.
_______________________________________________________________
2. The learner will be able to calculate the amount of VAT.
_______________________________________________________________
3. The learner will be able to switch-on a personal computer.
_______________________________________________________________
4. The learner will know how to respond to a 'full file' error terminal message.
_______________________________________________________________
5. District Savings Officers will be able to boost small saving collections.
_______________________________________________________________
6. The supervisor will be able to demonstrate how to change a paper roll on a fax machine.
_______________________________________________________________
7. The trainer will enable the learner to eliminate unnecessary delays and improve the standard of work and efficiency.
_______________________________________________________________
8. At the end of the course the participants will be able to involve themselves in improving the knowledge and skills of the people.
_______________________________________________________________
9. To equip the participants with the knowledge of Disciplinary proceedings - Laws procedure and skills, how to conduct the same until conclusion
_______________________________________________________________
10. The learner will be able to describe how to classify the records as per the provisions of manual of office procedure.
_______________________________________________________________
11. The trainee will be able to state the fire safety regulations for high-rise buildings.
_______________________________________________________________
12. The learner will be able to use an OHP.
_______________________________________________________________
You may have found some of these objectives easier to judge than others, based on the given criteria.
1. Yes, although "being able to drive a car" is rather demanding statement. The objective can be observed and measured.
2. Yes, as the learner can be given examples and asked to calculate Sales Tax.
3. Yes. However, the fact that a learner has switched on a personal computer does not lead to any measurable outcome related to a job. It is advisable to link training objectives to desired outcomes.
4. No. Although the person may claim to know how to respond to an error message, how can this knowledge be observed and measured? If 'know how to' is deleted from the statement it becomes a satisfactory objective.
5. No. The objective is vague and has ambiguity. The use of word 'boost' may appear to be an action verb, but is not quantifiable.
6. No. The supervisor may have demonstrated how to change the paper roll, but who to? This is a trainer centered statement that has no value; it could be improved by referring to the 'learner' rather than 'supervisor'.
7. No. The objective is neither expressed in learner terms nor is it a clear statement of performance which could be observed and measured.
8. No. The objective is neither expressed in clear performance oriented action verb nor observable and measurable.
9. No. The objective is vague, trainer oriented and does not show any action verb. At best it indicates intention of the trainer.
10. Yes - as far as it goes. Although the learner can describe the classification, it does not necessarily mean that he or she can actually do it. Given this sort of objective, a trainer could simply concentrate on the descriptive, knowledge-based aspects of performance and fail to include practical aspects so necessary for skill development.
11. Yes, however, depending upon the inherent danger fire in high-rise buildings, the fact that the trainee can state fire regulations does not mean that this person is competent to comply with them, or to respond correctly to a fire emergency. The action verb 'to state' is not really the most appropriate one to use.
12. Yes, however, the verb 'to use' implies an all embracing performance that could include setting up the OHP, and carrying out routine servicing and repairs.
Some of the examples of objectives we have looked at are satisfactory, but not necessarily complete. Take, for instance, the second example, calculating VAT: the objective states the performance clearly, but where is this performance to be done, and would this matter? Also, as people and calculations form a fallible combination, does accuracy matter? In raising these issues we are extending writing objectives beyond a simple, straightforward, statement of performance.
Training Objective Exercise
Introduction
Below is a list of training objectives. Some of these are 'good' objectives, but many are not and can be improved. Review each of them to decide whether:
- There is a statement of performance, using an action verb.
- The conditions for this performance have been clearly described.
- There are standards of performance included.
Identify faults in the following objectives and suggest how they can be improved.
1. After imparting training to the trainees, members of faculty will ensure that trainees will know how to identify communally sensitive localities in a District?
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2. The training will make the trainee Deputy Collectors able to write a 'Speaking Order' quickly and to the satisfaction of the aggrieved client.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3. On completion of training learners will be able to identify backward regions in a District and prepare a plan for its development.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
4. At the end of the course trainees will be able to write down in clear handwriting, and without reference to any publication, the importance of ethical norms for their work as Administrators.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
5. After the training has been completed Sales Tax officers will be able to inspect, estimate and correct the returns filed by a businessman.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
6. Gazetted Officers will be able to interview any member of their staff so that the newly introduced Annual Appraisal Form can be completed quickly and accurately.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
7. The Stenographers will be able to reproduce shorthand with a maximum of three errors per hundred words, at a speed of 90 words per minute on the word processor provided so that the 'author' is prepared to issue the complete material.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
8. The training will enable Food Officers to scrutinise the applications for quota permits, to process them and to issue them quickly and accurately.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
9. At the end of training the trainees will be able to record a dying declaration.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
10. How Sub-Divisional Magistrate should handle tactfully any law and order situation using minimum force.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
11. The assistants will be instructed in the use of various tables of information so that they can accurately identify areas where ration shops should be established.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
12. At the end of the training commando's will be able to shoot 100% accurately a fairly visible target with his 38mm revolver from a distance of 15 metres.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
13. Treasury Officers will be able to pass bills for payment without error, keeping in view the provisions of the Treasury Code.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
14. To explain at least four main traditional customs of tribal communities of a particular area in order to understand their occupational needs which enables him to identify the main area of employment.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
15. After the training has been completed, the instructors will have taught all the trainees to identify and rectify any faults that occur when using 'WordStar 4'.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
16. Athletes will be able to run the 400 metres below 49.5 seconds on modern running track, in running kit, without wind assistance, and whilst keeping to the lane allocated.
Suggestions for improvement.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Design Based on the Learning Unit
Enabling Objectives:
After reading this handout you will be able to:1. Recall four stages of the Learning Unit
2. Explain the link of learning unit to design
3. State the precautions required at the four stages of the learning unit
Applying the Learning Unit to Training Design
A training programme usually consists of several interrelated activities to meet training needs. A training programme could therefore include courses, learning units and practical experience. These activities would be sequenced and managed to suit the needs of people taking the programme. Although such programmes have to be designed, they are often too complicated to tackle as a whole. The approach we commend is to use the learning unit as the basic building block for design. We have found the concept useful and believe it provides a framework for the disciplined design and development of effective training.
Earlier, in the DTS course, we introduced the learning unit by means of the ‘fat – thin person’ illustration. We then described a four-stage model, which featured:
Fig.1
Objective
Defines the outcome of the Learning Unit. It describes the trainee’s terminal behaviour, i.e. what he or she can do as a result of completing the Learning Unit.
Entry Behaviour
Describe the trainee’s capability, the things he or she is able and willing to do when starting the Learning Unit.
Learning Event
Provides the learning experience to be undertaken by the trainees so that he or she can achieve the performance defined in the objective.
Performance Assessment
Defines how the performance described in the objective is to be measured.
The four principal stages of the model are arranged in a circular format to indicate that they are interactive with each other. The circular format is also used to indicate that the starting point for the design of a Learning Unit may vary. For example:
A clear purpose or outcome has been established and been expressed in the design brief. The starting point for developing the Learning Unit is therefore the Objective.
There is a trainee or a group of trainees to train. The starting point for designing the Learning Unit would be to consider their present capabilities, what they have to achieve, and to plan the rest of the Unit accordingly. In other words, the starting point would be Entry Behaviour.
Restrictions on training resources might force you to consider the Learning Event first, simply because it will influence the objectives that can realistically be set, and the number of trainees that can be accepted.
Management might state how they intend to assess performance of the task. The Learning Unit would therefore have to be developed from the starting point of Performance Assessment.
The model of the Learning Unit shows its four principal stages, and with them the Learning Unit is functional. However, knowledge of results, and feedback generally, is an essential feature of the learning process and trainers are also trainees themselves.
The following questions are typical examples of ones a designer may have to answer for each of the four stages of a Learning Unit.
OBJECTIVES
Is the objective expressed in terms of knowledge skills and attitude?Does the objective contain a clear, unambiguous description of performance?
Is the performance described in the objective directly related to performance of the task?
Is the objective based on task analysis?
Does the objective include details of the conditions under which the performance is carried out?
Are the conditions based on the real work situation?
Does the objective include criteria for the standard of performance to be achieved?
Are the standards of performance measurable?
Who, ultimately, decides whether objectives have been achieved?
ENTRY BEHAVIOUR
How many trainees are there to consider?
What is their geographical location?
Is the Learning Unit likely to make great demands on them?
Does their ability or experience vary considerably?
What is the age range?
Are they likely to have to face the prospect of ‘unlearning?’
What is their accustomed learning style?
Are they undertaking the learning willingly?
To what extent is attitude a factor is the learning?
Are they likely to be worried about the consequences of possible failure to achieve the objective?
LEARNING EVENT
Does the learning event reflect, or simulate, the real work situation?Does the learning event accommodate trainees with differing entry behaviour?
Is the learning even trainee-centred or trainer-centred?
Does the learning event allow the pace of learning to be set to suit the trainee?
To what extent will the learning event expose the trainee to stress and anxiety?
Does the learning event provide sufficient time for practice?
Is there provision for remedial training where needed?
How competent is the trainer in relation to the learning event?
What other resources are needed to support the learning event?
PERFORMANCE ASSESSEMENT
Does the assessment truly reflect performance of the task under normal working conditions?Is there a formal, explicit, assessment of performance?
Who has final responsibility for assessing performance?
Is the assessment based on objective measuring techniques?
What are the consequences of failure for the trainee and trainer?
To what extent are the views of the trainees taken into account in relation to the usefulness of the performance they have achieved?
This far from exhaustive list of questions can be rephrased so that they can form a ‘proactive checklist’ – questions that need to be answered satisfactorily during design and before the Learning Unit is implemented. They can also form a ‘reactive checklist’ to be used as the basis for reflection after the Learning Unit is completed. This will enable you to take account of successes and failures, and changes that would be made if the Learning Unit was to be repeated.
Design of training, based on the ‘Learning Unit’, draws attention to the achievement of a clearly defined ‘outcome’, i.e. what a person can do after completing a unit. This can be important due to:
- The introduction of competence-based training, which emphasizes assessment of the results of training rather than the process itself.
- The ability of a trainee to perform a specific task, which requires the acquisition of appropriate knowledge and skills.
- Tasks learned are directly associated to a person’s ability to do their job.
- Links between separate learning units, each dealing with an aspect of performance.
Design based on the learning unit provides you with a discipline that requires you to state the objectives to be achieved; consideration of the entry behaviour of individual trainees; provision of a suitable learning event to enable each trainee to achieve the stated objective; and performance assessment to ensure that it has been achieved. This design discipline provides the following benefits:
- It gives you a framework to design performance – related training.
- It enables you to design flexible training programmes.
- It focuses attention on the results obtained from training.
- It includes provision to meet the needs of individual trainees.
- It can be used to establish a design brief.
Designing a Learning Event
ENABLING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Describe issues likely to influence design2. List four ways of learning
3. Explain parameters of reviewing design
INTRODUCTION
At the heart of all training design activities is the creation of opportunities for people to learn. As the designer, you have the responsibility for deciding how this can best be done, within the inevitable constraints you will encounter. You also have the responsibility to meet the requirements of your client, for whom you are designing the training. Your design responsibilities centre around helping people to learn and satisfying the requirements of your client. Both responsibilities are important.
It is also important to note that we may hand over the completed design to other trainers for development or delivery. Having ideas in your mind about how you intend to run particular sessions is therefore pointless, if you do not communicate these ideas to the trainers involved with actual delivery. Equally, trainers and trainees are dependent on you to decide how and where they will learn, and what resources will be available to help them. If your do not plan for their implementation, who will?
You should tackle several issues when designing a learning event. Imagine you are a juggler, and each of these issues is one ball you are juggling. If there were only two or three balls your job would be easy. However, as the number of balls increases, so do your problems – whether it’s juggling balls, or designing training. Each issue listed below is likely to influence your design:
DESIGN ISSUES
- Agreeing a Design Brief, - Definition of a ‘Task’
- Relating a Task to a Learning Event, - Resource Constraints
- Selecting Content - Selecting Methods
- Sequencing Content - Selecting Performance Assessment Measures, - Selecting Media - Deciding Trainer(s)
- Deciding Place - Deciding Time
- Developing Training Resources - Reviewing the Design
AGREEING A DESIGN BRIEF
The Design Brief provides a specification for the training, and an understanding between you and the client about what will be achieved. It is important to recognize that the client is likely to be primarily concerned with the outcome of the training, not with the learning process itself. As the designer of a learning unit and, in particular, the learning event, you may feel that your primary concern is to help the trainee develop knowledge and skills. However, the intention of the design should be to satisfy both client and trainee. The training should meet the requirements of the client. For example, it should result in the solution to a work related performance problem, or the training should provide a satisfactory and beneficial experience for the trainee.
There is a reason and purpose for the training being trained. He or she wants or need to learn about something, or how to do it, or to achieve a specific competence. The trainee is dependent on you, the designer – along with line management, colleagues and other trainers, to design the sort of learning event where this can happen. At this stage of design you should already have clarified:
- The general context within which the training will be done.- The training need and the performance standards to be achieved.
- The intended aim of the training and the training objective(s).
- The entry behaviour of the trainees to establish where learning has to begin.
- The major constraints that will influence the design.
- The number of people and location to be trained.
This information provides the basis for negotiating a suitable Design Brief with your client. For example, you may need to examine the training need to work out what is the minimum outcome the client will accept. Who is at fault if you promise more than you can, realistically deliver?
It is essential that the entry behaviour of the trainees is defined in some detail, otherwise a wider variety of people than planned may be nominated which will undermine the effectiveness of the learning event. Who is responsible for nominating people for training, and what criteria are they using for their selection? The Design Brief should specify the level of entry behaviour and the criteria to be used for acceptance.
Finally, it is probably a total waste of effort and resources to train, say 20 people at a time, when there are over 1,000 people who need the same training. The decision to train only 20 people may suit a training institute. But does it meet the needs of the client, and how will the other 980 people benefit? The Design Brief should specify how many people are to be trained, and the time-scale within which this has to be done.
DEFINITION OF ‘TASK’
The term ‘task’ is often used about work and training. Unfortunately, there is no clear answer to the question ‘What is a task? And the list below gives some definitions which may enable you to answer the question, bearing in mind the context in which the term is being used. You should choose the one(s) that most fits your requirements. The intention should be to use a term that will focus attention on an area of performance.
1. “A task is usually considered to be a discrete unit of work performed by an individual. It usually comprises a logical and necessary step in the performance of a duty, and typically has an identified beginning and ending”.
2. “A task is a coherent set of activities (steps, operations or behaviour elements) which leads to a measurable end result”.
3. “A major element of work or a combination of elements of work by means of which a specific results is obtained”.
4. A task is a group of related manual activities directed towards a goas”.
5. “A task usually has a definite beginning and end”.
6. “A task involves people’s interaction with equipment, other people, and/or media”.
7. “A task, when performed, results in a meaningful product. [Products are not always tangible. For example, a “correct decision” is a meaningful product]”.
8. “A task may be of any size or degree of complexity. But it must be directed toward a specific purpose or separate portion of the total duty”.
RELATING A TASK TO A LEARNING EVENT
Consider a situation where you are planning to use a visual aid, for example during a lecture. One task to be performed will be to set up and use the Overhead Projector, and another to design and prepare transparencies. Treat these as two separate tasks and examine them in more detail:
Setting up and using the OHP in a typical training room requires following a set of procedures – setting up the screen, positioning the OHP at a suitable distance from the screen and adjusting it to produce a square, focused image on the screen, etc. We can expand this description to include further detail but, no matter who is doing the task, it will be done almost the same way.
Designing the transparency requires consideration of the learning point to be illustrated, the style of its presentation – for example, whether it is to be straight text, an illustrative model or a cartoon. Only when we have decided this can the transparency be prepared.
Both tasks are familiar to trainers, but there is an important difference between them that has a significant impact on the design of learning events. The first task, setting up the OHP, involves following a set procedure, whereas the second involves creativity and making decisions. We can expand this distinction along a continuum. At one end the task must be done one way, only. At the other there is the highly creative task that could be done differently on every occasion it is done – the variations in performance being based on circumstances, experience and creative ability. Tasks may be classified in terms of type of performance by using the ‘PRODUCTIVE – REPRODUCTIVE’ continuum illustrated in Figure 1, below:
PRODUCTIVE REPRODUCTIVE
Fig.1
PRODUCTIVE tasks require a person to apply task-related knowledge and skills in a variety of situations, with the emphasis on planning, decision making and creativity.
REPRODUCTIVE tasks require a person to apply task-related skills to follow laid-down procedures, involving little planning or decision making.
The task of setting up the OHP is a reproductive task. There is a procedure, a series of actions to be taken which will result in the OHP being set up ready for use. This procedure would apply to anybody doing the task.
The task of designing a transparency to use on the OHP is a productive task, because there is no predetermined outcome and set procedure to be followed. Each person performing the task will have their own ideas about how to communicate the learning point – one person may choose to use text, whereas another, with artistic talent, decides to draw a cartoon. Both decisions may be correct, given a set of circumstances. If these were changed, or a different person was deciding, then it might produce a different outcome but still satisfactory performance of the task.
The performance of a task may include both productive and reproductive phases, and each may need to be examined to determine what has to be learned. The analysis of a task can provide a useful basis for making these decisions because it helps to identify the type of behaviour required. From the analysis of the task, it is possible to identify key phases in performance, which the trainee will learn during the learning event. Some of these phases will be ‘underpinning’ knowledge – that is knowledge of principles and concepts about the performance of the task. This will influence a trainee’s general ability to perform the task, whereas other phases will be specific to a particular task. For example the following phases, in sequence, can be used:
- RECOGNITION - recognizing the need to take action
- RECALL - remembering task-related information
- PLANNING - deciding how to perform the task
- PERFORMANCE - actually doing the task
- Trainees being given information and advice on how to do something, but no practice.
- Theories unrelated to actual application, under normal working conditions
- Failure to take account of the variety of situations that could affect performance.
- Failure to present the trainees with clear and accurate procedures.
- Trainees being told how to perform what is actually a productive task.
The learning event is the period when the process of systematic training becomes ‘live’ and the trainee is actually learning. The design and development of learning events will vary enormously from a short simple session done on the shop floor, to a highly complex simulation of a major management activity. However, for the training to be effective the design of the learning event has to be related closely to the outcome – and this has to be related as closely as possible to actual performance.
RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS
An organization’s training policy, its training priorities and the resources it is willing to make available will determine possible training activities. The nature of these resources present design constraints, for example:
- Facilities The availability of classrooms, syndicate rooms, computers and video recording equipment may have a significant influence on design. For example, it is pointless including syndicate activities if there are no small rooms available in which they can work.
- Accommodation For many training institutions the availability of residential accommodation is an important factor. For example, considerable benefit can be derived from short, residential courses where trainees can work together in the evening.
- Location The ideal location is one that is suitable for both trainees and trainers – in that order of priority. All too frequently resources are held in a central institutional location, rather than being accessible locally.
- Budget The allocation of funds to support training is usually a constraint. It is a constraint that is unlikely to prevent training, but one that will influence how it can be delivered.
- Learning Materials This is potentially a major constraint as many design decisions focus on the availability of, for example, exercises, handouts, videos and computer software.
- Time Manufacturers’ insist that designers design products as cheaply as possible to increase customer interest. The same should apply to training designers, except that time, not cost, is likely to be a critical constraint.
- Trainers A critical constraint in the design of training is to decide how it will be delivered. This usually, but not necessarily, involves trainers who can make detailed design decisions themselves. But others, less experienced may require detailed advice and material support before they can deliver the training to an acceptable standard.
- Organizational Relationships Training institutions may have limited contact with departments; equally line managers may not find it easy to build a relationship with institutions. As a result training is designed and delivered in isolation from organizational requirements.
- Consequences The intention of training is to achieve a beneficial outcome for the organisation and for individual trainees. When designing training the consequences of success or failure should be borne in mind. The better the quality of design the greater its chances of the training being successful.
A general impression of these factors will probably emerge from the training needs analysis carried out prior to design, and from experiences with other training activities in the organisation. They will only become constraints if they limit the achievement of the training objective. For example, if insufficient time is allowed for practice to achieve mastery of the task, or available resources do not permit realistic performance simulation, then you may have to request extra time or negotiate a change in the training objective.
During the design process you may decide to involve line management in agreeing the training objectives and the resources they are prepared to commit to the training. This will give you feedback on the acceptability of your design and indicate line management commitment.
We should also make a distinction between externally and internally imposed constraints. External constraints are those imposed by the government, or departmental management, or sometimes institutional directors: these are constraints you probably have to accept. Internal constraints are, however, ones you impose yourself – accepting constraints over which you have an influence, and failing to design training with an open, flexible, imaginative approach.
SELECTING CONTENT
The content of the learning event must be selected to enable the trainees to achieve the overall training objective, or its contributory enabling objectives. A balance has to be made between ‘knowledge’ and ‘skill’, bearing in mind that both are subsumed by the need to achieve ‘Competence’. The first two are content ‘inputs’, and the last is a content ‘outcome’. A potential conflict arises if each of these is considered in isolation.
Knowledge and skill are essential to performance; in an appropriate combination, they enable people to perform a variety of tasks. As a training designer you have the responsibility to decide what ‘an appropriate combination’ is. There is a temptation to give more knowledge than is really needed to –probably to the exclusion of skills development.
