Traning and Learning

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

Introduction – Training

Training is a process whereby an individual acquires job – related skills and knowledge. It is an important method for a business to improve performance of trainees. It is a cost to firms to pay for the training and also to suffer the loss of working hours whilst as trainee is being trained. However, the potential gains from employees training are significant. The main benefits of training are improved productivity and motivation of staff and also better quality products being made.

It is important that a business provides training that is consistent with the business strategy. The most important steps in developing a training strategy are to , Identifying the skills and abilities needed by trainees, drawing up an action plan to show how investment in training and development will help meet business goals and objectives, Implementing the plan, monitoring progress and training effectiveness.

The Importance of Training:

The significance and value of training has long been recognized. Consider the popular and often repeated quotation, “Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a person to fish and you feed him for a life time.” This simple but profound saying is attributed to the wisdom of Confucius who lived in the 5 th century BC. Given today’s business climate and the exponential growth in technology with its effect on the economy and society at large, the need for training is more pronounced than ever.

Training, in the most simplistic definition, is an activity that changes people’s behavior Increased productivity is often said to be the most important reason for training. But it is only one of the benefits. Training is essential not only to increase productivity but also to motivate and inspire workers by letting the know how important their jobs are and giving the all the information they need to perform those jobs (Anonymous, 1998).McNamara (n.d) lists the following as general benefits from employee training:

Increased job satisfaction and morale
Increased motivation
Increased efficiencies in process, resulting in financial gain
Increased capacity to adopt new technologies and methods
Increased innovation in strategies and products
Reduced employee turnover

This is only partial listing of the many benefits that result from training. Training that is appropriate to the needs of an organization can add great value. Training is not always the answer to performance problem. Brandt Sakakeeny, training industry analyst for Soloman Smith Barney believes that training can be great investment and training can be a waste of money (Rosner, 1999).training is indeed a waste when the desired behavior does not occur. Gupta acknowledges that not all performance problems can be addressed by training. In many cases, non – training interventions are necessary (Gupta 1999). The key is to identify what problems can be attributed are necessary (Gupta 1999).The key is to identify what problems can be attributed to training deficiencies and, once that is accomplished, to insure that the right training is implemented. Bartram and Gibson, in their Training Needs Analysis Toolkit agree. Without the right training , employees can be the orgainsation’s biggest liability. Trained effectively, however, they can become your biggest asset ( Bartram and Gibson, 2000). Rosner (1999) adds another ingredient for success – support after training . He states, “the most effective programs train workers in new behaviors and then train managers to support employees as they apply learning daily (Rosner, 1999). Support and endorsement from management can greatly enhance training results..

Needs of training :

Introduce new trainees to the business ( know as “ induction training”)

Help provide the skills the business needs (in particular asking the workforce more flexible or being trained on new higher technology machinery)

Provide trainees with better knowledge about the business and the market it operates

Provide support for jobs that are complex and for which the required skills and knowledge are often changing (e.g. a firm of lawyers training staff about new legislation)

Support the introduction of new working methods, such as a firm introducing new lean production techniques

Reduce the need for supervision and therefore free up valuable manager time

Password

Confirm Password

I agree to the terms of service and privacy policy

Help improve quality of product or service and lower customer complaints

Increase employee motivation and loyalty to the business

Linking learning through the senses: Keys to Successful Training

This is a preview of the whole essay

Help improve quality of product or service and lower customer complaints

Increase employee motivation and loyalty to the business

Linking learning through the senses: Keys to Successful Training

Learning happens when our senses are stimulated. We quickly learn when we are young that if we drink something that is very hot, we will experience the feeling of pain and the lingering effect of burned tongue. How did we learn this? Someone ay have warned us that a beverage was hot, or there may have been a sign or label that told us to be careful, we ay have felt the heat of the beverage through the cup that radiated onto our hands, and by the pain that the words of warning, see the label, feel the heat from the cup, and proceed to take a drink we are very careful. We gathered the information through our senses, learning quickly that if we want to avoid a burned tongue, we should let the beverage cool and sip carefully.

