(Press-News.org) Each year in the United States about $135 billion is spent in training employees — but those billions do not always improve the workplace because the skills often do not transfer to the actual job.
"Learning is a way of life in organizations," says Eduardo Salas, a psychological scientist from the University of Central Florida. "Everyone gets training. But what matters? What works? What influences learning and skill acquisition?"
In a new report published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Salas and co-authors conclude that when this money is well spent, "training and development activities allow organizations to adapt, compete, excel, innovate, produce, be safe, improve service and reach goals."
One of the most important things that "matters", the researchers found in their survey of the vast scientific literature on the science of training, is that human resource executives, chief learning officers and business leaders should view training as a whole system and not a one-time event. This means that what happens before and after the actual training are just as important as the training itself.
Training is especially effective when various jobs in the organization have been analyzed, the skill sets of its employees are understood, supervisors and leaders are all on the same page and trainees are motivated to learn. During the training, whether it is computer and technology based or in a classroom, sufficient structure and guidance should be offered to trainees while still giving them opportunities to make decisions about their learning experience. After the training, trainees should have ample time and opportunities to use what they have learned in the real world with real feedback.
The individual characteristics that trainees bring to a learning environment are especially important to consider when implementing training programs. Research shows that trainees who believe that their abilities actually influence training outcomes are more likely to persist in learning activities, even when they encounter challenges. And psychological science has also shown that trainees who are oriented toward mastery or learning may perform better when they can control how they explore and organize training material, whereas trainees who are oriented toward performance seem to do better in highly structured environments that involve successively more complex tasks.
The broader psychological science of learning can also inform effective training programs. Research shows that a gap exists between performance in training and the integration of newly learned skills on the job. But that gap can be narrowed through the application of various empirically tested insights into learning. For example, repeating tasks within increasingly complicated contexts helps to ensure that learning lasts over time. Furthermore, encountering errors during training helps to prepare trainees for real-life situations as they are required to apply concepts learned in training. Finally, watching someone else perform certain skills can also contribute to learning, a concept scientists refer to as behavioral role modeling.
Despite the wealth of practical and scientific research in this field, as Paul W Thayer, professor of psychology from North Carolina State University in Raleigh points out in his commentary accompanying the article, "There is still a tendency in business, government, and academia to adopt programs based on little more than attractiveness, modishness, or a desire to keep up with others in the field."
Salas and his colleagues have tips for policymakers, too, who may need to assess skills across an entire country or geographic region, and whose goals are more likely to include skills that are relevant to many jobs to ease employee transfers. Establishing a well-prepared labor pool can help to attract businesses, provide jobs, and increase competitiveness in a given area or industry. With this in mind, the authors emphasize that "government should not be promoting or investing in training efforts that fail to incorporate the principles of good training."
Policymakers can use the best practices of training evaluation to scrutinize funded training programs for inefficiencies and determine whether those programs still merit funding.
Before embarking on a training program, organizers should always ask a series of questions. What training strategy will be employed? What are we doing to ensure that we adequately engage, motivate and challenge the trainees? What are we going to do before and after this training to ensure trainees can and will use what they have learned?
"The take home message is that organizations who invest in training need to be informed by the science," Salas says.
###
The new report, "The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice," is co-authored by Scott Tannenbaum of The Group for Organizational Effectiveness, Kurt Kraiger of Colorado State University, and Kimberly Smith-Jentsch of the University of Central Florida.
For more information about this study, please contact: Eduardo Salas at esalas@ist.ucf.edu.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest is a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. It publishes an eclectic mix of thought-provoking articles on the latest important advances in psychology. For a copy of the article "The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice" and access to other Psychological Science in the Public Interest research findings, please contact Lucy Hyde at 202-293-9300 or lhyde@psychologicalscience.org.
END
Although mammograms are often a life-saving tool for women, according to a study published the Annals of Internal Medicine, the frequency that women undergo these tests should be customized to each patient -- based on the woman's age, breast density and her family's history of breast cancer.