Now the concept of competence has been introduced, with a debate about what it means and how it should be used. Historically, trainers have been mainly concerned with ‘inputs’ helping people to acquire knowledge and develop skills. Now, with competence, the emphasis is moving to the ‘outcomes’ of this process – not the process itself.
For a given design brief, you may therefore have to strike a pragmatic balance between providing training to satisfy a specific task-related training need and more generalized training which provides background information or ‘underpinning knowledge’. Selecting content may require you to carefully examine and evaluate the relative merits of knowledge and skill inputs needed to achieve an outcome, which may or may not be clearly defined. Knowledge and skills could be considered under the following categories:
Knowledge - Facts, Procedures, Concepts, Principles.Skill - Thinking, Acting, Reacting, Interaction
It is always a temptation to include more content than is really necessary. Often this is due to a lack of detailed information about what is actually required, or failing to have the discipline and confidence to restrict input to essentials.
We often here of guest speakers who ‘talk too much’ or ‘wander off the subject,’ but may be the reason is that we did not give them an objective that clearly defined the content. We also come across situations where a particular exercise has been used because ‘group enjoy it’, rather than because it makes a useful contribution to the learning event. Deciding content is therefore an essential feature of the design process; all too easily we are tempted into giving people a bucket of knowledge, when a cup of it would have been sufficient. Also, we often fail to include adequate opportunities for practical, skill’s development for each individual trainee. We should apply the following guideline, illustrated in Figure 2:
Fig.2
Anything other than what MUST be learned can be left out of the learning event, if constraints require; SHOULD is the possible content that helps put the learning in context and COULD may provide interesting background information. Content not directly relevant to the achievement of a particular objective may have to be discarded.
Enabling objectives developed from task analysis and consideration of the categories of knowledge and skills, and entry behaviour, can help you to select essential content.
SELECTING METHODS
There is a tendency to allow the selection of training methods to take precedence over the performance or outcome to be achieved. The starting point for selecting methods should be to ask such question as:
- “What sort of performance is required of the trainee to demonstrate competence?”- “What is the minimum standard of performance that will be acceptable?”
- “What is the precise objective to be achieved?”
Training methods provide the means by which people can be helped to learn. The selection is therefore an important part of your design responsibilities. Much will depend on what has to be learned and how trainees’ are expected to apply it. The answers to the above questions are likely to include consideration of:
Achieving effective performance. The methods chosen should enable trainees to achieve the desired outcome.
The type of task to be performed – whether it’s productive or reproductive. Although there are over 20 recognized training methods, few are suited learning both types of task.
Entry Behaviour of the trainees. Some trainees, especially ones who have considerable experience, are likely to favour methods that allow for their active participation in the learning event; other, less experienced trainees, may find this less suited to their training needs.
The trainers responsible for implementing the learning event. Some methods are likely to place considerable demands on the competency of a trainer such that they may find it difficult to provide effective help to the trainees.
The efficient use of resources. Depending on the training need and the number of trainees. Some methods are likely to prove more efficient, or more cost-effective than others.
Time, opportunity and resources available for development. The choice of certain training method will require the development of training materials, suited to a particular design requirement.
We give details of training methods, and criteria useful for selecting them in another handout but several general concepts are worth noting. These have already been introduced in the DTS Course and may have a significant influence on the choice of methods and the development necessary for their use.
Four Ways of Learning
A learning event can be created by a combination of the four ways of learning, illustrated in Figure 3, below. A detailed description of these four ways of learning is given in DTS handouts.
From a design point of view, you should recognize the contribution that each of these of these ways makes towards creating an effective learning event. Some methods favour perhaps only one way of learning – for example, a lecture is likely to mainly use ‘being told’, whereas ‘coaching’ enables all four ways to be used. Also, although it is feasible to use the lecture method to create a knowledge-based learning event for, say, 100 trainees, it would be unrealistic use the same method to help trainees develop skills.
Another factor to consider is the link between the type of task and the four ways we can use to help trainees learn them. If the task is reproductive then the choice of methods should favour ‘being told’, ‘imitation’ and some ‘trial and error’. The emphasis in design is to select training methods that will enable trainees to see how the task should be done, an explanation of the process and an opportunity for supervised practice. The assumption has to be made that the trainer is an expert and provides a suitable model performance for trainees to emulate.
Increasingly, there is a move away from reproductive tasks as automation and computer-based processes are introduced. People are more likely now to perform productive tasks, where they are expected to plan, solve problems, work with others in a team and make decisions. This means that trainees are now more likely to have to learn by ‘thinking’, supported by an increasing use of ‘trial and error’.
Figure 4, below, illustrated the approaches that a trainer might take to implement training.
Fig.4
The ‘trainer centered’ approach is where the trainer is likely to be using ‘being told’ and ‘imitation’ to help trainees to learn. In using this approach the trainer is using such training methods as:
Lectures Lessons
Demonstrations
Computer based training systems
By comparison, the ‘trainee centered’ approach creates an opportunity for trainees to become actively involved in learning the task, using ‘experiential learning’. Note that the role of the trainer changes to one that facilitates learning activities, based on ‘trial and error’ and ‘thinking’. The methods likely to encourage this approach include:
Case Studies Projects
Group exercises
Role plays
Experiential methods of coaching
Sequence Content
We can approach the sequencing of the content from two directions.
- Task to be mastered.- Trainee
The selection of sequence must be a matter of judgement by having looked at the content from both viewpoints. Concentrating on the performance of the task may fail to highlight significant learning points; however, helping the trainee acquire knowledge and skills, without a focus on their application or outcome may result in a failure to achieve competence. For example, consider designing ‘communications’ training:
- A task in the work area of communications is report writing. You could design training specific to this task, so that training can write concise reports in the style and format favoured by a particular organisation.
- Alternatively, you could design a course covering principles and systems of organizational communications.
There is the danger of designing training that is too specific and prescriptive, narrowing the utility of the training unnecessarily. However, training that is too general may not achieve the desired outcome. People could attend the course on organizational communications and still be unable to write reports.
In some reproductive tasks the sequence is critical and this may determine the learning sequence. For other productive and reproductive tasks the task sequence is not important so you need to consider what sequence is best for learning. The sequence of performing a task is not necessarily the best sequence for learning it. We can apply several general guidelines as appropriate:
- Start from what is Known to what is Unknown
- Start from something Concrete then to one that is Abstract
- Start from the General and move on to the Particular
- Start from Observation and move to Theory
- Start with something Simple before making it Complex
- Start with an Overview before introducing Detail
For example, at the start of this handout we assumed you knew about objectives, which we introduced in the DTS Course. During this course, we can therefore move from the ‘known’ and ‘simple’ to the ‘unknown’ and ‘complex’ – by examining objectives in more detail. Also in the DTS, in the handout about preparing a lecture, you may recall the example of rusting, where we demonstrated that it is much easier to learn about something that is familiar to us – rust- rather than have to start with a chemical term, such as ferrous oxide. As this is probably a term not known to us, it can disturb our ability to learn.
We should not impose sequence independently of the trainees and task requirements. What may appear easy to the expert can be extremely difficult for a trainee. In learning to swim being ‘thrown in the deep end’ may appeal to a few people, but most of us would prefer to learn to swim in easy, progressive stages -–and at our own pace, safe from the consequences of failure. This ‘parts/whole’ sequence is often suitable where there is a progressive building up of an appropriate combination of knowledge and skill. Sometimes, especially when designing training for mature, experienced people, there is a preference to start with the whole and then deal with the parts. Sometimes, constraints with resources, for example specialist trainers or training facilities, may force changes in a preferred sequence.
One approach to the sequencing of content is the idea of ‘recursiveness’. This is the idea that parts of the learning event are structured to build and develop upon one another in a cumulative effect. Each new learning experience reinforces previous learning while developing new learning. To undertake the new learning experience the trainee is called upon to use previous learning.
An example of recursiveness occurs with the Direct Trainers Skills course that we structure so that sub-skills are employed and practised at each subsequent learning experience. By starting such a course with one-to-one coaching skills these can be subsequently employed in lecture/lessons, discussion leading and group exercises. Similarly lecture/lesson skills are used in discussion leading and group exercises, and discussion leading skills used in reviewing group exercises. Thus, the sequence can provide further learning opportunities for consolidation and review. However, consolidation by means of recursive learning is not sufficient. You are not a competent driver when you can start, stop, accelerate, decelerate, signal, change gear, etc. – as separate activities. You are only competent when you can apply an appropriate mixture of the skills to fit the situation.
Selecting Performance Assessment Measures
The learning unit model shows performance assessment as the last stage of the cycle. While assessment often follows the learning event, it is also highly desirable that some form of assessment should take place during the learning event. It is therefore worth considering it as part of the detailed design of the learning event. Some training methods provide opportunities for feedback both to the trainee and to the trainer – for example case studies, in-tray exercises, role play and computer-based training. Often assessment is more effective when done as an activity integral within the learning event.
Training design is about creating an opportunity for people to learn, and for this to be associated with practical application, either at work or under simulated conditions. People can demonstrate competence – the ability to perform tasks under a range of conditions to acceptable standards. This requires trainees to not only go through a process of learning, but as a result to achieve mastery. They need opportunities to be created to suit their individual learning needs, leading to achievement of the objective. However, performance assessment is concerned with the trainee’s ability to do something, not the means by which he or she learned how to do it. Sometimes, as with the Driving Test, we can make a clear distinction between learning and assessment, but in many others this is not possible nor desirable.
Performance assessment should not be left until the end of training and, as in the Driving Test, to a pass/fail test. Assessment can and should be done during the learning event, as an integral part of the learning process. This enables the trainee and the trainer to adjust training to suit the trainee’s needs. Nevertheless, for some occupations and certain tasks, the pass/fail test is essential. For training design you need answers to the following questions:
- Should we arrange assessment during the learning event and should the results be used as the basis for remedial training?
- What would be the consequence of failure either to achieve the objective, or to perform the task currently?
- Are there established standards of performance to be achieved?
- Are there national or professional agencies setting standards?
- Does the statement of the training objective include standards of performance?
- Is there a significant difference between the performance objective and the training objective, which may affect the value of assessment?
- Who is responsible for devising, or advising on appropriate assessment measures?
Assessment of a trainee’s performance can be done during the learning event or after it is completed. ‘Formative’ assessment is done during the learning event and ‘Summative’ assessment is done on completion. The design process should include consideration of both.
Selecting Media
Right now we are using paper-based media to communicate with you. An alternative would have been present this information on an audio cassette. This would have provided you with the convenience of learning by listening to it, for example when travelling to work: the disadvantages of this would have been the lack of pictorial illustrations and the difficulty of easy reference. The selection of media presents major decisions, for example:
- Can you rely on people having the self-discipline to learn from printed material?
- Should you invest considerable funds in producing a video presentation?
- Should you invest in the use of computer based learning and assume that all your trainees are computer literate and have access to suitable equipment?
- Or should you ignore these media and require trainees to attend lectures, where the media are restricted to the spoken word and visual presentation?
Using appropriate media can improve the quality of many learning events. If we wish to learn about the latest news bulletin, we have the choice of buying a newspaper, listening to the radio, or watching television. Each of these media creates a learning event. It is being used to communicate information. Without giving a context for the learning, it is impossible to say which of them the ‘best’ medium is. For example:
- A newspaper costs, say, 3 rupees and can be read at leisure, and when you find it convenient.
- You can listen to the radio whilst doing something else, for instance driving a car.
- Television may bring you nearer to reality by using pictures, supported by commentary, of the actual news event.
What is best for one set of circumstances may prove inappropriate in another. The newspaper is an ideal means of communicating with one person, but what if you have a group of 12? The radio may be fine when used to communicate information. However, it becomes rather inadequate when attempting to describe say a fashion show – something done far better on television. The choice of media is an important issue within the design process. Each option present advantages, but also disadvantages as to cost, or convenience or the quality of learning.
Media can also be used to extend the learning event beyond what is available for normal training sessions. For example, seeing a video film, either at home or in a resource centre can set the context prior to a group discussion. Handouts can also be used for study ahead of classroom activity, or to reinforce class room learning, or to provide reference and opportunities for further study.
The design of learning events usually involves some form of media. This requires you to recognize the learning needs of the trainees and choose suitable media helpful and convenient to them. While you must bear in mind the availability of media hardware and the cost of purchasing or developing software.
When deciding upon the media to be used in a learning event your concern should be with helping the trainee. The careful selection, development and use of media should improve the quality of the learning event, making it easier for the trainee to learn. Media should make the learning task easier for the trainee. In addition, the selection of media for a learning event will depend upon practical considerations regarding:
Hardware availability and facilities to use it. Hardware is the machinery used to transmit the media (projectors, video recorders, overhead projectors, chalkboards, etc.)
Software production and availability. Software is the instructional material being presented to the trainee (films, video playback, computer programs, overhead transparencies, articles in books, handouts, etc.)
Trainers’ competence to use, and if necessary develop, the media.
Cost/benefit of media.
The media selected should fit comfortably into the learning event and the learning unit. It is possible to get ‘hooked’ on particular media and use them inappropriately.
Selecting Trainers
Every learning event, whatever its nature, must have someone responsible to whom the trainee can turn for advice, guidance and counseling – a trainer. This remains true even for learning events that do not require face to face training activity, for example, Programmed Learning, Computer-based Training and certain types of training packages. The role of the trainer in this sense is often the responsibility of the supervisor or line manager, acting as a ‘mentor’.
The primary criterion for selecting the trainer to implement a learning event must be competence. The trainer should be competent in the subject matter, and skilled in the training methods being used. The trainer may also be involved in assessment activities, either to provide formative feedback to the trainee, or to assess competence.
Other factors may influence the selection of trainers. These include:
- Credibility with trainees
- Range of experience
- Availability
- Availability of resource material
- Policy regarding use of external trainers
When designing a learning event identifying the person who will be acting as the trainer is important, and you must decide what role the trainer is expected to fulfil. For example, is he or she expected to assess entry behaviour and performance? How much discretion does the trainer have over the learning event?
We must also decide the number of trainers required to run a learning event for a particular group. Frequent changes of trainers can disrupt the process of bonding between trainees and their trainers; it will also make it very difficult to maintain continuity and avoid repetition. Often administrative convenience imposes an unnecessary constraint on the quality of training. Trainers may be allocated to sessions of fixed duration, irrespective of trainees’ needs and the most suitable training methods to help them.
The close connection between issues, such as the choice of content, sequence, methods and media highlights the interdependence of the various aspects of training design. In practice the designer has usually thought of appropriate trainers when selecting methods and media and deciding group size and the content of a learning event. Problems arise if the preferred trainers are not available. Then revising the whole of the learning event to accommodate a substitute trainer may be necessary. If a particular trainer is required to run a particular learning event this in itself becomes a constraint on the design of the learning unit.
DECIDING PLACE
Although the focus of this has been on designing a learning event, we should recognize that this is likely to be done in the context of a course or on the job as part of an overall training programme. The venue for a learning event will therefore vary from the actual work place to residential conference centres. The nature of the place for training will depend upon:
- How closely the work environment needs to be simulated
- Number of trainees
- Duration of the learning event
- Whether residential or not
- Methods to be used
- Media to be used
- Budget constraints
- Availability of venue
- Culture of the organisation
The place used should be suitable for the trainees to achieve the performance required by the training objective. The performance and conditions may determine whether the learning event should take place in training room, or in the field or office, etc.
If the trainees do not feel comfortable in the learning environment it will be a barrier to learning. Physical surroundings can have a big impact upon the learning environment, whether it is too comfortable, too prestigious, too Spartan, too noisy or just too different from the normal working environment.
In deciding the place for a learning event in relation to the working environment there is a tradeoff to be made. A learning environment may be quiet, protected from the consequences of errors and therefore relatively risk free. The environment may help trainees to try out new behaviour.
Simulating the working environment may make it noisy, threatening and high risk. This may inhibit learning. The learning event may need to have phases where initially the environment is risk-free and later matches the job environment more closely to help the transfer of learning.
Some methods make much greater demands upon the place for a learning event than others. A lecture may require only one room with an OHP and screen, or a chalkboard, flipchart or white board. Role play may require many smaller rooms with several trainers, role players and sets of video recording equipment.
Deciding Time Required
Time is considered last in this description of the learning event design process. Trying to estimate how long particulars activities in the learning event will take can be a problem. This is especially difficult if mastery learning is intended as every trainee will and must learn at their own pace.
So, how should we estimate the time for a learning event? In considering constraints we should also have made some rough estimates on the expected duration of training.
The training designer will tend to carry this information forward in looking at content, methods, media and performance assessment. It may become obvious during this process that either too little or too much time has been allocated.
The expected duration may be based upon a preconceived model held by management. This may be time based – weeks, days or hours; or based on cost. Occasionally, you may be required to present a justification for the duration of the proposed training – for example by showing in detail how you are planning to use the time requested, and the benefits to be gained. Training is often based in practice on very rough assessments of how much – or how little – time a manager is willing to allow for training. This is unlikely to produce satisfactory training.
Time will need to be estimated for each activity in the learning event. An informed guess may be made by the designer by considering the content to be covered, by which method(s) for a particular group of trainees. It can be helpful to estimate time in terms of :
- Explanation- Advice
- Demonstration
- Practice
- Feedback
- Review
- Action Planning
Many designers tend to concentrate on the explanation and advice at the expense of practice and feedback. Trainer centred methods are easier to time and control than trainee centred methods.
As trainers we need to be on our guard against the desire by managers to cut down the length of training. Non-trainers often think it is enough for people to have something explained to them. Skilled performance requires practice and feedback. Lectures on the theories of Maslow and Herzberg et al., do not equip supervisors with the skills needed to lead times: they need individual and group practice and feedback. That statement should be perfectly obvious to anyone who understands how people learn. Yet, not only managers, but even some trainers expect a trainee to develop the skills of interviewing by listening to lectures or watching a film.
Practice time should exceed explanation time and there should be time for more than one practice. The trainee needs further practice to use the feedback provided to improve performance. This is where group size and time constraints affect the amount learned.
Explanation and advice (‘input’) can be offered to trainees as a group, and can create a basis for discussion. However, the purpose of training is to improve performance (‘outcome’), and this often requires practice and individual feedback. This makes great demands upon time. If trainees are to perform simultaneously, and it is essential to give feedback to each trainee from a trainer, then we may require more trainers.
As part of the learning process it is often beneficial to encourage trainees to give feedback to other trainees, for example, where trainees act as ‘observers’. Feedback can also be planned as self-assessment, for example, where trainees observe a video playback of their practice sessions to identify learning points. Considerable learning benefits can be obtained from dividing the trainees into small groups working independently to provide opportunities to practice, allowing trainees to exchange ideas and use one another as a learning resource. This should not be done as a substitute for feedback from the trainer, whose comments will still be required and expected. This requires careful allocation of time to each phase of the learning event, and the availability of facilities and equipment.
Allocation of time within a learning event is a compromise between the constraints of time available, objectives to be achieved, methods to be used etc. The interdependent nature of the decisions made in designing a learning unit means that decisions about time may affect previous and subsequent decisions about other aspects of the learning event.
Where performance assessment is carried out by someone other than the trainer and separated in time from the learning event, care will be needed to interpret the results. The effectiveness of the learning event may have been masked by the intervening activities.
Developing Training Resources
So far our discussion of design has been restricted to collection information and making decisions about what should happen in the learning event. We have assumed that the task has been analyzed and a performance objective written. Collection of data on the entry behaviour may have required questionnaires or pretest to be devised. It remains, having decided what is wanted, to get agreement for the design. Agreement may be required from management, or your client, and we may also require it from other trainers who will be involved.
Training materials, facilities and resources will be required. These may be specially designed, be created from modifications of existing resources or brought in from outside. For example:
- Handouts, case studies, exercises, consumable materials
- Audio-visual Aids hardware and software
- Trainers booked, briefed, tutor guide (teaching notes)
- Role players and other support booked
- Accommodation booked
- Feedback mechanisms developed
- Notification and briefing of trainees
- Performance assessment measures developed
- Assessors identified
Depending upon the role of the direct trainer and the relationship with the designer some of these can be left to the trainer. The less skilled the trainer the more structure the designer will need to provide, particularly about content, sequence and training aids.
Budget constraints will influence decisions about buying and hiring hardware and software and the use of external trainers and external accommodation.
The time scale before implementation of the learning event will influence whether we can create new materials or adapt old ones. They require that much time and effort produce and try out new materials.
The training materials to be distributed to trainees need to be duplicated and distributed. This is an administrative task that uses up resources, either trainer’s time or their administrative support.
Reviewing The Design
We can review the design of a learning unit before and after it has been implemented as part of a course or training programme. Before implementation, we can apply the design criteria developed here besides checking out the design with line management. Subject matter experts and other trainers can provide useful feedback.
Occasionally it may be decided to pilot run a learning unit with training staff or ‘dummy’ trainees to provide data to improve the design. When the learning unit is to be implemented often there is an opportunity to ‘fine tune’ the design using feedback generated by the first attempts to present the unit. After we have implemented the unit, it is possible to look for answers to the following questions to identify areas for improvement.
- Were the objectives ambiguous?
- Did the trainees find the performance easy or difficult to achieve?
- Was sufficient time allowed for practice to ensure the trainee can maintain performance?
- Were any problems experienced with the transfer of the performance to the place of work?
- Were the conditions created in the learning event similar to those the trainee would normally experience when carrying out the performances stated in the objective?