This is simple example is applicable to any of successful training or learning, by linking learning through engaging the senses we are more likely to remember ,retain, and use the information. The goal of any training interaction should be make learning easy, effective, engaging and productive. To do this, it is essential to understand how people learn. As we discussed here, one mode is through the senses. Our senses are information superhighways, by taking in information through a variety of channels and processing the information at extremely high rates. Our brains process information taken in by sight faster than hearing. Our abilities to master knowledge, concepts and skills are directly linked to our senses. Information presented through learning tools that invoke both words and pictures in seven times more likely to be retrained than words alone. In addition to visual aids, adding materials that can be manipulated by the learner and incorporate taste/smell, the opportunity for learning and information that is retained and remembered increases to rate ten times ore than through words alone.

Learning theories :

There are any different theories of how people learn. It is interesting to think about your own particular way of learning and to recognize that everyone does not learn the way you do.

Burns( 1995,pp99) ‘conceives of learning as a relatively permanent change in behaviour with behaviour including both observable acivity and internal process such as thinking , attitudes and emotions.’ It is clear that burns includes motivation in this definition of learning.

Sensory stimulation theory

Traditional sensory stimulation theory has as its basic premise that effective learning occurs when the senses are stimulated (Laird,1985). Laird quotes research that found that the vast majority of knowledge held by adults (75%) is learned through seeing. Hearing is the next most effective(about 13%) and other senses- touch, smell and taste account for 12 % of what we know. By stimulating the senses, especially the visual sense, learning can be enhanced. However, this theory says that if multi – senses are stimulated, greater learning takes place. Stimulation through the senses is achieved through a greater variety of colours , volume levels, strong statements facts presented visually, use of variety of techniques and media.

Reinforcement theory :

This theory was developed by the behaviourist school of psychology, notably by B.F.Skinner earlier this century (Laird 1985, Burns 1995). Skinner believed that behaviour is a function of its consequences. The learner will repeat the desired behaviour if positive reinforcement (a pleasant consequence ) follows the behaviour

Positive reinforcement, or ‘rewards’ can include verbal reinforcement such as 'ThatÕs great' or ‘You’re certainly on the right track’ through to more tangible rewards such as a certificate at the end of the course or promotion to a higher level in an organization.

Negative reinforcement also strengthens a behaviour and refers to a situation when a negative condition is stopped or avoid as a consequence of the behaviour. Punishment, on the other hand, weakens a behaviour because a negative condition is introduced or experienced as a consequence of the behaviour and teaches the individual not to repeat the behaviour which was negatively reinforced. Burns says that punishment is widely used in everyday life although it only works for a short tie and often only when the punishing agency is present.

Cognitive –Gestalt approaches

The emphasis here is on the importance of experience, meaning, problem solving and the department of insights (Burns 1995,p.112). Burns notes that this theory has developed the concept that individuals have different needs and concerns at different times, and that they have subjective interpretations in different contexts.

Hoslistic learning theory

The basic premise of this theory is that the ‘individual personality consists of many elements… specifically… the intellect, emotions, the body impulse (or desire), intuition and imagination (Laird, 1985,p.121) that all require activation if learning is to be more effective.

Facilitation theory ( the humanist approach)

Carl Rogers and others have developed the theory of facilitative learning. The basic premise of this theory is that learning will accur by the educator acting as a facilitator, that is by establishing an atmosphere in which learners feel comfortable to consider new ideas and are not threatened by external factors (Laird 1985)

Experiential learning:

Kolb proposed a four – stage learning process with a model that is often referred to in describing experiential learning (Mc Gill & Beaty 1995). The process can begin at any of the stages and is continuous, i.e there is no limit to the number of cycles ,can make in a learning situation. This theory asserts that without refelection we would simply continue to repeat our mistakes.

Kolb’s research found that people learn in four ways with the likelihood of developing one mode of learning more than another.

Though concrete experience

Through observation reflection

Through abstract conceptualization

Through active experimentation

Differences in learning styles :

As already discussed, the idea that people learn in different ways has been explored over the last few decades by researchers. Kolb, one of the most influential of these, found that individuals begin with their preferred style in the experiential learning cycle

Honey and Mumford building on Kolb’s work, identified four learning styles:

Activist ( enjoys the experience itself)
Reflector ( spends a great deal of time and effort reflecting)
Theorist (good at making connections and abstracting ideas from experience)
Pragmatist (enjoys the planning stage)

There are strengths and weaknesses in each of these styles Honey and Mumfors argue that learning is enhanced when we think about our learning style so that we can build on strengths and work towards minimizing weakness to improve the quality of learning.