Although the American Cancer Society suggests that women begin receiving annual mammograms at age 40, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Forces advises women to be screened every other year from age 50 to 74, John Schousboe of Park Nicollet Health Services in Minneapolis and his ...
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have developed a fuel cell that runs on the same sugar that powers human cells: glucose. This glucose fuel cell could be used to drive highly efficient brain implants of the future, which could help paralyzed patients move their arms and legs again.
The fuel cell, described in the June 12 edition of the journal PLoS ONE, strips electrons from glucose molecules to create a small electric current. The researchers, led by Rahul Sarpeshkar, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, fabricated the fuel cell ...
(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health (BUSM, BUSPH), along with the VA Boston Healthcare System and Harvard Medical School, have found inpatient medical procedures increased more among non-elderly, lower- and medium- income populations, Hispanics and whites, after health care reform went into effect in Massachusetts. The findings, which currently appear in Medical Care, suggest improved access to outpatient care for vulnerable subpopulations since health care reform took effect.
The 2006 Massachusetts health reform implementation ...
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, reports that it received fewer reports of injuries from companies in 2011. It is unclear if this is due to an actual drop in injuries or because more companies are failing to report injuries involving their products.
CBS News reports that 10 companies were fined more than $4 million in 2011, up substantially from the previous year's two companies. Companies tend to be less than enthusiastic when voluntarily reporting injuries, but the reports are required by law.
Some companies may claim they did not report certain ...
AURORA, Colo. (June 13, 2012) – Estrogen-deficient, postmenopausal women who have had their uterus removed appear to have stiffer arteries compared to similar women who have not had a hysterectomy, according to new research from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The finding may help explain the greater risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in women, reported in previous research.
"The message here is that having a hysterectomy may lead to large artery stiffening, which can lead to the development of cardiovascular disease," said Kerrie ...
North-East Passage soon free from ice again? Winter measurements show thin sea ice in the Laptev Sea, pointing to early and large-scale summer melt
The North-East Passage, the sea route along the North coast of Russia, is expected to be free of ice early again this summer. The forecast was made by sea ice physicists of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association based on a series of measurement flights over the Laptev Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. Amongst experts the shelf sea is known as an "ice factory" of Arctic ...
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held that people harmed by generic prescription drugs cannot sue generic manufacturers under the claim of inadequate warning labels. In PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, the High Court dismissed the legal claims of two women who suffered physical injury because of the inadequate warning labels on their generic medication.
While the Court ruled in 2009 that injured plaintiffs could bring state law claims against pharmaceutical companies for poor labeling on name-brand drugs, the PLIVA ruling bars similar suits against manufacturers of the generic ...
A significant number of teenagers are sending and receiving sexually explicit cell phone photos, often with little, if any, awareness of the possible psychological, interpersonal, and sometimes legal consequences of doing so. Even many of those who believe there could be serious legal consequences are undeterred and still choose to engage in 'sexting'. These findings by Donald Strassberg, from the University of Utah (US), and colleagues are published online in Springer's journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.
New communication technologies play an increasingly important ...
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—June 13, 2012—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes today are announcing their role in an unprecedented collaboration organized by the National Institutes of Health, which used groundbreaking methods to vastly improve our understanding of bacteria that reside in and on the human body.
In a series of coordinated scientific reports, some 200 members of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) Consortium from nearly 80 research institutions used advanced DNA-sequencing techniques to identify the thousands of microorganisms that live on humans. Researchers believe ...
Children are not just miniature versions of adults. Their rapidly-developing bodies have different physiological sensitivities, and pediatric medical care should reflect this.
However, for years, the same CT scans, fluoroscopy procedures and other X-ray imaging techniques have been used on both adults and children. Now, concerned about cancer diagnosis and other potential ill-effects of kids' exposure to radiation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is calling for X-ray imaging devices that take into account the unique health care needs of children.
Cancer-Causing ...