- Did you assess the trainees’ entry behaviour correctly?
- Would the same learning unit work if there was a significant change in entry behaviour?
- Were the trainee’s generic skills adequate for the tasks set during the learning event?
- Did the learning event suit the learning style of the trainees?
- Did the learning event suit the instructional style and competence of the trainers?
- Was sufficient time allocated for each part of the learning event?
- Did any of the trainees, particularly older ones, appear nervous and ill at ease?
- Did the trainees’ reaction to the learning experience swing to either extreme of acceptance or rejection?
- Were the media effective?
- Were exercises, case studies etc. appropriate and effective?
- Was trainee motivation maintained throughout the learning events?
- Was sufficient knowledge of results provided during the learning event?
- Was the performance assessment effective?
- Were the results obtained on the assessment of performance in line with your estimate of each individual’s achievement?
- Was the standard of performance achieved by the trainees satisfactory in terms of job performance?
Andragogy: A Technology for Adult Learning
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
After reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Explain ‘Andragogy’.2. List the underlying assumptions.
3. Identify its implications for training and training design
INTRODUCTION
Most of us deplore the unnecessary use of jargon, and the term ‘Andragogy’ falls into this category. So why use it? Until recent times ’training’ was associated with younger people (apprentices, newly appointed recruits, for example), who once trained could develop by gaining experience. The training process used usually was by some form of ‘teaching’, or ‘instruction’ often delivered to relatively inexperienced ‘trainees.’ Now, we often call these people ‘learners’, and they are often mature, experienced adults possibly facing major changes in their jobs, or prospects for employment. The concept of andragogy, based on the writings of Malcolm Knowles, is of considerable significance when considering entry behavior and has relevance to training design.
Most of what is known about learning and the practice of teaching is derived from studies of learning in children and animals. From this emerged the technology of ‘pedagogy’ – a term derived from the Greek stem ‘PAID’ (meaning ‘child’), and ‘AGOGOS’ (meaning ‘learning’). So ‘pedagogy’ means. Specifically, the art and science of teaching children.
One problem is that the ‘children’ aspect of the definition is often lost. Pedagogy is the art and science of teaching without any attempt to draw a distinction between the child and the adult.
Pedagogy is also biased towards education, and is concerned primarily with the transmission of knowledge. Historically, when major changes in culture and technology were introduced only slowly, what people learn in their youth would remain valid for the rest of their lives. Recent history has changed this concept dramatically. Knowledge and gained by the time a person is, say, 20 years of age may be obsolete by the time he or she is 40, This is especially true in the world of work, where knowledge and skills acquired in early adult life may be out of date by middle age. Therefore, as trainers, we are no longer concerned with the pedagogical process of transmitting what is known and done, but more towards a concern for a lifelong process of discovering what is not known and coping with the resulting change.
Experienced trainers are well aware of the limitations of traditional teaching methods. Such methods, often requiring a trainer-centred technique, are satisfactory when dealing with children or adolescents, but become less so when the learner is mature, experienced, adult. Adults are often voluntary learners, willing to participate on the understanding that the learning event proves a rewarding experience and meets the purpose for which it was intended. The practice of adult learning has therefore departed from the traditional pedagogical approach towards the use of more learner-centred techniques.
There is now an emerging theory of learning concerned with the technology of adult learning, and to distinguish it from pedagogy it has been given a new name ‘andragogy’. The word, again, is derived from the Greek work ‘ANDRA’ (meaning ‘man’). Andragogy is therefore the art and science of helping adults to learn.
SOME GENERAL ASSUMPTIONS
Adults do not learn in the same way as children. This is because:
As people mature, they see themselves less as a dependent personality and more as a self-directing human being.
They accumulate a growing reservoir of experience and increasingly relate new learning to that experience, or reject it because it does not fit their experience, or reject it because it does not fit their experience.
Their readiness to learn becomes increasingly oriented towards dealing with real situations they will be involved in, either in their social life or in their work.
Their time perspective changes from one of postponed application of learning towards its immediate use. This leads to a shift in learning from concern with subject to concern with the solution of problems.
Children enter this world in a condition of complete dependency. Their every need must be taken care of by someone else. The first image children get of themselves is that of a dependent personality whose life the adult world manages for them.
This self-concept of dependency is encouraged and reinforced by the adult world. In fact, society defines the normal role of children as that of learners this is their full-time occupation, the source of rewards and self-fulfillment. On the whole, this occupation, whether it is termed that of a pupil, student, or learner, requires a more or less passive role of receiving and storing information chosen by adults.
As children’s self-identity begins to take shape, they begin to see themselves as having the capacity to start deciding by them. This increases as they become more mature and experienced, leading towards greater self-direction.
However, something significant happens to the self-concept when they consider themselves as adult. They see their normal role in society no longer as a full-time learner. They see themselves increasingly as a producer or doer. Their other chief sources of self-fulfillment are now performance as a worker, a parent etc. The adult acquires a new status, in their own eyes and in the eyes of others. He or she becomes essentially self-directing and able to decide and face the consequences. In fact, the point at which a person becomes an adult, psychologically, is that point at which they perceive themselves to be wholly self-directing. At that point they also experience a deep need to be perceived by others as self-directing.
Therefore, adults have a need to be treated with respect, to make their own decisions, and to be seen and treated as unique individuals. They tend to avoid, resist, and resent, situations in which they are treated like children –being told what to do, and being put in embarrassing situations. Adults are likely to resist learning conditions that conflict with their self-concept.
Often there is another factor in the self-concept of adults that affect their role as learners. They may carry from earlier school life the perception that they are, or are not, clever. This recollection of previous learning experience may be so strong that it serves as a serious barrier to becoming fully involved in learning activities. Once a trainer puts adult learners into dependent roles, repeating in a sense earlier school-based experiences, he or she is likely to face a rising resistance and resentment to the learning event created.
On the other hand, when adults are first exposed to a learning environment in which they are treated with respect, are involved in mutual enquiry with the trainer, and are given responsibility for their own learning, the initial reaction may be one of shock and dis-organisation. Adults initially are often not prepared for self-directed learning; they need to go through a process of reorientation to a learning as adults – to learn new ways of learning. Once adults make the discovery that they can take responsibility for their own learning, they usually experience a sense of release land exhilaration and participate in learning events with enthusiasm and commitment.
SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAINING
The acceptance of an andragogical approach to training provides the trainer with a need to consider the following:
The physical environment should be one in which adults feel at ease, with furnishings that are comfortable and informal.
The psychological climate should be one that causes adults to feel accepted, respected and supported. There should exist a spirit of mutual respect and co-operation between the trainer and the learners, in which there is freedom of expression without fear of ridicule. A person feels more ‘adult’ in an atmosphere that is friendly and informal.
The behaviour of the trainer probably influences the character of the learning event more than any other single factor. The trainer conveys in many ways his or her attitude of interest and respect for learners. The trainer who takes time and trouble to get to know the learners individually and calls them by their first names, is promoting the right sort of atmosphere. Very important is the willingness to listen, respect, and respond to views expressed by learners.
Because adults are themselves a rich source for learning, greater emphasis can be placed on techniques that use their experience. Training methods such as group discussions, case studies, in-tray exercises, and action learning, promote participation in a learner-centred environment.
Some Implications for Training Design
Diagnosis of Needs
The adult’s concept of self-direction is in potential conflict with the more traditional practice of the supervisor, or trainer, telling them what to learn. Of course, adults will learn what others want them to learn if the other’s power to punish them for not learning is strong enough. Nevertheless, they are more deeply motivated to learn those things that they see the need to learn.
In andragogy, therefore, great emphasis is placed on the involvement of adult learners in a process of self-diagnosis of needs for learning. This process consists of three phases:
a) The trainer and the learner developing a jointly held view of the abilities and performance to be achieved.
b) Providing diagnostic experiences in which learners can assess their present ability and performance relative to what has to be achieved.
c) Helping learners to measure the gaps between where they are and where they (and the supervisor and trainer) would like them to be.
The Planning Process
A basic element in the technology of andragogy is the involvement of the learners in the process of planning their own learning, with the trainer acting as counsellor, guide and resource.
The function of planning consists of translating diagnosed needs into specific behavioural objectives, designing and conducting learning events to achieve these objectives; and assessing the extent to which these objectives have been achieved. In andragogy, responsibility for performing this function is shared between learners and the trainer.
Conducting the Learning Event
In traditional pedagogical practice the function of the ‘teacher’ is to ‘teach’. The ‘teacher’, or the ‘instructor’, or the ‘direct trainer’, is expected to take full responsibility for what happens in the teaching-learning transaction. The learner’s role tends to be that of a passive recipient of instruction.
In contrast, andragogical practice treats the learning-teaching transaction as the mutual responsibility or learner and trainer. In fact, the trainer’s role is redefined as that of ‘procedural counsellor’, ‘resource person’, and ‘co-enquirer’: the trainer is more of a catalyst than an instructor, more of a guide than a source of all relevant information. Andragogy assumes that a trainer cannot really ‘teach’ in the sense of making someone learn. An andragogical learning event is alive with meetings of small groups, sharing responsibility for helping each other to learn.
Assessment of Learning
Probably the crowning difference between traditional instruction and an adult’s self-concept is during assessment. Nothing can make an adult feel more childlike than being judged by another adult. Therefore, the technology of andragogy suggests a process of frequent, informal, helpful, and non-threatening assessment, in which the trainer helps learners to assess their own progress to the achievement of objectives. The emphasis, again, is that it is a mutual undertaking.
In fact, what is happening in practice, is that the procedures being used for the diagnosis of learning needs are being employed to help learners measure gain in competence. For example by comparing performance in solving or coping with a simulated learning experience, learners are encouraged to assess their competence relative to similar work-related situations. Such assessment, with the trainer acting as counsellor, can provide a valuable basis upon which to build further learning.
This shift from formal assessment, towards self-assessment, places a heavy burden on trainers both for design and delivery. They must set an example by being open to feedback regarding their own performance and the design of the learning events. They must be skillful in establishing a supportive climate in which an individual’s performance can be looked at objectively, although the information may be hard for the individual to accept. Self-assessment of this kind requires trainers to create and use a variety of techniques, each permitting learners to comprehend, accept and benefit from the feedback provided.
Experience
All learners enter a learning even with a different background of experience. The longer they have lived, the greater the volume of experience and, possibly, but not necessarily, the wider variety of experiences.
This presents another difference between the entry behaviour expected from a child to that of an experienced adult:
- If you ask children who they are, they are likely to identify themselves in terms of who their parents are, where they live and what school they attend. Their self-identity is largely derived from external sources.
- A somewhat modified response would be obtained from a person in their early twenties; the identification would be concerned with academic attainment, career prospects, outside interests and possibly an employer.
- But to adults, particularly ones in middle age, their experience is themselves. They define who they are and establish their self-identity based on their accumulation of a unique set of experiences. So, if you ask adults who they are, they are likely to identify themselves with their occupation, where they have worked, travelled, and what their training and experience has equipped them to do, and what their achievements have been.
- Because adults define themselves largely by their experience, they have a deep investment in its value. So when they find themselves in a situation where their experience is not being used, or its worth minimized, it is not just the experience that is being rejected- they feel rejected as a person.
These differences in experience between adolescents and younger and older adults have three consequences for learning:
a) Some adults have more to contribute to the learning events than others; for most kinds of learning they are themselves a rich source for learning.
b) Adults- and, again, some more than others – have a rich foundation of experience with which to consider new experience and their implications for work.
c) Adults have acquired many fixed habits and patterns of thought and, therefore, possibly less open minded.
SUMMARY OF ANDRAGOGY
Andragogy can be defined as ‘an organized and sustained effort to assist adults to learn in a way that enhances their capability to function as self-directed learners. To do this, the trainer should:
- Assist the learners to define their learning needs.
- Design learning events to suit an individual learner’s entry behaviour
- Help the learner to understand how to use learning resources, including the experience of sharing their learning experiences with others.
- Emphasize experiential and participative training methods.
- Facilitate problem posing, solving and participative training methods.
- Progressively decrease the learner’s dependency on the trainer.
- Assist learners to assume increasing responsibility for planning their own learning.
- Reinforce the self-concept of the learner to encourage achievement of objectives.
- Encourage the use of formative assessment techniques, including free exchange of feedback.
Categories of Knowledge and Skills
INTRODUCTION
For training purposes, analysing the tasks involved in performing a job usually requires us to break down the tasks into their knowledge, skill and attitude components.
The “Glossary of Training Terms” defines knowledge as:
“In the context of a training programme, that part which is concerned with imparting specific information needed in order to perform a task or job. It is commonly linked with the development of skills and attitudes as the component parts of training objectives"”
We may regard knowledge as the collection of information – facts, ideas, principles, procedures etc. – stored in a person’s mind.
Skill is defined in the Glossary as:
“An organized and co-ordinated pattern of mental and/or physical activity in relation to an object, person, event or display of information. Skills may be described as perceptual, motor, manual, intellectual, social, etc. according to the context or the most important aspect of the skill pattern”.
The distinction between knowledge, skills and attitudes is important to the trainer because of the implications for designing a learning event. Trainers have to do different things, depending on whether they are trying to develop knowledge, skills or attitudes: different training methods need to be used for each. For example, knowledge – information – can be obtained by being told, in a lecture, through a text book, etc. skill, on the other hand, needs to be developed by practice: the degree of skill a person possesses depends on experience or practice in performing that skill.
Attitudes are very important for the successful performance of many kinds of work. However, in training terms, our knowledge of how to develop appropriate attitudes is limited. There are two kinds of approach we can take: we can either give the trainees knowledge of why the attitudes required are important or try to persuade them to adopt those attitudes; or we can develop their skill in behaving in a certain way, i.e. in reacting appropriately to certain situation. In this second approach, we assume that as the behaviour changes the attitude will also change over time. This approach of developing the skill of reacting appropriately is the more effective one. This paper does not, therefore, have a separate section on attitudes. We discuss them below under the heading of Reacting Skills.
CATEGORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
The knowledge a person has can be of two types: facts that a person can remember, and ideas that a person understands.
Facts a person can remember may be of two kinds:
- Remembering names, events, objects, dates, etc.- Knowing what to do – procedures, etc.
We can understand ideas, again, in two ways:
- By being able to define, state or give examples of them- By using rules and principles to predict or explain certain events
We can therefore identify four categories of knowledge:
1. Facts2. Procedures
3. Concepts
4. Principles
Facts
This category includes facts that a person has been told or has read about, but also knowledge gained by direct experience, e.g. the knowledge used by that person in finding the way home from a distance.
Types of facts include;Concrete facts – knowledge about objects, people or places;
Verbal information including all factual information gained by means of a symbolic language, e.g. numbers, codes, symbols;
Fact systems, which include the more complex interrelate factual information a person acquires, e.g. the words of a song, the Morse code, the symbols used on a map.
Procedures
These refer to knowing what needs to be done in a specific situation, e.g. the steps that need to be taken to obtain a drink from a drinks dispensing machine; the steps involved in loading film into a camera; the steps involved in operating a machine etc.
Concepts
This refers to knowledge of classes of items (concrete concepts) or of ideas (verbal labels). If a person has this knowledge, he or she can give examples that they can include in the classification.
Examples of concrete concepts are: houses, birds, animals, engineering tools, transport vehicles etc.
We can relate different objects within these classes in terms of observable similarities. (We can see, for example, the similarity between an elephant and a mouse and classify both as animals in spite of the difference in their size etc.)
The verbal label kind of concept is not observable in the same way. Examples are the classification of the work activities of some people as “Accounting”, the work of others as “Administration” etc.: the classification of some words as “nouns” and others as ”adjectives” of some numbers as “odd” and others as “even”.
Principles
This is knowledge about rules that guide action or explain change. Principles include rules that govern the behaviour of the environment (e.g. metals expand when heated). Rules that govern a person’s behaviour (e.g. communication is more effective when it is two-way).
We give examples of each category in Appendix – A.
Categories of Skills
Skills can also be considered as falling into four categories:
1. Thinking2. Acting
3. Reacting
4. Interacting
Thinking Skills
Thinking skills (also known as mental skills or cognitive skills) are the performance outcomes of knowledge. To have knowledge means that you can remember facts or that you can define or explain ideas. For example, a sales clerk may know the procedure for calculating a sales price. If the clerk can also apply that knowledge to calculating specific sales prices, he or she has the skill and also the knowledge.
A manager may know the theory of problem solving. If he or she is also able to solve problems, he or she has the skills as well.
A technician may know the colour code for resistors. That technician also has skills if he or she can select a resistor of a given value.
Acting Skills
These are concerned with the way in which people act: their physical skills (also known as motor skills, or psycho-motor skills). These require the body to be able to respond in a certain way to a specific set of circumstances.
Examples are: typing a letter; painting a door; assembling a component; rectifying a fault on a motor car.
Reacting Skills
These consist of the ability to control our behaviour to achieve a desired objective. They involve control of our attitudes, feelings, habits and emotions when these would otherwise lead us to behave in a way that would be inappropriate to the objective of our task.
Examples are: driving on the right-hand side of the road (or the left-hand side when in India!); listening carefully when others speak, even if we feel that are not saying anything very interesting; behaving courteously towards a customer, a boss or a colleague, whose behaviour we find objectionable; maintaining attention to the signs of fatigue (e.g. in some process operator jobs or in long-distance driving).
Interacting Skills
These are the skills that enable a person to work with others. They require practitioners to be able to recognise their own behaviour and that of others, interpret the behaviour required in a given situation and can behave in that way.
Examples of situations requiring the use of interactive skills are: participating in a discussion; displaying good manners; making a sales presentation; and conducting a disciplinary interview.
PRODUCTIVE AND REPRODUCTIVE SKILLS
A further classification of skills is also useful for the trainer – “productive” and “reproductive” skills.
Reproductive Skills are the skills that are repetitive. There is little variation in the way the skill is used from one instance to another. Examples include routines (e.g. multiplication or division of numbers), doing repetitive tasks (e.g. typewriting) routine social habits (e.g. saying “thank you”, “good morning”, giving precedence to older people).
Productive skills are those that require a certain amount of planning, a strategy for decision-making, and show substantial variations in the way they are done from one instance to another.
Examples include solving mathematical problems, producing a page of a typescript in an attractive way and making it easy to read, persuading people of the need to take an unpleasant course of action, solving new problems, using leadership skills.
We give examples of skills in each category in Appendix B. Please note, however, that these are not clear-cut distinctions. Every skill will contain certain elements that are productive and others that are reproductive. A copy typist, for example, does a certain amount of planning and designing of the layout of the material he or she is copying – to that extent, the skill used is productive rather than reproductive. However, the task as a whole is predominantly reproductive, hence its classification. We have classified all these tasks according to their predominant features.
Significance of the Categories
The reason trainers identify different categories of knowledge and skill is that different training strategies are appropriate for these various categories.
Knowledge of facts can be developed by training involving repetition, association of ideas and memorising.
Knowledge of procedures can be developed by repetition, by using a performance aid or by guided discovery.
Concepts can be learned by examples and non-examples or by guided discovery.
Principles can be learned from explanation and examples or by guided discovery.
All skills require practice if they are to be developed. Initial training should follow the sequence of explanation-demonstration–practice–review–consolidation. For reproductive skills, in which what is done varies little from one occasion to another, usually all that is needed after initial training is further practice for the skill to develop to the required standard.
For productive skills to be developed the strategy required is different. Rather than leaving the learners to develop skills with further practice, we should present them with as wide a variety of problems or situation as possible. Attention needs to be focused on the process rather than the product, because the product will be different on each occasion that the skills are practised. The learner needs to develop the principles underlying the performance of the skill and to modify and refine the application of these principles.
FACTS : The names of objectives, people or places, Code numbering for items in a store, The meaning of road signs, The meaning of symbols in a map, Who is responsible for what in your department
PROCEDURES : How to assemble a product, How to complete an invoice, How to diarise a receipt
How to analyse a job, How to address a letter, How to chair a meeting, How to open a file
CONCEPTS : The difference between validation and evaluation of training, Ideas such as weight, mass, density and volume, Grouping living beings into separate categories, e.g. fish, birds, mammals, etc., Concepts such as poverty alleviation, ethics, values
PRINCIPLES : The effect on prices of supply and demand, Ohm's Law, Metals expand when heated
When you interview, ask open questions, How to delegate to subordinates, What marginal costing is
How to deal with complaining customer, Unity of command, span of control.
SKILL CATEGORY
LEARNING CATEGORY
PRODUCTIVE
REPRODUCTIVE
Mastery Learning (Acceptable Learning Standard)
ENABLING OBJECTIVESAfter reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Define ‘Acceptable Learning Standard”.
2. List the need for an acceptable learning standard.
3. Identify influencing factors.
INTRODUCTION
Most of the people for whom you will be designing training are likely to be employed by the client who is paying you to do it. The whole purpose of the exercise is to achieve success – successful for the people who will receive the training, and for the client and for you, both for job satisfaction and future credibility. However, this will only happen if we design for success, and minimize the possibility of failure. The ‘Glossary to Training Terms’ defines’ learning’ and ‘training’ as:
Learning
'The process whereby individuals acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes through experience, reflection, study, or instruction.’
Training
‘A planned process to modify attitude, knowledge, or skill, behaviour through learning experience to achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose, in the work situation, is to develop the abilities of the individual and to satisfy the current and future manpower needs of the organisation.’