Action Learning:

Action learning is the approach that links the world of learning with the world of the action through a reflective process within small cooperative learning groups known as ‘action learning sets’. The ‘sets’ meet regularly to work on individual memebers ‘real-life issues with the aim of learning with and from each other. The ‘father’ of Action Learning , Reg Revans, has said that there can be no learning without action and no action without learning.

Revans argued that learning can be shown by the following equation, where L is learning; P is programmed knowledge (eg traditional instruction) and Q is questioning insight

L = P + Q

Revans, along with many others who have used , researched and taught about this approach, argued that action learning is ideal for finding solutions to problem that do not have a ‘right’ answer because the necessary questioning insight can be facilitated by people learning with and from each other in action learning ‘sets’

Adult learning

Malcolm Knowles ( 1978,1990) is the theorist who brought the concept of adult learning to the fore. He has argued that adulthood has arrived when people behave in adult ways and belives themselves to be adults. Then they should be treated as adult learning was special in a number of ways.

Pogson and Tennant (1995) provide a perspective of adulthood as a social construction. They say that the concept of a life’s course varies for different individuals and different cultures : therefore trainers and trainees educators should be wary of definitive views od adults and their behaviour.

An adult emotional response can affect learning

Some adults can approach formal educational settings with anxiety and feelings of high or low self – efficacy. Their approach to new learning contexts can be influnced by how they appraise or evaluate the new experience.

I would choose Behaviorism learning theory as the best training method.

The Behaviorism Approach :

Behaviorism views development as a continious process in which children play a relatively passive role. It is also a general approach that is used in a variety of setting including both clinical and educational.

Early Theorists:

Ivan P.Pavlov is Russia’s most famous scientist. He had discovered “conditioning” For Pavlov, all behaviour was reflexive. But how do such behaviours differ the behaviour commonly called “instinctive” ? Instinctive behaviour is sometimes said to be motivated. The animal has to be hungry, to be sexually aroused, or to have nest – building hormones before these kinds of instinctive behaviour can occur.At a more abstract level, Pavlov though that all learning , whether of elicited responses in animals or of highly conceptual behaviours in humans, was due to the mechanisms of classical conditioning.

John B . Watson was one of the most colorful personalities in the history of psychology. Although he did not invent Behaviorism, he became widely know as its chief spokesman and protagonist.

It was Watson, more than Pavlov or any other one person , who convinced psychologists that the real explanation of behaviour lay in the nervous system and that as soon as we understood the brain a little better, most of the mysteries would disappear. And ,it was mainly because of Watson that so many psychologists came to believe that what they called ‘conditioning’ was so important (Bolles)

B.F.Skinner is considered by many authorities to have been the greatest behavioral Psychologist of all time.Earlier behaviorism has been concerned with stimulus-response connections. Skinner looked at the learning process in the opposite way, investing how learning was affected by stimuli presented after an act was performed. He found that certain stimuli caused the organism to repeat an act more frequently. He called stimuli with this effect the “reinforces”. Watson found that by providing reinforcement in a systematic way one could shape the behaviour in desired directions. “Link to Operant”

Trainers have benefited the most from Skinner’s fundamental work in reinforcement as a means of controlling and motivating trainees behaviour. Its various applications to training room practice are commonly called “behavior modification”, a technique that many trainers consider to be one of their most valuable tools for improving both learning and behaviour of their trainees.

Types of learning :

Classical conditioning is demonstrated when a neutral stimulus acquires the eliciting properties of the unconditioned stimulus through pairing the unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus.Behavior is controlled by association.

Operant conditioning is demonstrated when the reinforcing consequences immediately following the response increase its future likehood; aversive consequences immediately following the response to decrease its future likelihood.

In looking for more direct and effective explanation of the development of children’s social behaviour, psychologists sparked the emergence of observational learning (or Social Learning Theory). Albert Bandura demonstrated that modeling or observational learning is the basis for a variety of childern’s behaviours. He stated that children acquire many favorable and unfavorable responses by simply watching and listening to others around them. A child who kicks other children after he sees it occurs at the babysitter’s house, a student who shaves her hair because her friends did, and the boy who is always late for class because others are , are all displaying there results of observational learning.

Other examples of observational learning include: modeling ,imitation, vicarious, learning, identification, copying, social facilitation, contagion, and role play.

In studying animal behaviours, the term imprinting wa introduced by Lorenz. Imprinting refers to the appearance of complex behaviours apparently as a result of exposure to an apporiate object at critical time. This is demonstrated with newly hatched ducklings which will follow the first moving object they encounter and became attached to it .

Applications: Commonly used applications by a behaviorist include :

positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, token economy, self –management, extinction, shaping, contracts, time out, systematic desensitization

Applying the concepts: Using Self – Modification to Change Behaviour

The Theories and research of the Behaviorist approach gave rise to therapies designed to change behavior by using learning principles. Many of these therapies have been remarkably successful for sereval traines who have specific behaviours or habits that they want to alter.

Conclusion :

The behaviorism theory is the one of the best learning method. Various steps are involved in developing a technology of training . The features of this approach are perhaps particularly significant in terms of the potential contribution each offers to the improvement of training. Emphasis on defining training objectives in behavioral terms and particularly attempts to define complex behaviour in terms of its simple constituent elements. Appropriate training strategies in terms of interactions between trainee’s capabilities and subject matter characteristics. Assessing the effectiveness of training in terms of the results is actually achievement. I conclude that training is not always the answer , and when it is the answer, it has to be the right training .

References:

Andreasen, N.C. (1984). The Broken brain, The biological revolutionin PsychiatryNew York: Harper and Row.

Bartram,S. & Gibson,B(2000) The training Needs Analysis Toolkit, 2 nd ed Amherst, MA:HRD Press, Inc.

Bellak, A. S. & Hersen, M. (1986). Dictionary of behavior therapy techniques. New York: Pergamon Press.

Brooks, J 1995 Training and Development Competence: a practical guide Kogan Page, London.

Bolles, R.C. (1979). Learning Theory.(2nd ed.) New York: Holt,Rinhart, and Winston.

Burns, R. 1995 The adult learner at work Business and Professional Publishing, Sydney.

Burns, S. 1995 'Rapid changes require enhancement of adult learning' HRMonthly June, pp 16-17.

Gupta.K(1999). A Practical Guide to Needs Assessment. Sna Francisco: Jossey Bass/Pfeiffer

Hall, E. (1983). Psychology today: An introduction (5th ed.). NewYork: Random House.

Hetherington, E. M. & Parker, R. D. (1986). Child psychology:A contemporary viedwpoint. (3rd ed.). New York: Mcgraw-Hill Book Company.

Hintzman, D.L. (1977). The Psychology of learning and memory. New York: Freeman.

Knowles, M.S. 1978 The Adult Learner: a Neglected Species 2nd edition, Houston: Gulf Publishing Company, Book Division.

Knowles, M.S. 1990 The Adult Learner: a Neglected Species 4th edition, Houston: Gulf Publishing Company, Book Division

Laird, D. 1985 Approaches to training and development Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.

LeFrancois, G. R. (1982). Psychology for teaching (4th ed.).Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing company.

Liebert, R. M., Poulos, R. W. & Marmor, G. S. (1977). Developmentalpsychology, (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Martin, G. L., & Pear, J. (2002). Behavior Modification: What It Is and How to Do It, 7th ed. New York: Prentice-Hall.

McGill, I & Beaty, L 1995 Action Learning, second edition: a guide for professional, management and educational development Kogan Page, London.

Psychology today: An introduction (3rd ed.). (1975). NewYork: Random House Publishing.

Pogson, P. & Tennant, M. 1995 'Understanding Adults' in Foley, G. ed. Understanding adult education and training, St Leonards, Allen & Unwin, pp.20-30.

Rosner, R(1999,May). Training is the answer….. but what was the question? Workforced,78, 42-50

Salamon,L.M (1999).America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer. New York : Foundation Center

Skinner, B. F. (1974). About behaviorism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Vernon, A. (1993). Counseling children and adolescents. Denvor, CO: Love Publishing Company.

Zastrow, C. & Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (1974). Understanding humanbehavior and the social environment. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers.

Dunn.L. (2002). Learning and Teaching Briefing Papers Series. Available: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/theories.html. Last accessed 2 Deember 2007

Stacey.S. (2007). Keys to Sucessful Training : Linking learning through the senses".Available: http://hrshopperblog.typepad.com/hrshopperblog/2007/01/keys_to_success.html. Last accessed 01Dec 2007.