Two observations that can be made based on the above, are:
People learn as individuals, each with a unique and highly personal learning process;
Training is the process of organizing an individual’s learning to meet performance requirements.
Training, and the work of the trainer, is therefore concerned with the design and management of learning activities for the benefit of the individual to meet clearly defined objectives. The concept of Mastery Learning proposes the most learners can achieve mastery of an objective, given suitable learning opportunities.
WHAT IS MASTERY?
Essentially, mastery is the ability to perform a task to a satisfactory standard. A ‘satisfactory standard’, however, is not easily defined. Consider:
The assessment of what is a satisfactory performance tends to be subjective. What is satisfactory to one assessor, is not to another.
Any assessment of performance depends upon the accuracy of the measurement and the degree of objectivity being applied.
A satisfactory standard of performance means precisely that; no more and no less. We should not be interested in adding adjectives such as ‘excellent’, or ‘the best in the group’. ‘Satisfactory’ should be quite sufficient. If a person is deemed satisfactory, it means he or she can perform the task and demonstrate mastery; n other qualifying statements are needed. In other words, a satisfactory performance is a minimum standard.
Before a standard of performance can be accepted as satisfactory, all concerned need to be consulted.
To clarify what we mean by a learner being able to demonstrate mastery of a task, it is worth considering two important points:
1. A clearly defined criterion performance should be established. This defines the minimum standard of performance deemed acceptable. Any person who can perform to this standard has demonstrated mastery of the task. No further assessment should be required.
2. A clearly defined performance objective should be written as a product of analyzing the task. The objective should describe, as precisely as possible, what the person will be doing when demonstrating mastery of the task.
WHY IS MASTERY LEALRNING IMPORTANT?
An organization invests resources of people, money and time, into training activities with the expectation that it will lead to an improvement in job performance. An individual undertakes training, or planned learning, activities because of the personal benefits to be obtained.
What really counts for both the organisation and the individual is that such activities lead to success. Failure to improve performance can result from failure to design and manage learning events appropriately. Let us illustrate some of the consequences of both success and failure:
Successful learning leads to:
Learners being able to improve their job performance which is to the benefit of themselves and their employing organisation.
Trainers and learners developing a sense of job satisfaction, leading to increased confidence and commitment to solve further performance problems.
The trainer gaining credibility in the organisation by demonstrating capability to contribute to the solution of important performance problems.
On the other hand, failure can lead to:
Learners becoming demotivated. Why should they undertake further learning when previous attempts ended in failure?
The realization by senior management that their investment in training did not lead to improvement in performance and the danger that all kinds of training will be discredited in their eyes. Like any other form of investment, there should be some return on the effort, money and time invested.
Reduced trainer credibility. Failure may lead to the expectation of more failure and to further proposals from the trainer being less likely to be accepted.
FACTORS INFLUENCING MASTERY LEARNING
Having established what we mean by mastery, let us know look at factors influencing the learner’s ability to achieve it:
Fig.1
Referring to Figure1, we can see the following features-each a major factor to consider:
1. Training Objective
This, as already discussed, defines what the learner has to be able to do to demonstrate mastery of the task, under training conditions.
2. Entry Behaviour
For the learner to achieve mastery, it is important that the learning event is created to suit the entry behaviour of the learner. Note the emphasis is on the entry behaviour of the LEARNER, rather than that of the learners. The more a group of learners become homogeneous, in terms of entry behaviour, the easier it becomes to create optimum learning conditions.
3. Learning Event
This is something unique to the individual learner. We all learn at our own rate in our own style. An optimum learning event is therefore one designed specifically for the individual, where style and pace of learning have been taken into account.
If we are dealing with one learner individually, this is quite possible, but as the size of the group increases it becomes more difficult to maintain optimum learning conditions for each member of the group. The difficulties increase again as the group’s entry behaviour becomes more disparate.
A learning curve will be unique to an individual and not a simple, smooth curve. Sometimes a learner will achieve a great deal in a short time; at other times he or she will struggle to make progress and take a considerable amount of time. The concept of mastery learning encourages us to build into the design provision for these difficulties.
4. Time
Optimum learning conditions require an optimum amount of time. For a single learner it is possible to extend or contract the learning event to suit the learner’s needs. As the size of the learning group increases, and the difference in entry behaviour widens, time, and its management becomes probably the most important single factor. At its simplest, the problem occurs when the slowest learner needs much more time to achieve mastery and the fastest learner needs less time to achieve mastery of the same tasks.
Trainers cannot easily predetermine the allocation of time using learner-centred methods, especially when provision is made for remedial learning. Therefore, when designing learning events using learner-centred methods, sometime flexibility must be included. Some key factors to bear in mind are:
Time to complete the learning process is unique to the individual learner. Shortening the period simply means preventing the person achieving the training objective.
Increasingly demanding tasks require an increasing amount of time: instances may arise when the time needed by an individual learner approaches infinity. Obviously this is a situation to avoid suggesting that the learner’s entry behaviour is inappropriate to the task.
Management of time to learn a task is usually made easier when learner-centred training methods are used.
GUIDELINES FOR ACHIEVING MASTERY LEARNING
Given optimum learning conditions, all properly selected learners can probably attain mastery of a task. Whether they do or not depends upon the training designer creating a suitable learning event. Acceptance of this view leads to the following guidelines for achieving mastery learning:
Learners undertaking training should be expecting it to be a success.
A record of success leads to an increase in a learner’s motivation and willingness to attempt further, more demanding, learning. This can be of benefit to both the individual and the organisation.
The trainer has to accept responsibility for creating optimum learning conditions.
The learner relies on the trainer to manage the learning event effectively.
Remedial learning should be available when it is evident that the learner is failing to progress to mastery. Such learning should be seen as a normal activity and not to punishment, or sense of failure.
Careful consideration has to be given to learners’ entry behaviour, both about the number of learners and the demands being placed upon them.
Through task analysis is needed to determine what has to be learnt and the performance to be achieved.
The learning even should stress the comparison between the learner’s performance and the performance or training objective, not the comparison between one learner and another.
It is the responsibility of trainers to create learning events which will promote the learning of all, not just some learners.
Every attempt should be made to determine the learners’ entry behaviour, before starting the learning event.
If remedial training fails to develop the required entry behaviour, then further remedial training is necessary because it is essential that the learner has the required entry behaviour, otherwise failure is likely to occur.
Some learners probably cannot learn some aspects of a task, however long they have to learn, because of specific aptitude deficiencies.
Time to learn is unique to the individual learner and has to be managed as such by the trainer.
Transfer of Learning
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
After reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Explain Transfer of Learning
2. Identify activities to help the transfer of learning.
3. Indicate the trainer’s role
INTRODUCTION
When designing training we need to give special attention to helping the learner to apply new learning, so that it is consolidated, reinforced and used at work. This will be of benefit to both the learner and their organisation. This application of learning to work is called the transfer of learning.
The Problem
The transfer of learning is likely to be difficult in most organisational settings. For example, psychological difficulties are likely to be experienced by the learner because most learning situations off the job are substantially different from the job situation. The physical environment is different. So are the attitudes, feelings are motivation of learners as a group about their performance. In creating a safe learning environment, the trainer may also remove the training from the real world of consequences of mistakes.
Thus the transfer of learning from a training to a job environment makes demands on the learners’ abilities to recognize and practice applications of the new learning. It also means that if the learning is not to be lost through forgetting then there must be opportunities in the job soon after training to apply and reinforce the learning that has taken place.
This brings in another difficulty which needs to be overcome. That is that the learner’s supervisor and peers need to help and encourage the learning to be consolidated. They may not do so because they do not see the need. They have not been involved in the supportive environment of a learning group. They have probably developed their own ways of doing things. They may not seed the need to change. They do not see a need to help the learner to adjust. To do this will make demands on others and also the learner. Work may need to be rearranged or reassigned to allow learners to have essential opportunities to practise and perfect their newly learned skills. This is demanding on the learner’s manager. A manger who thinks that the off-job training is not relevant may bar or obstruct application of the learning because of a feeling that it could upset the smooth running of the operation. The manager could also feel threatened if the new learning has equipped the learner with skills that the manager does not possess, but would like to have.
The world of training abounds with stories of managers telling their staff, who have just been on a training course, “Forget everything they told you on that course and do it this way....”. This situation is likely to occur when training is failing to provide appropriate off-the-job training courses, or convincing the line management of the course’s relevance. Another factor is the line.
Manager’s own responsibility for helping learning to take place. Provision of training which is not relevant creates barriers to further learning. This is caused because:
1. The learner has to unlearn the irrelevant behaviour before new learning of the desired behaviours can take place.
2. The learner can become demotivated, frustrated or cynical about learning applicable techniques.
To help transfer of learning it is essential to build into the overall programme opportunities for the learner to practise the newly learned skills and to use the knowledge gained. The application of the learning should also reward the learner. Any plans for transfer of learning should therefore help the learner to experience success in applying the new learning to the job. The line manager also needs to be involved, both in agreeing the relevance of the training course initially and in providing opportunities and incentives to the learner.
ACTIVITIES TO HELP TRANSFER OF LEARNING
Many techniques can be incorporated into a training programme to assist the transfer of learning from am off-the-job training course into the job situation. These techniques can help to involve line management more fully in the training programme. They may provide information to monitor the effectiveness of specific training courses and the overall training programme. Information may be generated on what has been learned and on the organisational impact resulting from training.
The following activities may be incorporated into a training programme, either individually or in combination, depending on the resources available and other constraints.
Action Plans
During the training course each learner develops a plan to use parts of the training in the job. This is prepared with tutorial support and guidance from the trainer. Each learner may identify three or four specific ideas from the course which can be applied in his or her job. The learner should consider the costs and benefits of utilising each idea and then produce strategies and a timetable for implementing them. The plans should then be discussed with the learner’s line manager and be approved and agreed. The kind of support available from the trainer and the line manager after the course should also be identified and agreed at this stage.
The major advantages of an action plan are:
It relates the course directly to the job
It can be structured to allow the learners to assess their success.
Individual Project
A project is similar to an action plan, but it is usually broader in scope. Completion of the project may be a major part of the learner’s entire job for a considerable period after the training course. For example, a supervisor who has just completed a safety course may be given a project that includes an immediate survey of the entire work area to identify hazards. The supervisor may then systematically take steps to eliminate existing hazards and formulate rules and procedures to minimise the likelihood of accidents. In effect, the learner becomes a safety officer for a period of weeks. Having completed the project, the learner returns to a standard supervisory position where safety is only one responsibility.
To complete an assigned project, a learner must review, consolidate, and apply material learned during training. The learner is then more likely to use this learned material on return to his or her own job. In addition, the on-the-job project can be used to measure learning and to generate tangible benefits (for example, a lower accident rate) for the organisation.
Group Project
A group project is similar to an individual project. The difference is that several learners cooperate in the project. This follow-up activity is particularly useful where one objective of training is the development of interpersonal skills.
Group project have been used widely in management training. For example, junior managers who have just completed a course on planning may be formed into a task force planning the introduction of a new product. The organisation receives a plan of action relating to a real business problem, and the learners apply their new learning in a practical and therefore satisfying way.
Individual Guidance and Coaching
Potentially, this is one of the most potent follow-up techniques. Its effectiveness, however, depends almost entirely on the coaching skill of the learner’s supervisor, who is usually given the role of coach. This potentially very effective method of follow-up will fail if the supervisor is an inadequate coach or does not have the time or inclination to do it.
Note that individual guidance and coaching is different from “looking on”, where a learner watches what to do and then does it. Guidance land coaching involve progression through a thoroughly planned set of learning experiences with the learner receiving individual attention from the coach.
This type of training is often used at upper levels of organisations where individuals are appointed to “understudy” the occupants of key positions by working through a carefully selected set of projects, programmes and other learning experiences.
Instead of the supervisor, a trainer can assume some aspects of the coaching role through a series of scheduled follow-ups. If used primarily for checking and helping learning rather than evaluating, this is useful, but not as effective as regular coaching by the supervisor.
Formal Review Sessions
This kind of session is a mini-course. It is run some time after the training programme. It can be used to re-examine material that learners have reported as difficult. Or it can be used to motivate learners to continue to use the concepts and skills learned in the main programme. It can serve as a useful review of the original programme, but it may not adequately serve the needs of individual learners.
Seminars and Guest Speakers
In seminars, learners can be brought together to extend their knowledge of topics of mutual interest. They can prepare seminar papers themselves, or invite guest speakers. Success depends on the effectiveness of the speakers and the importance of the topic to the learners. For example, the speaker may be asked to present a subject without going into the theory in any depth. Often, however, enough is included to gain the interest and attention of learners. Trainers then find that follow-up seminars on further aspects of the subject will be well received. These extend the learners’ knowledge while reiterating the core concepts of the training.
Workshops
At regular workshop meetings, learners take turns at presenting their current work problems. Group members draw on the training materials plus their own experience to propose solutions to the problems. Workshops thus reinforce concepts and skills learned in training and can contribute significantly to the reduction of organisational problems.
Training and Development Plans
The use of a Training and Development Plan to be completed before an off-the-job training course is undertaken can greatly assist the transfer of learning. Such a plan should be used so that the learner can be directed through the things to be learned on the course and thereby establish the relevance of the subjects and the priorities for study. By talking through the learning to be achieved with his or her supervisor the learner can get commitment to and support for the learning objectives from the supervisor and also increasing his or her own commitment to the training. This discussion should also establish the requirement for post course review leading to individual guidance and coaching upon return from the training course.
BUILDING ‘TRANSFER OF LEARNING' INTO A TRAINING PROGRAMME
To ensure that a training programme offers an integrated learning experience leading to the desired individual performance, transfer of learning opportunities must be built in from the beginning. Otherwise there is a risk of an unstructured approach in which the learner fails to recognise and apply the learning which has resulted from programme activities and so forgets. There is also the likelihood that training will be understood by both learners and their managers as being confined to the off-the-job parts of the programme only. The fewer opportunities there are to practise and build upon knowledge and skill acquired throughout a training programme, the less effective the training is likely to be. Each training programme will allow a different range of transfer of learning opportunities to be used depending upon the circumstances.
Overcoming the difficulties in ensuring continuing opportunities for learners to apply, practise and develop their knowledge and skills can be helped by:
Obtaining management support for training, as reflected in the organisation’s training policy, and commitment to integrated rather than unstructured training. This will not eliminate resistance based upon pressure of or, precedent or cost, but it will reduce it.
Discussing with learners and their supervisors of their roles in the training programme land their responsibilities for being active rather than passive participants in the learning process. This allows the supervisor to plan work allocation to accommodate the follow-up activity. Discussions between a learner and his or her supervisor establish a ‘psychological contract’ for exploiting the learning opportunity.
Designing the transfer of learning opportunities to fit in with the aspirations and abilities of the learners and their supervisors. Consultation with both will help in deciding the most useful transfer of learning mechanism. This should result in the design of an effective training programme.
The effective transfer of learning from an off-the-job training course to the job situation does require the content of the course to be based on an accurate identification of need. If the original identification of need was wrong, the transfer of learning activity should help to identify this as it is established that the learning cannot be applied to the job. The trainer needs to be involved at some stage in monitoring the transfer of learning
THE TRAINER’S ROLE
Line managers have a particularly important responsibility for helping the transfer of a learner to take place. However, the trainer also has a role. Specifically, the trainer should try to:
a) Minimise all external factors which inhibit transfer of learning.
b) Provide resources to help transfer to help transfer of learning.
c) Build transfer of learning into training programmes at the design stage.
d) Involve learners’ supervisors in training design. Negotiate their help and support for training activities and for getting the learners to perform differently after the training.
e) Minimise factors inside training courses which might limit transfer. Build job related issues into all courses.
f) Encourage learners to assume responsibility to use and develop their learning.
g) Organise and help to implement transfer of learning activities.
h) Monitor the implementation of transfer of learning activities.
Entry Behaviour
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
1. Define Entry Behaviour.
2. Explain the linkages between entry behaviour and training design.
3. Describe how and when to assess entry behaviour.
INTRODUCTION
The aim and objectives for training can be set with a fair degree of clarity and precision. As the designer, you are therefore able to set both the intentions for the training and the outcomes to be expected. Now comes the difficult bit, because however well you have worked out what has to be achieved you have now to take into account the trainee. This applies whether it is an individual or, more probably, as one of a number of people who are to be trained. You need to consider entry behaviour.
To help the person achieve the objective consider these questions:
What is the extent of the person's training needs?
What is the trainee's level of ability? Age? Experience?
Can you cater for major differences in abilities?
Is the person coming willingly, or being sent against his or her wishes and is therefore a reluctant trainee?
Does the training fit in to an overall training programme, which addresses the needs of all who are involved with the problem?
Are you designing training specifically for one trainee, or are there 10, 100, 1000?
Trainees often provide the unknown ingredient. If we are fortunate, we may have a clearly defined group of trainees, with very similar problems and abilities. However, as jobs become more complex, this is increasingly an unlikely scenario for training design. A more realistic picture is one of training to cope with a rapidly changing working environment, with a trainee population drawn from across a wide spectrum of age and experience. Change will force many people, and whole organisations, to discard years of experience, custom and practice, and a considerable amount of redundant knowledge and skills. These people are likely to be reluctant trainees, unsure of what the future holds for them and anxious about their ability to cope with the problems and challenges of change.
NATURE OF ENTRY BEHAVIOUR
A working definition of entry behaviour is:
The existing behaviours of a trainee in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes previously learned which a trainee brings to a learning event.
We should design every learning event to remove the difference between the training objectives to be achieved and the trainee's entry behaviour. This is the training gap that the learning event is to bridge. Entry behaviour will determine where a learning event should start and helps to decide appropriate content, methods, sequence etc. within the learning event. The trainee's entry behaviour, what he or she knows, can do, and is prepared to do, will be a major factor in the success of learning events and the ultimate achievement of the training objective. Figure 1 illustrates the relationship between entry behaviour and the learning event. As the entry behaviour changes there will be a corresponding change in the learning event, which needs to be either increased or decreased to suit the needs of the trainee. The situation becomes more complicated when there are significant differences between individual trainees, so that, for example, what is easy for one person is too difficult for another.
Fig.1
HOW TO FIND OUT ABOUT ENTRY BEHAVIOUR
How is it possible to find out what the trainee's entry behaviour is?
We identify training needs through analysis of current or anticipated performance problems. In analysing performance problems the nature of the problem must be sorted out and the difference between what is required and what is happening clearly recorded. This process of analysing training needs tells us who needs training and something about what they can do and what they need to learn.
So, as the training designer, you can find out a lot about the trainee's entry behaviour. This can be done by doing your own analysis, or talking with others who may have useful information about the problem and the people to be trained. If you investigate performance problems yourself, possibly carrying out Training Needs Analysis, you are likely to meet some or all the people to be trained. However, if you do not meet them all or you are designing training for people who have yet to be recruited you need to find other ways of identifying entry behaviour. This might be done, for example, by providing distance learning to ensure that there are no significant gaps in the knowledge you assume people to have. It becomes a matter of judgment to decide how much information about entry behaviour you need in order for you to design effective training, and from which sources it can be obtained.
In selecting from the possible sources of information to trainees' entry behaviour you need to consider the following issues:
– Confidentiality of records
– Time available before implementing the training
– Priority attached to the training
– Resources available for preparing the training
– Geographic location of trainees
– Acceptability of researching entry behaviour
– Possibility of providing pre-training, where needed
– Existence of standards and tests
– Opportunities for further remedial training
Failure to consider these issues and to act accordingly, may present trainers implementing your design with major problems. Appendix A shows how we planned consideration of entry behaviour with introductory activities for the Design of Training course. However, the design of the learning event should be considered in the wider context of systematic training, rather than simply during face-to-face contact between a trainer and trainees. We can use investigations into training needs to identify entry behaviour.
Tests/Questionnaires can be used to:-
– Identify a trainee's personal objectives
– Assist a trainee to identify specific performance deficiencies
– Help a trainee recognise the need for learning
– Link learning units together to form a training programme suited to a trainee's needs
PLANNING FOR ENTRY BEHAVIOUR
The design of a sequence of learning units, especially when you are using open or distance learning strategies, will enable you to link off-the-job learning events with on-the-job activities. Consider Figure 2 below, which illustrates a training programme that we have designed around four learning units.
Fig.2
In the illustration, Learning Unit 'A' establishes the basis for a trainee's training or development. He or she discusses their needs with a supervising officer who acts as their mentor. This clarifies entry behaviour for the second learning unit 'B', which provides study material by means of distance learning. This, in turn, is preparation for the third learning unit 'C', the training course, where the trainee can apply his or her knowledge to skill development activities. The training programme is completed by the fourth learning unit 'D', the project. This is where the trainee can apply both knowledge and skill to demonstrate competence, under the supervision of his or her mentor. Notice the arrows between each learning unit; they highlight the importance of entry behaviour from one unit to the next.
Successful completion of one unit in the sequence will provide entry behaviour for the next, and so on until the particular training programme is satisfactorily concluded. Some useful learning can take place before the start of formal training by requiring a trainee to undertake some specific activities. For example:
– Complete a work diary
– Ask their boss about their need for the proposed training
– Do some job tasks
– Bring examples with them.
The use of a 'Personal Study Guide' to provide information on entry behaviour can be designed as an integral part of the learning event. It can direct trainees to the details of their training, such as the objectives, and to encourage them to have discussions with their line manager. Sometimes training programmes are designed to meet the training needs of a large number of trainees over a long period, for example induction training programmes. In such cases it is best to clearly state the entry behaviour required of trainees for specific learning units.
ENTRY BEHAVIOUR AND TRAINING DESIGN
Identification of entry behaviour will help to determine:
The starting point for the training for each learning unit.
An estimated time to enable the trainee to achieve acceptable performance
The selection of content, sequence, methods, trainers etc.
The possible need for pre-entry training arranged for those who have not reached required standards.
In designing training for a single trainee it should be possible to match it exactly to the trainee's entry behaviour. With a single person to consider, establishing entry behaviour in advance is unnecessary, as it can be covered by adapting the learning events to suit the individual as the learning progresses. While this is true, it can also result in both trainee and trainer wasting time in unnecessary activities in the preparation of more relevant learning opportunities.
So far we have considered design to meet the requirements of a single trainee. However, to be cost effective training may have to take place in groups. This immediately raises such questions as how many trainees are there now? How many will there be in the future? Where are the trainees located? How available are they for release for training? Together these factors will influence what is a workable group size and structure, especially when designing training for a large number of people with possibly diverse entry behaviours.
Another factor to consider is the extent to which a learning group is likely to have similar or different learning needs and abilities. As a designer, you have the responsibility to decide whether people will learn more effectively with others or learn by themselves. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options. It is important, however, to recognise that trainees and trainers implementing your design - are depending on you to choose appropriate training methods. For example, acquiring knowledge is often more effective when done by an individual using such methods as guided reading, distance learning, programmed text: the same person may find it difficult and ineffective to acquire the same knowledge from a lecture. If, as the designer, you select inappropriate training methods, you are creating difficulties for trainees and trainers.
To achieve a training objective, a trainee must also master every enabling objective. However, it is frustrating and demotivating for the trainee to be trained again to do something already mastered. It is also a waste of time and effort for everyone concerned (trainer, trainee and organisation).
FINDING THE APPROPRIATE LEVEL
When designing training for a group of trainees, you may have to cater for a range of possibly unpredictable entry behaviours. Some trainees will have more relevant knowledge and skills than others.
This creates a problem - should design be for the highest, middle or lowest level of entry behaviour? If we design the learning event for the highest level, then some form of pre-entry training is essential to help all trainees achieve the objective. If the learning caters for the lowest level of trainee there is a danger of some people becoming bored because they have already mastered much of the learning unit.
Some methods of helping people to learn are less flexible than others in accommodating entry behaviour. The lecture, for example, is totally inflexible whereas a case study permits trainees to participate at their own differing levels - as do the better examples of computer based training systems. The more flexible methods are therefore more appropriate when there is a wide range of entry behaviour.
In practice you must make assumptions about the trainees. Unfortunately, you may also have to guess what needs to be included and what can be left out. You may be more or less accurate, depending upon your knowledge of the trainees and experience, coupled with feedback, in designing similar learning events. You may also guess which methods will be acceptable and those that are unacceptable - for example, experienced people generally need the opportunity to discuss issues, while younger trainees may be happy to be told. The most acceptable and appropriate training method will include consideration of their preferred learning style, which is probably culturally based.
The more assumptions that are made, the more the training will be based on these assumptions, rather than facts, about both the trainees and their problems. Systematic training demands that we look closely at our trainee's training needs and entry behaviour. Only then can the design of training proceed by fact rather than guess work. Greater emphasis may also need to be put on establishing entry behaviour when the consequences of failure to learn are high in cost or safety terms.
The more senior the trainees, the greater is the need to identify their entry behaviour accurately. Their needs are likely to be more specific and their entry behaviour more varied. Also they are less likely to be available for training, and their tolerance of unhelpful learning experiences less than is the case for lower level staff. Credibility of training within an organisation is much more at risk when providing training for management.
A balance must be struck between the cost of collecting information on entry behaviour and the likely consequences of incorrect assumptions. It costs time and effort to collect information and this is wasted when it is just to confirm what is already known.
If the trainee, or trainees, do not have the assumed entry behaviour the whole learning unit may prove too difficult for them, and they will fail to achieve the training objective. This is demotivating to them because we prevent them from succeeding through error in design. Pre-entry training before starting the actual learning unit may be required to minimise differences in entry behaviour. For example, to use a computer for word processing a person needs to be able to perform two tasks:-
1. To be able to type (Keyboard Skills)
2. To be able to use the computer for word processing purposes (Word Processing Skills).
Consider the situation faced by the person who has to learn these tasks, as illustrated below in Figure 3.
Fig.3
As the designer of the training, you would have to decide whether to assume entry behaviour is that of a competent typist, or not. Figure 3 shows that there are two starting points for the person's training:
1. Where the person needs to learn keyboard skills, before he or she can learn word processing.
2. Where the person is already a competent typist and can start with word processing.
You need to know the abilities of the person, or plan for both eventualities. The consequences of a wrong assumption for a group of trainees, some with good typing skills and others with none, would be ineffective training - some trainees may fail to achieve competence, and also that it is inefficient as resources are wasted training people to do things that they can already do.
When we put people into groups of trainees, for example on courses, they will tend to have a spread of entry behaviours. In a group the flexibility for the trainer to adjust to individual needs is very much reduced. A decision needs to be made about the required entry behaviour. Ideally, we should accept trainees into the learning event only when they possess the required entry behaviour. It may be difficult for a trainer to make on-the-spot changes to preparations for a learning event. The problem is one of going either too slowly, or too quickly, for those with other than the required entry behaviour and thereby demotivating them.
When we have designed a learning event to accommodate specific entry behaviour, this should be published. Those lacking the required entry behaviour will find it difficult to benefit from the learning event and should be discouraged from attending until they have undertaken remedial training to achieve the entry behaviour requirements.
If it is found that a group of trainees has a wide range of entry behaviour we should design the learning event appropriately. This may involve pre-entry training or the use throughout of individual or small group learning methods. It is best to identify this problem before you are faced with a group of people all needing and expecting different things!
Most trainees are quite prepared to accept some overlap between their existing learning (entry behaviour) and the learning event. An 80-20 rule of thumb has been advocated in this regard, i.e. every trainee should find at least 80% of the learning new or relevant and only 20% already learned. A training designer may also use the difference in entry behaviour in a group of trainees. Those trainees with skills needed by other members of the group can be used as a learning resource for those without.
When designing a training programme, or a course, viewing it as a series of learning units can be helpful. The terminal behaviour of one learning unit can become part of the entry behaviour for the next unit. For the trainer to be confident of the entry behaviour of trainees entering a unit of learning, some assessment of performance needs to have taken place.
This assessment could take place at the end of one learning unit or the beginning of the next, or both. If there is a long time gap between the learning events, previous learning may have been forgotten. It may then be necessary to pre-test for a learning unit even when records show that the trainee has previously mastered the particular performance required.
The development of individualized training methods such as the use of assignments and projects, and of distance and open learning techniques, provides opportunities for tailoring learning events more closely to the individual entry behaviour of trainees. With "open learning" trainees need only take those learning units that they actually need to achieve the required performance. This should minimise the overlap between the trainees' existing knowledge and skills and those being developed by the learning event.
ENTRY BEHAVIOUR AND LEARNING
In designing learning events we need to consider what will be the most effective way to help trainees to achieve the training objectives. Some important considerations are:
– To encourage and maintain motivation to learn.
– To ensure that there are opportunities to participate, practice and succeed.
– To reduce trainees' anxiety.
– To provide feedback on performance.
How we decide to attempt to do all these things will be influenced by the trainee's entry behaviour. Learning is facilitated by linking it to existing learning, which is of course, entry behaviour. The possible conflict between new learning and existing practice should also be identified and means considered for overcoming such conflict. Unless we take positive action, existing practice will prevail.
Many trainees have a preferred learning style, a style by which they will be more successful at learning, and can learn more quickly and easily. The learning style forms part of the individual's entry behaviour. A group of trainees with a wide range of learning styles has implications for training design. A range of learning opportunities needs to be provided within the learning unit to help everyone to learn.
WHEN TO ASSESS ENTRY BEHAVIOUR
Ideally, we should establish entry behaviour accurately at the start of the training process. Only then can the training design be developed to close the gap between trainees' current and desired performance. Because of time pressures or lack of resources collecting all the relevant information may not be possible and working assumptions may need to be made. In such cases the trainer implementing the design may be collecting information on entry behaviour to adjust the training design. When a learning unit has been implemented, we may assess the accuracy of the estimated entry behaviour in relation to the achievement of training objectives. Care should be taken not to redesign a course by one group's entry behaviour when the next group could have different entry behaviour. This is a recipe for producing the perfect design for the group who have already completed the learning event.
Appendix 'A'
PLANNING ENTRY BEHAVIOUR FOR DoT
Check that all applicants for the course have completed the Direct Training Skills Course (DTS).
At the start of the workshop combine some assessment of entry behaviour with an introductory ice-breaker activity, such as asking trainees to provide the following information:
Name:
Organisation/Department/Institute:
Role:
Previous experience of designing training (examples):
What key issues/factors have influenced these designs?
Have difficulties been encountered when designing training?
What is a personal objective for this course?
Ask trainees to introduce themselves using this framework.
Record responses to the three questions on flipchart, whiteboard, chalkboard or OHP transparency.
Summarize each person's contribution by a statement, such as "So, if we could provide you with some way of addressing these issues and meeting your objective, the course will be successful?"
Note trainee's existing experiences and refer to it during the course.
A Selection of Training Methods
1. ACTION MAZE
What it is:
This method is a development of the case study and consists of a problem and some suggested solutions. The trainees choose one solution for their answer and this leads them to the next stage when they are told what happens when this decision has been made. Some more information is then given, and the process continues. After a while and trainees come to a final solution which can form the basis for further learning.
Main Uses:
Decision making practice.
Advantages:
Individual learner decision making practice.
Different learner approaches can be accommodated.
Disadvantages:
Difficult to construct.
Relies on trainer skills in reviewing learning process.
2. ACTION LEARNING
What it is:
‘Learning by experience, through solving an actual problem of an organisation’
(Glossary of Training Terms)
People usually work in SETS: a small group (usually four to six people) who meet periodically to discuss the progress of problems of their particular projects. An experienced ‘set adviser’ is normally allotted to each group’.
Main Uses:
Management Training.
Advantages:
‘Real’ problems/project.
Set members help one another.
Disadvantages:
Can be time consuming.
Good ‘set’ advisers are vital.
3. BRAINSTORMING
What it is:
‘A technique used for finding solutions by means of stimulating ideas. A small group of people with or without conscious knowledge of the subject meet and contribute any suggestion or idea that comes into their heads, no matter how fantastic or impossible it may sound. All suggestions are encouraged and criticism is not allowed at this stage, although contributors are later invited to explain their ideas. Subsequently all the ideas submitted at the meeting are sifted and assessed’.
Main Uses:
Problem solving
Consolidating previous learning.
Advantages:
Uses participants’ experience and ideas.
Very active participation
Disadvantages:
Time consuming.
High trainer skills required.
Some learners may not participate.
4. BUSINESS GAME/EXERCISE
What it is:
‘A learning exercise in which groups of trainees operate as management teams of imaginary companies in a carefully defined competitive market. Umpires (or a computer) evaluate each company’s decisions (for example), to increase investment in production but to spend less on research) and at the end of the game, the performance of the companies are compared. Trainees learn both from the game itself and from subsequent reviews of performance’.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Decision making
Skills in planning
Interactive and communication skills development.
Advantages:
Highly participative,
Quick feedback of results.
Participants may identify and accept more readily their own weaknesses.
Condenses decision making experiences.
Mistakes can be made without fear of serious consequences.
Assists transfer of learning from theory to practice.
Disadvantages:
Competitive spirit may detract from the actual learning.
Time consuming to produce.
Processing the groups’ decisions can be complex and may require use of a computer.
Can be outside the experience of participants.
May be difficult to overcome the ‘artificial feeling’ of the game.
Being so highly participative it may adversely affect subsequent sessions.
5. CASE STUDY METHOD
What it is:
‘A learning technique in which a real or fictional situation or series of events is presented to trainees for their analysis and consideration of possible solution of problems identified. Their findings in a real situation can be compared subsequently with what actually occurred. Case studies are often used in inter-personal industrial relations situations such as disciplinary cases and grievance handling’.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Problem solving
Developing analytical skills.
Gaining confidence in decision making.
Changing/modifying attitudes.
Introducing and consolidating other sessions.
Team Work
Advantages:
Provides concrete subjects for discussion.
Participants’ experiences can be brought into use and shared with others.
Provides opportunities for active participation.
Disadvantages:
Time consuming to produce.
Difficulty in validating when there is no quantifiable solution.
Close relationship to ‘real-life’ may be difficult to achieve.
Differences between the training situation and the real world may not be recognized.
6. COACHING
What it is:
‘Systematically increasing the ability and experience of the trainee by giving him/her planning tasks, coupled with continuous appraisal, advice, and counseling, by the trainee’s supervisor’.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Development of knowledge and skills.
Advantages:
The learner may have undivided attention from the trainer in the one-to-one situation.
Level and pace of coaching can be quickly adapted.
Trainer and learner are likely to have more immediate feedback of results compared with some other methods.
Disadvantages:
Can be expensive on trainer’s time.
Only very small numbers can be dealt with at one time.
Success depends very much on the qualities of the trainer.
7. COMPUTER BASED TRAINING
What it is:
CBT involves the use of the computer as a teaching medium and/or learning resource in an educational or training system. Used as a teaching medium, the computer’s programme controls the presentation of instructional material to a learner on the basis of his/her responses to previous questions. The computer thus ADAPTS teaching to the individual. Used as a learning resource, the computer acts as a tool for the learner, providing calculation, simulation, modeling, problem-solving and information facilities. In this case the computer does not necessarily teach in any direct sense – e.g. a simulator in aircrew training.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Knowledge learning.
Concepts, procedures, facts, principles.
Advantages:
Learner proceeds at own pace.
Level of material can be matched to learner.
Individual learner feedback.
Record of individual learner performance is possible.
Highly interactive and can be motivating.
Disadvantages:
Limited range of commercial programmes.
Expensive and time consuming to produce.
Computer hardware necessary for each learner.
The learner may feel manipulated by the computer.
8. DEMONSTRATION
What it is:
The direct trainer, by actual performance, shows the learner what to do and how to do it, and with his associated explanations indicates why, when, and where it is done. It rarely stands alone; it is almost invariably combined with another method.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Showing correct/incorrect actions, procedures, etc.
Giving learners a yardstick to aim at.
Advantages:
Stimulates interest.
Large groups can be handled.
Disadvantages:
Takes a lot of time and effort to produce.
Little or no contact between direct trainer and learners whilst it is actually taking place.
Can be too fast for the learners to absorb or understand what is going on when several actions or skills are being demonstrated simultaneously.
Good learner viewing is often a problem
9. DISCOVER LEARNING
What it is:
‘A method of learning which is designed to enable the learner to formulate his/her own understanding of a subject through the solution of a carefully-designed sequence of problems. Traditional expository methods usually tell the learner exactly what it is that he/she has to understand. It usually proceeds by presenting principles first, and examples later, whereas the discovery method presents selected examples first, and principles only when the learner has understand the concepts’.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
Development of knowledge and skills in both operative and management fields, but has been mostly applied in the former for ‘older’ learners.
Advantages:
Learner activity can be high.
Interest and motivation may be easily obtained and maintained.
Long term retention of information and skill may be high.
Can create greater and deeper understanding.
Disadvantages:
If done properly can be very time consuming to prepare
learning material and construct a learning situation.
Can lack ‘face validity’ with learners and trainers alike as the method can appear to be both unstructured and haphazard.
Learning time can be lengthy.
10. DISCUSSION METHOD
What it is:
‘A training technique in which the learning derives principally from the participants themselves rather than from an instructor’
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Normally recognized to be three main types:
Directed discussion
Developmental discussion
Problem-solving discussion
Main Uses:
For problem solving exercises.
For forming or moulding attitudes.
For stimulating interest and constructive thought.
For supplementing other methods.
For reviewing/consolidating other learning.
Advantages:
Learner activity can be high.
Interest can be quickly aroused.
Disadvantages:
Time-consuming to obtain anything worthwhile.
Has to be extremely well controlled to be of value.
To run well, learners must know or have opinions about the topic.
11. DISTANCE LEARNING
What it is:
‘Any form of learning in which the trainers and learners are not in the same place. Covers correspondence education, and Open University type teaching by TV and radio.’
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:
To provide knowledge-based learning opportunities without the necessity for learners to attend a training institution.
Advantages:
Can provide training for a large number of people
Training resources can be developed to meet a specific training need
Resource can supplied through a national or regional center
Provides cost-effective training
Can use simply paper-based or multi-media technologies
Can be linked to other methods- assignments, projects, open learning, or prior to attending a course.
Disadvantages:
Dependent on an effective administrative system
Mentoring support is essential
Requires initial investment to develop training resources
Depends on motivation of learners
Limited mainly to the provision of knowledge
12. GROUP EXERCISES
What it is:
Group exercises require a small group of learners to undertake an activity together. The content of the activity is not important. What is important is how the group undertook the activity and the results achieved.
Main Uses:
Develop interactive/interpersonal skills.
Team building activities.
Advantages:
Highly participative.
Learners are usually highly motivated
Disadvantages:
Process skills learning can be obscured by the output of the activity. High trainer skills are required to review and help transfer of learning.
13. GUIDED REAINDING
What it is:
Reading material provided or specified by the trainer or coach. Publication, such as text books, magazines, and research papers, provide a wealth of up-to-date information. The availability of literature of this kind enables trainees to supplement the more formal instructional methods with specialist reading to suit individual needs. Guidance can be provided by, for example, trainers, colleagues, or simply a trainee’s own motivation to learn more.
Main Uses:
To update knowledge.
Advantages:
Cheap and easy to use.
Disadvantages:
Trainer identifying appropriate reading material.
Relies on learner motivation to act.
14. GUIDED PRACTICE
What it is:
A method in which the learner has to perform the operation or procedure being learned, under controlled conditions.
Main Uses:
All types of skills training.
Increasing knowledge and modifying attitudes.
Advantages:Creates interest.
There is an exchange of ideas, experiences, etc.
Disadvantages:
Can be time consuming.
Can be expensive on equipment and materials.
Personalities in the group situation may conflict.
Expensive on trainer time.
May be easy for individuals to ‘opt out’.
15. INTERACTIVE VIDEO
What it is:
Interactive video brings together video and computer systems to provide the learning vent. The video provides colour moving and still images with stereo sound and the computer provides text and manages the interaction with the learner. The interaction can include explanation, demonstration, questioning, exploring situations and alternatives and responding to questions with video and text.
Main Uses:
Develop interpersonal skills.
Knowledge based learning.
Introducing computer-based systems.
Exploring attitudes to people and situations.
Advantages:
Potentially the design of individually tailored learning experiences exactly matched to needs.
Stimulating and motivating use of multimedia.
Paced by learner.
Individual learner feedback.
Records of individual performance can be maintained.
Disadvantages:
High initial cost of setting up a system.
Limited range of commercial software.
Expensive and time consuming to produce or amend software.
May quickly be replaced by new technologies.
16. IN-TRAY EXERCISES
What it is:
‘A form of training which attempts to simulate the working situation by setting the trainee realistic tasks. The trainees are presented with papers such as letters and memos, placed in the ‘in’ basket or ‘in’ tray to which they respond individually. The results of the exercise are then analyzed discussed and assessed on the basis of the decisions made.’
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:Problem solving
Development of analytical skills.
For gaining confidence in decision making.
Transfer of theory learned to practical applications.
Provides concrete subjects for practical work and discussion opportunities for active participation.
Time consuming to produce.
Sometimes difficult to achieve ‘real life’ situations.
If handled insensitively it may undermine the confidence of some learners.
17. LECTURE
What it is:
‘A straight talk of exposition, possibly using visual or other aids, but without group participation other than at the conclusion’.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main Uses:For transmission of facts and information which may be classified as of ‘interest’ value only and which the learners would not be expected to remember in full.
Advantages:
A large amount of material can be covered in a relatively short time.
A large number of learners can be handled by one lecturer – virtually no limits. Content and sequence under the lecturer’s complete control.
Disadvantages:
Lack of learner activity – they are passive with little or no opportunity for participation.
The lecturer has little or no immediate feedback from the learners.
‘Saturation’ point is reached relatively quickly.
The learner’s attention can be easily distracted.
18. LESSON
What it is:
‘A form of instruction incorporating a number of instructional techniques designed to ensure the participation of the learning group in reaching the specified behavioural objectives. This is frequently achieved by the use of question and answer’.
Main Uses:
All types of knowledge learning.
Some skills learning.
Learning procedures.
Advantages:
Close contact between the direct trainer and learners.
Learners can receive individual attention.
Opportunity to maximize group activity.
Trainer can receive immediate feedback.
Changes in level and pace of training can be made quickly.
Disadvantages:
More than any other method, a successful lesson depends upon the quality of the direct trainer.
Lesson groups should not exceed 8-10 learners – this can be expensive on trainers and equipment
19. ON-THE-JOB TRAINING (ON-SITE OR DESK TRAIINING)
What it is:
‘Training given in the normal work situation. It may constitute the whole of the training to be combined with off-the-job training and/or further education.’
(Glossary of Training terms)
Main Uses:
Used to integrate training in the normal working environment. Probably the most widely used method of training.
Advantages:
Learning is associated with work-related performance
Training can be done as and when required.
Combines development of knowledge and skill
Particularly useful for productive tasks
Enable flexible use of all stages of the Systematic Approach to Training.
Disadvantages:
Relies on the availability of a competent coach
A trainee may learn bad, as well as good work practice
Depends on adequate prior training, otherwise can be costly and inefficient.
20. PERFORMANCE AIDS/JOB AIDS
What it is:
The provision of information to a job holder to support performance on the job. The performance aid replaces the need to recall knowledge or have specialist decision-making skills.
Main uses
To provide assistance to trainees during performance of tasks. They can be used in association with training, or as an alternative.
Advantages
Gives trainees advice and guidance
Ensures that correct, standardized procedures are followed
Acts as resource support whenever a particular task is being performed
Helps trainees overcome difficulties
Ensures ‘best practice’ is incorporated
Helps senior, or experienced staff to delegate effectively
Can be used with illiterate trainees
Disadvantages
Requires competent and thorough task analysis to be done
Needs close collaboration between line staff and trainers
Should be integrated in normal on Job training activities
Requires media resources for development.
21. PROGRAMMED LEARNING
What it is:
A form of instruction in which the following factors are present:
There is a clear statement of exactly what the trainee is expected to be able to do at the end of the programme.
The material to be learned, which has been itemized and tested, is presented serially in identifiable steps or frames.
Trainees follow a sequence of frames which may be determined according to their individual needs.
Frequent and unambiguous responses are usually required from each trainee throughout the whole sequence.
DoT A Selection of Training Methods
12
Feedback of information about the correctness or otherwise of responses is usually given to the trainee before the next frame is presented
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main uses:
For all types of knowledge learning. For teaching concepts and procedures
Advantages:
Learners can work at their own pace
Learners can work in their own time and /or at times most suitable to them
Material is carefully structured into learning steps.
Learners get immediate knowledge of results
Learners are usually highly motivated
Disadvantages:
Time consuming and costly to produce
Can be administratively difficult to run
22. PROJECT
What it is:
'A form of exercise leading to the accomplishment, often within a fixed time, of a definite task -e.g. a report containing recommendations on a stated problem, or the design and manufacture of equipment to a given specification'.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main uses:
Development of skills. Transfer of off-job learning to real situation.
Advantages:
Onus of learning is put on the learner's shoulders.
Stimulates interest and creativity
Can involve application of a range of skills Self pacing.
Can be worked by the learner at convenient times
End product may have a practical use
Disadvantages:
Needs very careful control by the trainer
The learner must accept responsibility for the project
Motivation wanes if inadequate guidance is given
Confidence of learner may be undermined by negative feedback.
23. ROLE PLAYING
What it is:
'A learning technique in which students are presented with a situation which they are required to explore by acing out the roles of those represented in this situation'.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
Main uses:
For changing/modifying attitudes.
Developing interactive knowledge and skills.
Advantages:
Can create a great deal of interest
Active participation by role player.
Provides a 'living' example
Only exercise where emotions become the predominant feature.
Disadvantages:
Role players may learn more than observers. Observers may be passive until the exercise is discussed. Success depends on the imagination of the player. Attitude change may be short lived.
OTHER TRAINING METHODS
ACTION-CENTRED LEADERSHIP
This is an approach to leadership training which identifies the different needs which a leader must satisfy if he is to lead others to achieve an objective. These are:
(a) TASK: The need to achieve or come close to achieving the objective(s).
(b) GROUP: The need for members of the group to co-operate effectively with
each other to achieve the objective(s).
(c) INDIVIDUAL: The satisfaction of the different personal needs which each
individual brings to a group, which could cause physical or
psychological withdrawal if they are not met.
ALGORITHYM/FLOWCHART
'A mathematical term meaning an exact prescription defining a computational process leading from various initial data to the desired result. In logical tree analysis, its meaning has been extended to reducing the process of decision-making to a sequence of "Yes/No' (Either/or) responses to specific questions, stemming from previous decisions made and/or prior statements of action. Provided there are no ambiguities of instruction, a successful outcome is guaranteed'.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
They may be used as a Performance Aid to supplement the job holders’ knowledge and skills.
ASSERTION TRAINING
Training designed to help people to increase their own self-esteem and self respect and to recognize and respect these qualities in others. It involves helping people to understand the differences between assertion, between non-assertion and politeness, and when each is appropriate to use.
ASSIGNMENT
A problem-solving exercise set by a trainer or line manager with clear guidelines. They are more structured and less open-ended than projects. Assignments are normally presented by learners as a written paper.
BEHAVIOUR THERAPY
A form of behavior modification which is mainly used with psychiatric patients. It is based on a particular learning theory and involves the abandonment of inappropriate or undesirable behavior, through the use of reward and punishment, but does not necessarily involve the learning of new skills to replace the old behavior.
COUNSELLING
Where learners are given an opportunity to talk through their problems and concerns with a counselor who will not direct them but use their knowledge and experience to help them identify what is right for them.
CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE
The process of establishing, through the experience of supervisors and peers, the priorities of those activities deemed critical to performing the job. It focuses on actual examples of job behavior and on judgments as to what behavior makes for success or where the lack of success is attributable to human errors.
ENCOUNTER GROUPS
An approach to improving self-analysis, self-understanding and individual growth and development through exchanging personal experiences and exploring and externalizing feelings in a group situation.
FIELD TRIP
Learners go out to study where the object of their studies is located. This may involve a visit to a plant, supplier or customer to allow on - the-spot collection of information and observation.
FORUM
A group of experts are brought together and learners are invited to ask them questions related to their area of study. The members of the forum answer the questions and debate the issues which emerge.
GROUP DYNAMICS
The study of the inter-action of the behavior of individuals as members of a group and of the behaviour of groups generally. A demanding process for learners and trainers as each person's behavior is analyzed and reviewed in detail.
JOB ROTATION
‘This system is based upon the idea that people can become most effective by having an opportunity to perform a wide variety of different jobs as part of their training or development.’
(Glossary of Training Terms)
KEPNER TREGOE TRAINING
A form of training which helps participants to identify the ideal working situation. By using a systematic approach to the processes of problem-analysis and decision-making, they can identify deviations from the ideal.
MANAGERIAL GRID
Part of a management development technique which places each individual as a result of assessments and exercises, on a two- dimensional graph (concern for people on one axis and concern for production on the other). Managers can be high on one scale and low on the other, or in any position between. The idea is that the conceptual framework enables each manager to gain insight by examining his own and other managers' styles of behavior.
MENTORING
An approach which uses a mentor who provides support and advice to support the learner. The mentor does not have to possess expertise in the area of learning but acts as a father figure and can provide influence and help to gain resources and opportunities to learn. The mentor is usually a senior manager in the employing organization with an interest in the development of junior staff.
MICRO-TEACHING
An approach which breaks a skilled performance into its component skills elements and practices each element separately. Feedback is offered on the performance of each element to allow areas for improvement to be identified. After practice of each element they are all practiced together to allow the achievement of skilled performance.
OPEN LEARNING
The aim of an open learning system is to increase educational or training opportunities for those excluded from traditional systems through educational, administrative, social or psychological reasons. It is centred on the needs of the learner.
PSYCHO-DRAMA
A participative group learning technique which involves the enactment of situations which are stressful or problematic to a given member of the group. Members of the group take other roles and can even take the role of the individual whose problem is being explored. In this way, the individual may see a solution.
REPERTORY GRID TECHNIQUE
A particular form of structured interview (or questionnaire) used to explore the content and structure of a person's value judgment. Systematic comparisons are drawn between chosen elements (e.g. people, things, events, ideas) to bring out the 'constructs' or qualities which an individual uses to discriminate between different parts of his/her world.
SELF-DEVELOPMENT
The concept that individuals have a responsibility for their own development. This includes what is to be learned, how it is to be learned, how the learning is to be organized, implemented and assessed. Help should be available from the employing organization to encourage, counsel and assist the individual.
SEMINAR
A short course or conference making extensive use of participative methods and devoted to the exclusive study of one subject.
SIMULATED TRAINING
The training provided in a specially created environment which formal instruction can be followed and opportunity given for practicing and applying the skills learned in workshop or classroom. It may include work on plant or equipment withdrawn from the working situation for training purposes and/or on specially designed simulators.
SIMULATION
1. The representation of the essential characteristics of a system by means of a simpler one. In particular, the representation of physical phenomena by computers or by other equipment such as models, to facilitate the study of these phenomena - e.g. Aircraft training simulator, business games.
2. The acting out of human relationships to help to understand individual behaviour and its effect upon other-e.g. Role Play.
SIMULATOR
A device which presents the trainee with a representation of the important features of the real situation and reproduces operational conditions which enable him/her to practice directly, safely, and economically, tasks which cannot be so practiced on the job itself e.g. flight simulator.
SUPPORT GROUP
A group of learners who can contact one another for mutual help and support during and after some training activity. The group may form spontaneously or be created on the initiative of the trainers involved in implementing the training.
SYMPOSIUM
A gathering, usually of one or two days' duration to hear and discuss contributions by authorities on a particular subject.
SYNDICATE
A small group of students formed to consider and to report on a question, problem or exercise, set as part of a training course. The object of the exercise is to promote learning by means of intra-and inter- group analysis and discussion.
SYNETICS
An approach to encouraging uninhibited creative thinking in a group. There is often evaluation and discussion, so as to develop the best solutions from the apparently unconnected ideas of group members.
T-GROUP TRAINING
'A particular method of behavioral skills training, based on highly participative learning methods whose purpose is to improve trainees' skills in:
(a) Appreciating how others are reacting to one's own behavior
(b) Gauging the state of relationships between others.
(c) Carrying out skillfully the behavior required by the situation. The approach is essentially unstructured. The terms 'sensitivity training', 'group dynamic training', and 'group relations training' are sometimes used.
(Glossary of Training Terms)
TRAINING PACKAGE
Information on a given subject presented in a variety of ways - e.g. programmed information, reading, case studies, and films - within the one package. Particularly useful when a large number of
TUTORIAL
Providing additional knowledge and guidance to an individual or small group of learners in an off-the-job informal training situation.
Evaluating Training Methods
INTRODUCTION
The title of the exercise includes the work’ evaluating’ and refers to your opinion about a particular training method and the value you place upon it as a learning experience.
The question to answer now is, to whom are we referring when we say ‘you’? You might be a trainer, evaluating a training method based on its contribution to a learning event. Your evaluation might be influenced by your personal style and your experience of using such methods. It might also be influenced by your knowledge of land attitude towards training methods, or alternative training methods that you are accustomed to using.
On the other hand, you might be a trainee, learning from a certain training method. Your evaluation of the method, and the learning opportunity it presents might be based on, for example, whether you liked the experience; whether it was practical and work-related; whether it suited your style of learning and, probably most important of all, whether it helped you to achieve the success you expected.
The choice of a training method should be used on a rational evaluation of the contribution it makes to learning event. This should be done from both the trainers and trainee’s point of view.
The purpose of the exercise is to review some factors that you might consider when evaluating training methods. The principal factors to be considered are:
Learning Principles
Ways of Learning
Styles of Learning
Productive vs Reproductive Performance
Use of the Method.
LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Motivation
The training method should be such that the trainee is motivated to achieve the desired objective. This will be influenced by whether the method:
- gives responsibility to the trainee.
- provides a clear performance target or objectives.
- provides variety, interest and impact to the trainee.
- is written/presented in language and ways that encourage and stimulate.
Participation
The training method should encourage the trainee to respond to the material. This can be done when the method:
- allows active involvement in the learning event.
- uses existing knowledge, skill and experience.
Practice
The training method should provide opportunities to develop skill by means practice. The method should therefore:
- develop mastery of the task
- encourage consolidation of learning.
Feedback
The training method should give the trainee feedback on performance which is:
- personal to each trainee
- specific to performance rather than general
- given immediately after the trainee’s performance.
Ways of Learning
- ‘Being Told’, where the trainee learns by receiving instruction in a written or spoken form. This may be stored on film, video, microfiche, computer disk, compact disk or any other storage medium for later access. It may also be communicated at a distance by radio, television or other telecommunications medium.
- ‘Imitation’, where the trainee learns by watching a demonstration of the desired performance. This too may be live or a recording of the desired performance.
- ‘Trial and Error’, where the trainee learns by trying to perform all or p art of a task him/herself.
- ‘Thinking’, where the trainee learns by thinking about situations created within the learning event.
Styles of Learning
- ‘Activist’, where the trainee enjoys trying out new ideas and welcomes opportunities for change
- ‘Pragmatist’, where the trainee prefers being task or technique oriented and keen to try things out in practice.
- ‘Theorist’, where the trainee is likely to be a logical thinker, good at a disciplined approach but with a low tolerance of uncertainty and anything subjective.
- ‘Reflectors’, where the trainee is through and methodical, good at listening to others but tends to be cautious and unwilling to take risks.
Productive Vs.Reproductive Performance
A training method is used in a learning even to create the opportunity for the trainee to achieve the performance specified in the objective. We can relate this performance to a position on a continuum form a performance that is totally ‘reproductive’, in that it is always done in the same way, to one that is totally ‘productive’ where every performance is different in some way.
Some training methods provide opportunities for learning only a reproductive performance, while others allow a productive performance to be developed.
Use of the Method
There will be no benefit if trainers, management and, especially trainees, find difficulty using the method. Therefore, when evaluating a training method, we should consider how we intend the method to be used.
Demands
Training methods are likely to make demands on both trainers and trainees. For example, the use of a method may require trainers to provide trainees with learning resources – handouts, exercises, video player, computer telephone and modem. Unless these are available, or can be obtained or developed, it is unlikely that the method can be used effectively.
Advantages and Disadvantages
The decision to use a particular training method is likely to include a compromise, resolving advantages offered by the method against certain disadvantages. It is essential that we identify and sorted these out before using the method. Otherwise, there will be a waste of resources, time and credibility.
Additional Methods
Depending on training or development needs, other learning opportunities are likely to be needed using additional training methods. These should be identified and listed.Evaluation
On the following form you will find some criteria described earlier listed as keywords. Indicate with a tick on the rating scale alongside each keyword your evaluation. Other criteria ask for your opinion and ideas about the use of the method.
1. Objective
Write an objective from your design.
2. Method
Enter the training method you are evaluating.
3. Application of learning Principles
The six principles of learning described earlier are listed as keywords. Indicate with a tick on the rating scale alongside each keyword how well the method uses these principles.
4. Application of ways of Learning
Consider each of the four ways and tick the appropriate scale to indicate, in your opinion, the extent to which the method uses them.
5. Styles of Learning
Consider how the method enables trainees to learn by each of the four styles of learning. Tick the appropriate scale to indicate your opinion.
6. Productive vs Reproductive Performance
a) On the scale marked ‘objective’ rate the performance you have described in the objective above. Use the left-hand side of the scale to show highly productive performance and the right-hand side to indicate entirely reproductive.
b) On the scale marked ‘method’ rate the training method in relation to the type of performance it is likely to develop. Again show productive on the left and reproductive on the right.
b) Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the method for both trainer and trainee.
c) List additional training methods that might be needed to enable the objective to be achieved.
2. METHOD
3. LEARNING PRINCIPLES
Fully, Not at all, Motivation, Participation, Practice, Feedback, Flexibility, Transfer
Fully, Not at all, Being Told, Imitation, Trial & Error, Thinking
5. STYLES OF PRINCIPLES
Fully, Not at all, Activist, Pragmatist, Theorist, Reflector
6. PRODUCTIVE OR REPRODUCTIVE PERFORMANCE
Productive
Reproductive
Objective
Method
7. USES OF THE METHOD
Demands of Trainer:
Demands on Trainee:
Advantages for Trainer:
Advantages for Trainee:
Disadvantages for Trainer:
Disadvantages for Trainee
Additional Methods:
COMPARISON OF TRAINING METHODS
KNOWLEDGE
SKILL
METHOD
FACTS
PROCEDURE
CONCEPTS
PRINCIPLES
THINKING
ACTING
REACTING
INTERACTING
PRODUCTIVE
REPRODUCTIVE
Assessing, Validating and Evaluating Training
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
2. Distinguish between Formative and Summative Assessment.
3. Explain Internal and External Validation.
4. Describe the utility of evaluation.
5. List techniques employed for assessment, validation and evaluation of training.
INTRODUCTION
We invest considerable resources in training-for example, finance, personnel, facilities and time. As a training designer, you have a major responsibility to ensure that the training you design is both effective in that it achieves the performance required, and that it also make efficient use of available resources. The Systematic Approach to Training, shown in Figure 1, below, provides a four-stage basis for the management training activities. You will note that we have highlighted ‘Assess Results’. This is to emphasize that although we cover design in an earlier stage, your design leads to implementation and then for the results to be assessed.
Fig 1
Various people are likely to be involved with assessing the training you have designed and how it has helped to improve performance. For example:
- Directors of training institutions have allocated resources for the training you have designed.
- Trainers are involved in preparing and delivering training, using the time and methods you have specified in your design.
- Trainees are giving up their time and devoting their energies to achieve the objectives you have set for their training.
- You are also involved in assessing the training, both to confirm its success and to learn how you can improve it.
All are stakeholders in the investment, and they will use a variety of facts and opinions to make their assessment. You can help them to do this by applying several concepts associated with assessment. You can include in your design an appropriate selection of techniques that provide the stakeholders with the information they need to make rational decisions about their investment.
Training is only as good as the results it achieves. These results can be considered from a variety of viewpoints. Trainers have a tendency to view training through the process itself, and are interested in achieving objectives concerned with learning; the trainees’ immediate manager will look at what people can do as a result of the training they receive; and senior management may wish to know whether investment in training was worthwhile. All these viewpoints are relevant and important. Trainers are involved in training, because they enjoy helping people to learn; departmental managers use training to improve performance. Therefore, the view taken of the extent to which ‘good training’ is being done depends on who is making the assessment – and for what reason. As we mentioned earlier, assessment is carried out by a variety of people, each with a particular point of view. Assessment may be imperfect in that we often base it on subjective opinion rather than objective measurement. However, an even greater danger is that no assessment is done by anybody. The result of this is likely to be that:
- Trainees do not know whether they have achieved the desired outcomes.- Trainers lack feedback to enable them to improve the quality of training.
- Money may be wasted on inadequate training because no one is aware of its poor quality.
- Management may not associate improved performance with training.
- Spending may be reduced on training because no one knows of the benefits it produces.
Training design should take account of these points to ensure trainees know their achievements and they give trainers feedback to enable them to improve the quality of training. They, along with their client or management can a see a link between training and performance.
The techniques of Assessment, Validation and Evaluation can be used to provide the necessary information. These terms are important when designing training, each measures training in a different way and for a different purpose.
ASSESSMENT OF TRAINING
As you will note in the following definition, the term ‘assessment’ is in general use in training. It is a term used by all stakeholders to assess whether training has been efficient and effective. However, for training designers and managers of a training function the term has limitations, requiring us to also use the more precise terms ‘validation’ and ‘evaluation’, which we will deal with later.
Definition of Assessment
‘A general term for the processes of ascertaining whether training is efficient in achieving prescribed objectives. It covers both validation and evaluation.’
Glossary of Training Terms
For the purposes of training design, assessment can be used in two distinct ways; one is to use the term to assess the process of training – formative assessment, and the other is to assess the product of training – summative assessment. Depending on the sort of training you are designing, you may need to include both ways of assessment.
Formative Assessment
Depending on the training methods being used, there can be many instances where we can give trainees feedback – information about their performance, which will help them to improve. We build this type of assessment into the learning event and it becomes an integral part of the learning process: they may not even recognize it as ‘assessment’. It is, however, an essential feature of good training as it provides feedback to both the trainee and the trainer. Excellent examples of formative assessment can be found in computer-based training and in group exercises and role plays.
Computer-based Training and interactive video programs, both based on the principles of ‘programmed learning’, include ‘remedial loops’. As a result of making an error, the trainee is presented with additional learning to overcome the difficulty. Typically, this is along the lines “Let’s consider the situation again from another point of view.......”, or “Sorry, you’ve got this one wrong. Let me explain in more detail.....”. Interactive video can take this a stage further by showing the trainee the consequences of a certain decision and using the situation to provide additional or remedial learning.
This also applies to experiential learning events, based on group exercises or role plays, where assessment is simply part of the learning experience. This leads to the trainer asking such questions as “How did you feel when Roy said...?”, or “What are the consequences of Roy’s actions.....?” You will probably recall how we used this technique during the Direct Training Skills course, where we provided formative assessment after each practice session, and gave you on opportunity to do so.
Formative assessment should be non-threatening and designed to help the trainee to learn. There should be no sense of taking a ‘test’, or the results of assessment being given to the trainee’s boss. Trainees should be assured that the results of the test will not be divulged to anyone other than the trainer to evaluate the progress of learning, to give the trainee confidence and, where necessary, adjust the learning process. The concept of Andragogy relies on the sensitive use of formative assessment which we should include in the design of a learning event.
Summative Assessment
The Driving Test is an example of summative assessment. The learning event is over and the trainee driver has to demonstrate competence. The test will produce a ‘pass’ or a ‘fail’ result based solely on performance, not on learning. The use of summative assessment presents considerable design problems. For example:
- It may be difficult to establish suitable standards of performance.
- It is often difficult to devise measures which will assess effectively that these standards have been achieved.
- The cost of assessment can be high.
- Trainees may react against the prospect of being ‘tested’.
- What happens to people who fail the test?
Summative assessment is used at schools and colleges, often resulting in something like 40% of students failing their exams. This arises from deliberate design of the test to produce these results in order, for example, to decide which minority of candidates is to be allowed to proceed to more advanced studies. Training cannot be afford failure on anything like this scale. You are employed to design training that will result in improved performance. You are paid to design successful training, based on the need to develop competence to the level required by the client. Failure to improve the trainees’ performance to an acceptable standard means that you have failed to meet the client’s needs. These are considerations which should permeate the whole of your design activities. Summative assessment is an important consideration in the design process and may often make a useful or even vital contribution to training. The reason we can travel safely by air is that rigorous standards and tests are used to ensure pilots and ground staff are competent.
Normative and Criterion-referenced Assessment
Consider the final of the 100 meters in the Olympic Games. Eight athletes are lined up ready to race. They are the finest sprinters in the world. Each trained to be a ‘master performer’. In about 10 seconds we have the results of the race, with one ‘winner’ and seven ‘losers’. This is a familiar scene in sport, but it is hardly appropriate in training for work. People are trained, not to compete against each other but to help them improve their performance, as individuals and as members of teams. The reason for training is to enable them to make a better contribution to their organisation. The result of training should be that all are ‘winners’: training objectives have been achieved, performance improved and the problem solved.
As a designer you may be faced with an environment that is rewarding to ‘winners’. Such ‘winners’ could be sales people being competitively paid to win, or participants on training programmes which produce the ‘Trainee of the Year’. When designing assessment, particularly summative assessment, you are faced with two options. One is to replicate an Olympic final to find out which trainee is the ‘best’, although you should be sure that you have good reason for needing to know who it is. We call this ‘Normative Assessment’. The other is to strive towards a situation in which everybody is a winner, in that everybody achieves the standard, or criterion, for success. We call this ‘Criterion-Referenced Assessment’. Discussions with your client should enable you to decide which of these options to use, although for most situations we prefer the latter.
VALIDATION AND EVALUATION OF TRAINING
The terms ‘validation’ and ‘evaluation’ are important when designing training. The first term is an essential feature, and it will be your responsibility to include appropriate validation measures into your design. The second term is equally important, but is often done by management or funding agencies.
Definition of Internal Validation
‘A series of tests and assessments designed to ascertain whether a training programme has achieved the behavioural objectives specified’.
Glossary of Training Terms
Definition of External Validation
‘A series of tests and assessments designed to ascertain whether the behavioural objectives of an internally valid training programme were realistically based on an accurate initial identification of training needs in relation to the criteria of effectiveness adopted by the organisation’.
Glossary of Training Terms
Definition of Evaluation
The assessment of the total value of a training system, training course or programme in social as well as financial terms. Evaluation differs from validation in that it attempts to assess the overall cost benefit of the course or programme, and not just the achievement of its laid-down objectives. The term is also used in the general judgemental sense of the continuous monitoring of a programme or of the training function as a whole.
Glossary of Training Terms
We illustrate the relationship between these three terms in Figure 2, below. It is essential to note that any system you develop for evaluating training needs to incorporate procedures to obtain information about its validity.
Fig.2
Internal Validation
As the training designer, you can assess whether people achieved the objectives you specified in other words you will arrange to carry out internal validation. The results of this process will be to give you feedback about the quality of training you designed, and how it is being implemented. This will enable you to revise the design and improve the quality of training.
Reasons for doing internal validation include:
- It provides trainers with feedback about the training they provide.
- It checks whether trainees have achieved the specified objectives.
- It enables the quality of training to be monitored.
- It indicates where the effectiveness of training can be improved.
- It indicates where training can be more effectively delivered.
- It provides the basis for certification.
External Validation
Now consider the people you have trained, where they have achieved the objectives specified based on the identification of their training needs. They will now return to their jobs and a process of external validation will now be used to find out whether they are now able to perform to a satisfactory standard. This process is likely to be done by the people concerned and their management.
Reason for doing external validation include:
- It involves line or departmental management.
- It focuses on actual performance
- It can be related to identified training needs
- It establishes the basis for the transfer of learning
- It indicates the validity of the specified training objectives
- It can be used as evidence of competence
- It provides essential data for cost benefit analysis
- It proves the benefits being obtained from training
Evaluation
Having completed the training and established its validity, both internally and externally, the organisation may now decide to evaluate their investment. This might be done by senior management, by accountants, consultants, or by customers. Each will use what they consider to be an appropriate criterion and it could be done with or without your involvement or knowledge. While doing this evaluation, it is likely that the results will also be used to evaluate the training function, as a whole.
Reasons for doing an evaluation of training include:
- It recognizes the importance of satisfying the needs of clients
- It provides justification for the investment in training
- It establishes the benefits of having a training function
- It encourages management to make further investment in training
- It enables training to be valued from different perspectives
- It includes cost benefit analysis
- It provides professional discipline for training management
- It encourages careful scrutiny of training proposals
A SYSTEM FOR THE EVALUATION OF TRAINING
To be able to apply the concepts of validation and evaluation to training design may require you to develop an effective system for overall evaluation. This is likely if you are designing training programmes, rather than courses or learning units. You will need to include procedures for carrying out both internal and external validation, and encouraging the evaluation of the organization’s investment in training and development. Ideally, the systems should cover all aspects of the Systematic Approach to Training.
We should devise and develop systems for the evaluation of training to suit a particular organisation, and the work being done by its training function. You will need to select a basic system, or framework, within which you and your professional colleagues can devise validation and evaluation systems covering most of the training function. There are several systems, with Kirkpatrick’s being the most widely accepted.
Kirkpatrick (1976) proposed a framework with four levels of criteria:
Level 1 – Reaction
This is concerned with trainees’ opinion of the quality of training being provided and its relevance to their needs.
Level 2 – Learning
The achievement, by trainees, of the specified objectives, through acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes.
Level 3 – Behaviour
The changes in job performance that can be attributed to training.
Level 4 – Results
The effects on the organisation, such as increased production, fewer customer complaints, improved quality, reduced costs, better staff retention.
Reaction
Obtaining feedback from trainees about the quality of training they have received is important. Their opinions about the content, pace, methodology, tutorial support, learning materials and the facilities available are essential components in monitoring and improving the quality of training. The basis for obtaining this information is by using ‘Immediate Reaction Questionnaires’.
Learning
The purpose of training is to organize learning on the behalf of a person so that they can achieve specified objectives. The outcome of this process is to assess the person’s acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes relevant to their needs. This can be done using formal tests or with a less intrusive form of assessment. Examples of assessment techniques include;
Objective testsSimulations
Performance tests
Assignments and projects
Checklists
Interviews
Observation
Job Behaviour
The crucial factor here is the extent to which training needs have been analyzed. This will identify the behaviour people need to develop in order for them to do their job to a satisfactory standard. The information is vital to determining the ‘input’ needed, specified in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes, also as the basis for assessing the ‘outcomes’ of the learning process. The following is a list of information needed to effectively evaluate job behaviour.
Current job description
Specific tasks or competences
Standards of performance
Performance targets
Categories of knowledge-principles, concepts, facts, procedures, etc.
Categories of skills – manual, interpersonal, keyboard, problem solving, etc. Indicators of attitudes
Organizational
Ultimately, the organisation paying for it will do the final evaluation of training. Whatever the opinion of trainees to the quality of the training, and benefits they obtain from it, senior management will evaluate the investment by seeking answers to the following questions;
- Cost benefit – is the cost of training justified in relation to the benefits it provides?
- Does the organisation still require this training?
- Can the organisation risk or accept the consequences of poor training?
- Is certain training required by legislation – and is it effective?
- Has training helped to reduce wastage, machine downtime, administrative delays, customer complaints, etc.?
- Has training improved productivity, sales, morale, quality, etc.?
- If the answer to these questions is ‘No’, the consequences could be for senior management to then ask ‘Why waste time, money and resources doing something that appears to have no value to the organisation’?
However, if the initial levels of evaluation have been done, you will have substantial evidence to prove that training has helped employees and the organisation to improve performance. You will therefore take pride in answering ‘Yes’ – and share with your colleagues the beneficial consequences of being part of an effective training function.
Performance Aids
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
After reading this handout you will be able:1. Define Performance Aids.
2. List their benefits.
3. Indicate functions of performance aids.
4. Identify steps involved in developing performance aids.
INTRODUCTION
There is a danger for trainers and others to see training as the learning process, rather than for improving performance. Often training is associated with, for example, courses rather than in the outcome obtained from them. Performance aids provide an alternative means of assisting a person perform a task or deal with a problem.
Imagine you have arrived home with a newly purchased video recorder. After unpacking it, you need to connect it to the television set and learn how to use it. This kind of situation frequently occurs at home and at work. Is there likely to be a performance problem? Not really, you simply consult the manual, or operating instructions provided by the manufacturer. This manual is an example of a performance aid, but consider what it would be like attempting to perform the task without the manual. Unfortunately, this is often typical of many work-related situations where people are expected to do something (perform a task), without the sort of assistance provided by a manufacturer’s manual.
A task might be something physical, such as operating the video recorder, or a mental task involving making a decision. It is important within the context of systematic training, especially when designing training, that we recognize the value of using performance aids to help people improve their performance. Manufacturers are well aware of the importance of helping their customers by providing performance aids in the form of manuals, instructional panels, or help screens. The same approach can be used for many organizational performance problems, where the provision of performance aids can help a person perform a task, without recourse to formal instruction. Notice that the emphasis is on the outcome, not on the process of how to achieve it.
Figure 1, below, illustrates how performance aids can contribute to learning. We have used another domestic situation as an example of how they can be used to replace or supplement more traditional approaches to training.
Fig.1
The illustration in Figure 1 shows the gap in performance between the standard required for the task and that of the person who is to do it. There are two possible options for bridging this gap:
- One option is to provide formal training
- Another is to provide a performance aid.
In practice the learning event can be designed to take advantage of both options. Performance aids are often used to supplement training, where they can provide additional information and guidance to support a standard of performance that might otherwise be beyond the capability of the person concerned.
An example of a performance aid with which many people are familiar is the instruction sheet that accompanies ‘self-assembly’ products. The task of assembling an item of packed-flat furniture can be carried out with hand tools. If you have a performance aid and basic physical and manipulative skills. What the instruction sheet, or performance aid provides is knowledge of the steps and key points, in sequence, to achieve satisfactory assembly of furniture. Mental skills are also required to follow the instructions and relate them to the individual pieces provided. If you do not have the minimum basic skills, you would need some form of supplementary training in skills improvement.
Initially, the speed with which a task is performed will be slower than that of a competent operator. Repeat performances of the task, using the performance aid will enable the person to speed up the performance of the task and, possibly, gradually dispense with the aid. This last point is important because for some tasks a person is trained to use a performance aid, which will be used every time the task is performed. An example is the pre-flight checklists used by pilots.
BENEFITS OF PERFORMANCE AIDS
There are numerous reasons why a traditional approach to training is not always a viable option. For example:
- There are too many people to be trained by means of course.
- Limitations on funding prevent training being provided to those who need it.
- The location of prospective trainees prevents them forming a training group.
- Language, gender and cultural barriers may limit opportunities for training.
For these reasons, as a training designer, you may have to devise alternative ways of helping people to improve their performance. The benefits of using Performance Aids include:
- They can replace traditional training
- They can reduce training costs
- They can improve performance by reducing the cost and frequency of errors
- They can reduce need for supervision/specialist assistance.
FUNCTION OF PERFORMANCE AIDS
Performance aids have a wide range of applications, especially where there is a need to apply knowledge and skill to a specific task. These fall into two broad categories:-
1. Aids which provide a sequence for applying a person’s generic skills to a particular task.
An example of this type of aid is the vehicle lubrication chart. The mechanic already has the requisite manual skills and general knowledge of the techniques of lubrication: the chart will provide detailed information and procedural guidance to enable the lubrication task to be carried out on a particular vehicle.
The advantage of this type of performance aid is that it obviates the need for full training for every vehicle type without sacrificing performance, and with perhaps an increase in reliability. In other words, performance of a somewhat lengthy sequential routine has been catered for by means of a performance aid.
Other examples of this type of aid are given in Appendix 1.
2. Aids which enable a person to achieve the desired performance without having to acquire a high level of specialist knowledge or decision-making skills which might otherwise be necessary.
An example of this type of aid is the fault location algorithm. This enables a person to apply specialist and often complicated problem solving logic to situations arising from performance of the task.
Performance aids of this type should be prepared by experts who analyze a task to identify the knowledge needed and the decisions that might have to be made. This knowledge and the logical decision process can be presented so the user can undertake the task, referring to the aid for supportive expertise. In other words, the task can be performed by a person who is not a fully trained expert. Expertise that might be needed is provided by means of the performance aid.
Examples of this type of aid are given in Appendix 2.
TYPES OF PERFORMANCE AID
Performance aids can take a variety of forms, but all should be based on a detailed Task Analysis. Here are some more common ones:
Task Guidance List
This is a list of the steps in the task often with supporting illustrations. For a trained user the steps may be short reminder phrases; where an untrained user is intended, the steps need to be detailed and precise.
Task Guidance Flowchart or Logical Tree
These can be used for tasks which are not straight forward procedures – tasks involving decisions or discriminations. The flowchart is a simplified version of an analysis of skilled performance. It defines inputs and actions at each stage of task performance, with additional advice, as and where required. Flowcharts are most suitable for the application of rules and regulations, also for complex or specialist decision making and problem solving.
Tip sheet
This type of aid provides cues for the trainee in performing a task or activity or job in a sequential step-by-step order. A tip sheet may be produced in paper, card, or wall chart form – safety wall charts emphasizing avoidance of particular hazards are a common example of tip sheets.
Exceptions Chart
For activities which have several occasional ‘exceptions’ or variations, an exceptions chart can provide necessary directions. A column format is used, listing exceptions and the action to take for each.
Off-Standard Chart
While an exception chart is concerned with task variations, the off-standard chart incorporates a similar format for highlighting performance variations. The chart lists errors and how they can be recognized, corrected and faults prevented.
Worksheet
This is a prepared response format used to ‘de-skill’ complex data tasks, e.g income tax return forms.
Performance Checklist
This is a checklist of performance standards or important characteristics of performance. It can be used to assist staff to learn, maintain standards, and improve performance.
USES OF PERFORMANCE AIDS
Performance aids can be used to assist the performance of many different kinds of tasks. They may provide an alternative to what could be very expensive training. However, it is necessary to identify those tasks that lend themselves to the use of performance aids and those that do not. Tasks for which they are most appropriate include:
Tasks in which there is a lengthy procedure, especially when it is done infrequently and could easily be forgotten by the worker. In such cases a checklist, for example, might be an appropriate aid to assist recall and therefore performance.
Tasks in which there are difficult stimulus-response situations. The worker may be presented with several stimuli (visual, audible, tactile, etc.) each requiring a specific response. In such cases a performance aid providing an authentic stimulus and guidance as to the correct response might prove an effective alternative to full training.
Tasks in which there are problem solving or discriminatory situations. Without a performance aid the worker would need a high level of subject expertise, which might be uncharacteristic of the job in general. In such cases the use of an algorithm or logical tree could provide the expert guidance and advice needed to consider the options logically and comprehensively.
Tasks performed by many people where expensive training cannot be justified. In such cases the performance aid would ensure that everybody can perform the task without requiring much training.
However, performance aids are not appropriate for all tasks. For some there is no alternative to full training. Typically, this situation arises when skill, rather than the application of knowledge, becomes the essential feature of the performance. Tasks requiring physical, manipulative, and interpersonal skills, for example, are likely to require full training.
DEVELOPING PERFORMANCE AIDS
Before any decision can be made about the use of performance aids, analysis of the task must be undertaken. The results of analysis will enable a rational decision to be made as to where a performance aid could replace formal training and exactly what information needs to be included. In addition, the typical entry behaviour of trainees must be assessed.
The difference between the job requirements as identified by analysis of the task and trainees’ entry behaviour is the performance gap. To achieve satisfactory performance this gap must be bridged by means of a combination of formal training and performance aids. Performance aids are appropriate where:
Required skills are already possessed by the user of the aid, e.g. the car mechanic’s fault location chart can be used to locate a fault, on the assumption that when the fault is found the mechanic will have the skill to correct it.
Required knowledge and skills have been acquired recently, e.g. a reminder sheet for a newly trained bank teller.
To decide whether a performance aid is appropriate consider the following questions:
- Are there knowledge-based deficiencies in the performance of job holders, either experienced job holders or newly trained?
- Does the performance of the task allow time for an aid? If the speed of the tasks prevents the job holder referring to any aid then it is not an appropriate solution and formal training may be the only alternative.
- Can the form of a suitable aid be described?
- What benefits will result from the introduction of a performance aid?
These will be determined by the entry skills and knowledge of the job holder as much as by the task requirements.
- Will benefits outweigh costs?
- Is expertise available to design and develop an aid?
- Are resources available to develop an aid?
- Is an aid acceptable to trainees, job holders, and management?
GUIDELINES FOR SELECTING TYPE OF PERFORMANCE AID
Having decided that a performance aid is appropriate, follow these guidelines:1. Straightforward procedural task
Consider Task Guidance List
2. Complex procedural tasks
Consider Guidance Flowchart
3. Tasks with one or one difficult/important elements.
Consider Tip Sheet
4. Tasks based on a routine cycle with some occasional exceptions
Consider Exceptions Chart
5. Operator errors unrecognized, not corrected, or repeated
Consider Off Standard Chart
6. A task involves complex calculations
Consider Worksheet
7. Tasks comprise several separate outputs or checks rather than a series of steps to a single output.
Consider Performance Checklist
MEDIUM OF PRESENTATION
For both types of performance aid it is necessary to use a medium of presentation that is compatible with operational requirements. Failure to recognise this when choosing a medium of presentation may lead to the aid being unusable under working conditions, and consequently resulting in substandard performance.
Answers to the following questions might help to clarify the choice:
Is the aid accessible? The aid must be available at the task location; this might require that the aid can be sued under a variety of conditions.
Is the aid compatible with entry behaviour? The effectiveness of an aid is dependent on the generic and job-related skills of the user. Ability to comprehend written or diagrammatic information, for example, is a major factor in the successful use of an aid.
Can the aid be used quickly and easily by the ‘user’? For example, computer-based diagnostics depend upon the user having the requisite operating skills.
Is the aid effective? Performance aids are an option for one to consider. Equally, the medium of presentation may provide options. The cost of providing an aid and the cost of the medium of presentation has to be considered with alternative ways of achieving the desired standard of performance.
If working condition’s call for a quick decision, is the aid a help or a hindrance?
Is the aid likely to get dirty? Paper products under dirty conditions easily become unusable.
SUMMARY
- Replace training completely;
- Reduce the need for training;
- Provide post-training support for trainee;
- Support job holders’ performance above a level sustainable by his or her knowledge and skill;
- Provide a reference for resolving faults, difficulties, and problems without supervision;
- Reduce requirement for knowledge retention by job holder, e.g. a task list;
- Reduce or replace need for specialist decision making and / or fault recognition skills, e.g. flowcharts;
- Prompt poorly cued tasks, e.g. checklists;
- Prompt infrequently undertaken tasks, e.g. tip sheets.
Action Plans
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
2. List the benefits of preparing action plans.
3. Describe the purpose of action planning.
INTRODUCTION
The value of training depends entirely upon what happens after it is over. On whether, because of this learning experience, your job performance improves. How well you can apply your learning to your job will largely decide this. Applying your learning means doing things differently from the way they are done now, and have been done in the past.
To help you apply your learning to your job, you need to think during the process about what you could do differently and better. Only during the learning process will you have the time and opportunity to think about and decide what you want to do. When you return to your job, all the old pressures and routine will try to push you to leave things the way they have always been.
One way of helping you transfer your learning is to prepare an Action Plan.
WHAT IS AN ACTION PLAN?
An Action Plan is a statement of your plan of action about the topics and ideas covered during training. You are, in fact, setting objectives for you in areas where you can identify opportunities to apply your learning.
Action Plans are about change:- Change in yourself
- Change in your job
- Change in your work relationships
- Change in the organization
It is a plan which you will take away back to your work place. The plan will include:
- how you can become more effective
- how colleagues can become more effective
- how the organisation’s procedures can be made more effective
Ideas for Action Plans will come to you from:
- the knowledge you gain
- the skills you develop
- the projects and assignments undertaken
- discussion with other participants
- the opportunity to think about your job and its environment in detail and more objectively than you can in the normal day-to-day situation.
An Action Plan covers:
a) A statement of the action area identified.
b) A statement of the Aim for each planned action, in performance terms, i.e that will be done.
c) A statement of the resources, means, process, and people to be involved in achieving the desired result.
d) A statement of the timescale and standards for each action area.
e) An overall priority rating to guide implementation, i.e. what you will do first.
WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF AN ACTION PLAN?
1. To help you build a ‘bridge’ between what you learn during training and what your job requires.
2. To provide you with a ‘springboard’ to help overcome the possible resistance from colleagues who have not had the same learning experience.
3. To enable you to foresee possible difficulties in making your planned changes and consider suitable methods to overcome them.
4. To provide you with a clear and concise list of important parts of your job that require most time and attention.
5. To enable you to identify changes in your job content that would result in your greater effectiveness in that job.
6. To provide you with positive evidence of what and how much you have learnt. Your trainers can also use it to assess the value of the training being provided and, where necessary, modifying the learning event.
WHEN SHOULD ACTION PLOANS BE MADE?
The answer to this question is simple – when an idea comes into your mind. Any idea may arise during a session, an exercise, or an assignment. They can be tested out, developed, and refined during discussion with other participants and trainers. The most important thing is to keep a note of your ideas. Otherwise, we soon forget them. There is little chance of an unrecorded ‘good idea’ being remembered and implemented six months later.
We attach an Action Plan form an example. The use of the form is optional; only use it, if it helps you. Any note paper or perhaps even a booklet can be used to record your action ideas. The important thing is to record them. You then have plenty of time to decide how good they are and how they can be implemented.
SHOULD THE ACTION PLANS BE REVISED BEFORE IMPLEMENTATION?
Yes, you should integrate and rationalise your plans. Later learning experiences might change your earlier ideas, although your later ideas will not necessarily be any better than your early ones. If you do not keep a record of all your ideas on action topics, you cannot tell whether your ideas have developed! You may lose completely a very good action idea.
At the end of training you might look at all your Action Plans with the Aims of the training. Reviewing the aims will remind you of the subject areas covered. You can then see if your Action Plans have missed any topic area important to you and your job.
A series of action ideas need to be brought together at the end into a thought-out Action Plan. A plan that can be shown to others, explained in detail, and defended if necessary.
When you return to your job, discussing your plans with your manager is essential. This can be part of the debriefing that should be planned as part of good training practices. It might be that your manager has information that could improve or modify the plan and make it more practically achievable.
The preparation of an Action Plan emphasizes the need for you to see your superior when possible on your return. You need positively and objectively to discuss your learning experiences and the changes you would like to make as a result.
WHY WILL YOU BENEFIT FROM THE ACTION PLAN?
The change from training activities to job performance will quickly result in the feeling that you have not been away. What will therefore be difficult will be turning what you have learnt into what you will do.
During training you will need to think carefully about you and your job. You will have to analyse your learning experiences, your job, and yourself and decide what could or should be happening and what has been happening. Although hard at first, as your learning progresses ideas will come more easily and more frequently. Identifying areas for change and improvement, and how to bring them; about, is where training pays off for you and your organization. These ideas will give you a real feeling of achievement both during the training and then later when you can apply this practically.
If you do not prepare an Action Plan, then the training (however ‘good’, or well validated or enjoyable) will probably be of little use to you. Making specific plans now gives you a base for actually applying your ideas. You will achieve more success through planning than you could if you do not plan.
FINAL THOUGHTS
1. One of the most revealing things about making out an Action Plan for yourself is that you will almost certainly discover what you are worth to your organisation.
2. Although you may judge yourself by what you want to do, others will judge you by what you have done in the past and are doing now.
3. A training and development programme is not just for discussing and solving problems and doing exercises, but it is also to encourage you to DO something.
4. It is you, not the trainers, who can decide what can go into your Action Plan. Everyone else can talk about it. You must do it!
ACTION PLAN
Name: Date:
ACTION
AIM
RESOURCES & METHODS
TIMESCALEAfter reading this handout you will be able to:
1. Establish the importance of costing training.
2. Identify types of costs.
3. List the components of various types of costs.
4. Distinguish between a cost centre and a cost unit.
5. List the stages involved in processing of costing.
6. Cost a training centre.
INTRODUCTION
We are all familiar with the general use of the words ‘costs’ and ‘costing’. When an article or service is bought the ‘cost’ is the price paid. The ‘costing’ of that article will be made up of such items as raw materials costs, labour, and processing costs, and finally profit.
Putting this into a training context, we see that external courses have a price which is a cost to the organisation sending trainees. Training which takes place inside the business also incurs costs in time, materials, etc. These costs are more difficult to establish than the straightforward invoice for an external course. Even more difficult to quantify are the costs of work not done because of the training activity.
REAL COSTS AND OPPORTUNITY COSTS
Costs may be divided into two groups – real costs and opportunity costs. Real costs are those which arise when an expenditure of resources is incurred by a particular action or decision. Included in real costs are such items as trainees’ salaries, staff salaries, cost of materials used, and equipment purchased.
The second type of costs, and much more difficult to quantify, are opportunity costs. These are the notional costs incurred by undertaking one activity rather than another. Thus training incurs an opportunity cost because the trainees, trainers and plant, materials and equipment could all be used in alternative ways to benefit the organisation. Opportunity costs of training arise from use of capital and manpower resources in the training activity. Capital is employed through the equipment, learning resources and buildings used for training and the purchase and storage of material. Manpower resources are trainees, trainers, and the supporting administration, all of whom could be employed in alternative functions. The opportunity cost of capital is the return which could have been achieved by using these resources for productive output. Similarly the opportunity cost of manpower is the output that could have been gained if everyone concerned in training was employed in some directly productive activity.
In staff development programmes the opportunity cost of training may be the cost of replacing the trainee in the job during training.
Opportunity costs are generally omitted from costing exercise because of the difficulties in attempting to quantify them. They should be considered if the total costs of an activity are being reviewed or a cost/benefit study undertaken.
THE COST CENTRE AND THE COST UNIT
A cost centre is a place or activity which incurs costs. So a cost centre may be an organisation, an area of the organisation such as the training centre, an organizational division such as a production department or training department or an activity such as distribution, purchasing or training. Cost centres are arbitrarily defined to meet the needs of the accountants or other persons undertaking the costing.
A cost unit is the unit of output being costed and may be a bolt, a car, a computer from an organisation or a graduate from a university, or a trained person from a training centre. All the costs of producing the output are gathered and a cost per unit produced can be calculated. For mass-produced items the costs are averaged out over the total output for a fixed period. Specially produced items (e.g. tailor-made suit) may be costed individually.
The cost centre and cost unit are useful concepts which enable costs to be analysed and provide useful information for management. Depending upon your purpose a training programme can be treated as a cost centre and those undergoing training in it as the cost units. Alternatively the training department can be the cost centre and training activities treated as the output, i.e. as cost units.
TYPES OF COST
There are many terms used in costing which are used loosely in everyday conversation. It is part of the costing process to identify different types of cost which helps both in placing costs against cost centres and also in analysing the costing when completed.
Direct and Indirect Costs
Direct costs are those directly attributable to the activity being costed. In a training programme the wages of trainers and trainees during training are a direct cost. Other direct costs incurred by a training activity and which will be allocated to it as a cost centre, are materials used during training and expenses incurred. Expenses may be travel, accommodation, protective clothing, etc. For all direct costs the expenditure can be traced directly to the cost centre.
Indirect costs are those which are necessary expenditures for the cost centre to operate but are not directly attributable to its activities. Such expenditures as, rent, insurance, heating, lighting, administration, has to be paid but are difficult to attribute to specific cost centres.
If these expenditures were not made, the normal activities of the other cost centres could not take place, therefore some portion of these indirect costs must be included in the costing for each cost centre. These indirect costs are also commonly called ‘overheads’. Training activity will incur ‘overheads’ from the common resources it uses from the organisation. Training may, in turn, be charged as an overhead to other cost centres.
Fixed Variable Costs
Fixed costs are those which are independent of the level of activity in the cost centre. Rent, and salaries are fixed costs for the training department however much or little training is undertaken. This is true only in the short-term as premises can be expanded or contracted, staff recruited or made redundant, etc.
Variable costs are those which change with the activity in a cost centre. The major variable costs are labour, materials and direct expenses. This follows because the more output produced by a cost centre the larger the input of labour and material required.
The distinction between fixed and variable costs helps in the analysis of costing data. The costed figure for a training programme will consist of fixed and variable costs. Consider a residential course taking place in a hotel. Fixed costs will be tutors, the hire of lecture rooms, and provision of equipment. Variable costs, depend upon the number of trainees, and provision of equipment. Variable costs, depending upon the number of trainees, will be meals, accommodation, handouts etc. Variables costs will increase with the rise in number of trainees and vice versa.
Marginal Costs
Marginal or incremental costs are those additional costs incurred by producing another unit of output above the current level of production. In manufacturing the marginal cost is the extra labour, material, and direct expenses, used in producing another unit.
All overheads are ignored as these will be incurred anyway. The marginal cost of one additional trainee would be the trainee’s salary, the additional materials used, and any direct expenses incurred (e.g. travel). The marginal cost can be a useful guide to the real cost of sending another trainee on a course as the overheads (e.g. trainers’ salary) will remain constant. Remember that increasing the number of trainees beyond a certain point may reduce the effectiveness of the course.
PROCESS OF COSTING
Having considered some terms used in costing it is now possible to summarise the process of costing into four stages:
Stage 1 Accumulate costs
Stage 2 Classify costs
Stage 3 Allocate direct costs
Stage 4 Apportion indirect costs
Costs are classified, according to the purpose of the costing exercise into categories giving the type of expenditure and the cost centre incurring it.
Allocation of costs occurs when those direct costs incurred by a cost centre are attributed to it. A direct cost which would be allocated to the training centre is the wage payment of instructors.
Apportioning costs is the distribution of overheads and is much more difficult. Training incurs overheads or indirect costs which have to be apportioned from such things as rent, electricity bills, administration, etc. It is impossible to calculate exactly what proportion of these costs should be apportioned so some formula is adopted by the accountants which they deem fair. However, because such decisions tend to be arbitrary, it is possible for one form of training to appear rather more than be, much cheaper than another. For example, external courses may appear much cheaper than internal training. However, if the direct costs of internal training are significantly less than the cost of external courses, it may well be worth asking ‘What would happen to the overheads if no in-situ training takes place?’. If the answer is that they would still be incurred they should be apportioned to the total cost of external training.
COSTING A PRODUCT
Let us now consider the costing of a product. For simplicity we shall consider a ‘jobbing shop’ where every item produced is for a specific customer’s requirements and labour and material costs are ‘booked’ against the job. All the documents have been accumulated and classified in the costs office and are available. It is now a matter of allocating and apportioning these costs to arrive at a total cost.
First, the direct costs are collected which are labour, materials, and direct expenses:
Total cost = Direct costs + Indian costsor Prime cost + Overheads
Direct Costs: Labour ]
Materials ] Prime cost
Direct Expenses ]
Indirect costs: General ]
Administration ] Overheads
Sales ]
Distribution ]
The total of direct costs is called the prime cost as this is the cost to the organisation before overheads are considered. Labour costs would be the wages for all the employee hours booked to the job. Designers and draughtsman's time will also be included if appropriate. Material is the cost of materials used in producing the product. Direct expenses will be those costs which were incurred purely in the execution of this job. If the job is to be installed by the manufacturer on a site then travelling and residential costs of fitters would be charged as direct expenses.
Indirect costs or overheads are made up of many elements, the first being general overhead. General overhead will be an apportioning of such costs as building and machine maintenance, cleaning, heating, fuel calculated on some formula such as length of time jobs was in the shop, area it occupied, etc. Administration costs will be some proportion of administration, personnel, training and management’s costs – again apportioned on some equitable basis. Sales and marketing costs are incurred in interesting the customer in the placing of an order so a proportion are charged to the product. Distribution costs may be incurred not only in sending the finished goods to the customer but also in packaging and storing. Collection, storage, and handling of raw materials are also costs which may be charged under distribution.
There are a great variety of ways in which an accountant can go about allocating and apportioning costs. No two accountants, given a free hand, are likely to come out with the same answer. This does not matter really, while all costs are included and that within the organisation consistency is maintained.
Overheads tend to be looked at as an unanswered burden on the individual cost centre. But remember, without those overheads heating would not work, no one would ever clean the place, wages would not be paid! Also bear in mind that whilst administration may be overhead charged to training, training in turn becomes an overhead charged to departments for which training is undertaken (or perhaps to every department whether training is undertaken on their behalf or not!).
Charge to training centre
Salaries
Materials
Energy
Maintenance
Building
Fees and Expenses
Insurance
Rent
Depreciation
Administration
Miscellaneous
Costing a Training Programme
Cost of training programme
Costing Types of Training
- On-the-job-training
- Off-the-job-training
- External training
Why Cost Training?
Control
Decision-Making
Preparing Budgets
Justify expenditure
Comparison
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Introduction
Investing in People
- Benefits to the Organisation
- Higher profits or efficiency
- Better productivity
- An expanding share of the market
- A better service to customers or clients
- A stable workforce
- Benefits to the Employee
- Job Security
- Help with work-related problems
- Better pay
- Job satisfaction
- Prospects of advancement
- Opportunity to realize potential
- What return will we get on this investment?
- When can I expect such a return?
- What would be the consequences of not spending the money?
- How are you going to spend the money?
- Can't you do it more economically?
Benefit of Training
Selling your proposal
- Ones from a line department that may have a direct bearing on performance?
- Ones from an institution, which may only indirectly, affect performance?
Why Train?
- Demand for a more highly skilled workforce
- A reduction in the number of people available
- Comparison with international competitors
- Rising expectations of employees
- Competition between employers to attract and retain employees
Although many progressive organisations have recognized these factors, others have not. You may have to contend with.
- A relatively low status in the organisation
- Low expectations from management
- Lack of resources
- Lack of support
- Low credibility of the training department or institution
- Low personal credibility
Who is Your Customer/Client?
- You might close the sale with the customer ('Yes, I think the course will be ideal for me'), and then fail to gain the approval of the client ('The course is too long, expensive, inappropriate')
- Alternatively, the client may take the initiative, suggesting, for example a course for somebody who subsequently rejects the proposals. Then where do you go?
- Also, stakeholders are likely to be in influential positions, with the power to support training activities.
Linking Training to the Customer's Needs
- Current problems that are affecting performance in the organisation. These are of major concern when they directly affect the performance of line departments. Typical examples involve quality, equipment downtime, safety and customer complaints. Often these problems require immediate solutions.
- Anticipated problems, where the organisation is planning changes in personnel, to working practices or to equipment, products and services. These problems may not have the same degree of urgency as the first type" but they may be just as important.
- The full extent of the problem and the effects it has or may have on performance
- The contribution towards solving the problem expected from the proposed training
- Who needs training and what training do they need
- The client's ideas about possible training activities
- Details of the training solutions you are proposing
- The support available from senior management
- Constraints such as time, money, support, and opportunities for training
- Contributions and responsibilities for training staff and others who will be involved in the development and implementation of the training
Design Brief
Use a Guide for Writing the Proposal
The Purpose Statement
The Problem Statement
The Solution Statement
The Implementation Statement
The Follow-up Statement
- Organise your ideas according to your client's interests. If your client is concerned with cost, don't bury it. If the concern is benefit, highlight them.
- Use single theme paragraphs. This technique will increase the clarity of your proposal.
- Don't become a slave to this approach. Each communication is unique. Use these notes as a guide and starting point, not as a prescriptive formula.
- No one has time to read long proposals, so keep it as short as possible.
Project:
Aim of Project Design:
Need:
People:
Objective:
Enabling Objective:
Entry behaviour
Learning Events
----------
Performance Assessment:
- Assessment of performance is inbuilt in the learning events as much as everywhere Quiz and Practical Exercises have been provided.
- The participants would also be asked to draw up an action plan in the concluding session based on the learning acquired during the training course.
Validation Measures
An immediate reaction questionnaire will be given to the participants at the end of the course to elicit their views about the achievement of objectives, content, presentation and sequencing learning events, training methodology, time allotted to individual topics, etc.A post course questionnaire will be sent to the participants and their organisation after about six months to find out how far has the training course helped in sorting out the performance problem.
Duration:
Five working days with four sessions of about 90 minutes each per day.Faculty
Since this is a short duration course and each learning event develops from the earlier one, it is recommended that only one member of the faculty should run this course throughout, right from the inaugural session till the concluding session.Design Constraints:
The possible constraints are discussed below.Training Policy and Training Priorities
Budget:
No constraintsTrainees:
Trainers:
This is proposed to be a one faculty training course. There are faculty competent to conduct the course independently.Time:
The training course can be held at a time when the Parliament is not in session. This would make the reparability of the officers easy.Location:
In any of the classrooms in an Institute. There will be no constraint in this regard.Equipment and Materials:
Training equipment are available. As far as training material is concerned, the faculty is competent to develop that.Benefits:
There will be two fold benefits from the training course:-a) The organisations of the participants will benefit by improved performance of learners and thus would contribute to the effective Records Management resulting in:
i) Substantial savings from control on Creation of Records
ii) Retrieval of premium space due to elimination of unwanted records
iii) Availability of complete, accurate and timely records to meet the information need of the organisation.
b) The implementation of the training course and the consequent transfer of learning to the respective work situation by the learners would enhance the credibility and prestige of the institute.
Design ProjectPurpose of Project
The project is intended to serve three purposes:1. To consolidate what you have been learning during the course.
2. To help you – and us, assess your learning.
3. To give you the opportunity to transfer what you have learnt (i.e. the objectives of the course) to your organisation.The project is unique and personal to you. You are responsible for justifying its choice and the intended aim. You are also responsible for its planning and implementation.
Selection a Project
- The topic must be of interest to you.
- It must be a challenge. You should be ambitious and choose a topic which makes sufficient demands upon your experience and learning.
- It must be realistic, taking into account the time and resources available.
It should be a new design, or a major revision of an existing one.
Why do a Project?
During normal course activities there may be limited opportunities to consider how your learning relates to your work as a trainer. Equally, it’s difficult for tutors to assess whether you have achieved the objectives of the course.
A design project provides an opportunity to consolidate your learning and to help you relate it to its application in your organisation. Projects are also an important feature of the system used for assessment.
There are other benefits in doing a project.
- Writing about a subject immediately after you have studied it helps to reinforce the learning and to clarify your thinking about it.
- Projects may help you to identify gaps in your learning which you can discuss with a senior member of staff to whom you report.
- They may help your tutor’s to correct any misunderstandings resulting from workshop activities.
- They provide evidence about how learning is progressing.
- They provide you with feedback.
- The project can be used as a reminder when you return to work of the actions you intended to take as a result of learning new things on the course.
How do I know what to write about?
Your tutor will help you to select a project that is appropriate to both the course requirements and your role as a designer of training. You will be asked to complete a Project Proposal form which has to be approved by your tutor.
Can I change the content of an assignment if I wish?
Yes. But if there are significant changes to what was approved, please contact your tutor first.
How long should a project be?
There are no fixed rules about this. The answer is as long as it needs to be for you to complete your design, and no longer. On the other hand, if the project is too short, you cannot develop your thoughts and proposals in sufficient detail. As a minimum, you would need to write about 1,000 words. If you write more than 1,500 words, you are probably writing too much.
Do I need to include everything I have learnt?
Certainly not. You should show that you have understood concepts related to the design of training; how they contribute to the overall process of design; and how they can be applied in your work. No more. And please write it in your own words. Long quotations from books or from the handouts are of no value to you.
Is it important to complete the assignments on time?
Your tutor will suggest a date by which you should complete the project. There are no penalties if you do not complete it by that date. However, it is important that you should keep as close as possible to that date, so that you complete the design whilst the course is fresh in your mind.
What happens to a project after it has been submitted?
At the start of the project you will be asked to describe what you intend to produce on completion of the project. This will enable your tutors to assess the quality of your ‘product’ and the extent of your achievement.
Your project should result in a written report based on the design proposal. This will be assessed by a course tutor using the ‘Project Assignment Form’, and will provide comments about the design and suggestions for further development.
The reason for using assessment headings is firstly, to indicate to you the criteria against which your project will be assessed. The second reason to help your tutor assess your project and give you feedback.
Having completed the DoT Workshop, you should be familiar with the terms used for the criteria. The first assessment section deals with general design features that explain the context within which you are designing training. The second assessment section examines detail features that we would expect you to include in your design.
Handing in projects
Projects should be returned to the course tutor by the Return Date specified. Marked work will be returned to your within three weeks of it being received, along with whatever advice your tutor feels will be helpful.
DoT Project Proposal Form
Name:....................................
Facilitator:....................................
The Workshop gives you an opportunity to develop an understanding of the concepts and practices of training design. The project is intended to continue your development by inviting you to undertake a practical design project of benefit to your institution or organization. The choice of what you design is left for you to decide, although it should tackle a specific, performance related training need.
Please provide your facilitator with the following details of your proposed project:
Name:
Institution or organisation:
Aim of design:
How will this design benefit your institution or organisation?
Your project should be sent to your facilitator at the following address:
Please note that the final dated for accepting your project will be ....../......./.......
Participants who complete their project successfully will be awarded the Design of Training Certificate, under the accreditation of the Department of Personnel and Training.
Your facilitator will assess your project using the criteria listed on the Project Assessment Form. Please note that emphasis should be given to the imaginative and practical application of these design features, as they are not intended to impose a rigid set of rules. The criterion score is 70%.
If your project is not up to the required standard, it will be referred. Your facilitator will give you advice about how the project can be improved, and you will be invited to resubmit it. Please note that the course provision allows for one referral, only.
DoT-21
