Improving Learning Transfer

A Guide to Getting More Out of What You Put Into Your Training

Cyril Kirwan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781032838120
• eBook ISBN: 9781317118145
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

In today's constantly changing business environment, capable people are crucial to an organization's success, and developing their capabilities through training, learning and development initiatives is a major investment. While measuring the return on that investment is important, attempts to do so are much less valuable if they are not accompanied by a clear understanding of all of the factors than can affect the application of new skills and knowledge on the job - in other words, a clear understanding of what affects learning transfer. So, if organisations are to remain competitive, and develop the highly skilled people that will contribute to their future performance, improving learning transfer should be a priority. Cyril Kirwan's book addresses this critical issue at a number of levels. Firstly, it explores what learning transfer actually is (it's about application of learning back at work, as well as maintenance of that learning over time). Secondly, it describes the main factors that affect transfer, in terms of trainee characteristics, training design factors, and work environment characteristics. It also examines how those factors exert their effect, which ones are more important, how they interact with one another, and in doing so constructs a practical learning transfer model for practitioners. The book also describes in some detail what the various factors working for or against learning transfer look like in practice. Finally, using case studies, it points the way towards what can be done before, during and after training to improve the rate of transfer. This highly practical book will help trainers, development specialists and line managers ensure that their training is about real outcomes and not just inputs.

1
Learning and Learning Transfer

Introduction

This chapter begins by setting the scene in terms of important learning concepts that have relevance for the application of learning in organizations. It also offers some definitions of learning transfer, as well as describing different types of transfer. Some distinctions are made between transfer of training and transfer of learning, as both terms appear regularly in the literature. Both behavioural and cognitive approaches are considered (don’t worry, these will be explained!), and the relevance to transfer of adult learning principles, constructivist teaching methods and action learning are also dealt with. Those of you less theoretically-minded may prefer to skim over most of this chapter now and come back to it later. However you should make sure to have a look at the model that helps it all hang together before you leave the chapter.

Defining Learning Transfer

Learning transfer, in the context of training and development activity, is discussed in the literature in terms of the generalization of material learned, such as skills acquired or knowledge gained in training back to the job, as well as maintenance of the learned material over a period of time on-the-job. One definition (Broad and Newstrom 1992, 5) describes it as ‘the effective and continuing application, by trainees to their jobs, of the knowledge and skills gained in training – both on and off the job’. In effect, this means that trainees demonstrate their skills back on-the-job at least as well as they did at the end of training. Some others go further, and suggest that learning transfer also deals with whether or not learning in one situation will facilitate learning in subsequent similar situations (for example in learning Spanish if one already speaks French). In any event the definitions imply that learning is applied in the work situation, and that it is maintained up to a certain standard over time.

It is appropriate at this point to try and distinguish between training transfer and learning transfer. Some, for example Heisler and Benham (1992) contend that there has been a long-standing distinction in the field of human resource development between training and learning. They suggest that training is more immediate, practical and directed specifically at a task. On the other hand, they say, learning has a more long-term and academic focus. Others, such as Quinones and Ehrenstein (1996) also argue that training and learning are different, and describe training as a planned set of activities with cognitive, behavioural or affective change (thinking, behaving or feeling differently, that is, learning in one form or another) as one of its goals. Haskell (1998) echoes the above distinctions, and summarizes the argument by suggesting that learning tends to be more generative or creative than training, and results in a deeper level and a broader scope of transfer than does training, with a longer-term payoff.

Given the above descriptions, it seems that if learning is one of the goals of training, then it will also be one of the outcomes of effective training. Furthermore, learning is less likely to occur if some opportunity to try it out in practice doesn’t occur, as proposed in models of learning such as that of Kolb (1984). As sustained on-the-job behaviour change is implied in the definitions of transfer above, it is very difficult to discuss transfer of training without discussing transfer of learning. Throughout this book, therefore, the term transfer of learning will be used.

Types of Transfer

While there is a degree of overlap between different types of learning transfer, it is generally accepted that it can be categorized in terms of three dimensions. Firstly, in organizational training and development, perhaps the most common distinction is that between near and far transfer. Near transfer is quite specific and occurs mostly in situations where conditions in training are very similar to those in practice. The teaching of, for example, safety procedures, is intended to achieve near transfer only. On the other hand, these conditions would be different in the case of far (less specific) transfer. Applying management decision-making principles that were originally learned as part of an outdoor development programme involving crossing rivers or disposing of nuclear waste is an example of far transfer in operation. Secondly, another important distinction is that between lateral and vertical transfer. Vertical transfer is said to occur when a skill or piece of knowledge contributes directly to the acquisition of a wider skill or piece of knowledge. For example, a manager is likely to become confident more quickly in conducting an appraisal interview if they are already practised in giving performance feedback. Lateral transfer is more concerned with generalization over a broader set of situations at much the same level of complexity. In practice, negotiation skills learned for wage bargaining may also be useful for a procurement manager agreeing a price with a supplier. Thirdly, yet another distinction is made between literal and figural transfer. With literal transfer, what happens is that an intact skill or piece of knowledge is transferred to a new learning task. The negotiating skills example cited above is also a case of literal transfer. Figural transfer, on the other hand, involves using some part of what we already know in other fields as a way of thinking about a particular problem. A typical example, widespread within management, is the use of metaphors to explain concepts. Understanding behaviour in organizations using the ‘organizational iceberg’, or differentiating between ‘mavericks’ and ‘cash cows’ in terms of marketing strategy all operate by way of figural transfer.

Explanations for the different types of transfer have their roots in both behavioural and cognitive approaches to learning. Behaviourists take the view that an individual’s observable and measurable behaviour should be the focus of attention, and as such concentrate on people’s actions and their consequences. Thus in seeking to help a manager change their behaviour, for example, a coach using a behaviourist approach would emphasize ways of reinforcing desired behaviours (usually through rewards) and extinguishing undesired behaviours (usually through sanctions). On the other hand, cognitivists are more interested in the thinking, reasoning and self-talk behind the behaviour – in other words, what’s going on inside the learner’s head. A coach using more cognitive methods would be helping the individual identify why they behave in certain ways as a starting point for behaviour change. It’s argued that behavioural approaches provide a reasonable explanation of literal transfer and near transfer, while the cognitive approaches are more satisfactory for explaining figural transfer and far transfer.

Individual Learning

Work done by researchers from both the behavioural and the cognitive traditions has helped to provide the theoretical basis for much of the types of learning we see in organizations today. Whatever the foundations, however, there is broad agreement amongst researchers and training specialists that more experiential forms of learning are most suited to learning in organizations. This appears to be true whether the objectives of the learning intervention are to increase the level of knowledge or skill, change attitudes or change behaviour. For the acquisition of knowledge, early techniques such as programmed learning (built on the behaviourist approach) have given way to more experiential forms of learning (built on the cognitive approach). Experiential learning is also prevalent in interventions aimed at changing attitudes, as the research evidence indicates that attitudes developed through direct experience are stronger than those developed in other ways. The increasing use of action learning (which will be discussed more fully later), simulations and role playing are further examples of this development, using as they do techniques based on feedback, reflection and discussion of the learner’s own experience.

The growth in the use of learning techniques just outlined may also have to do with what people are required to learn, particularly in management and other programmes concerned with the more complex skills and knowledge described earlier. The distinction between the ‘deep’ approach to learning, as opposed to the ‘surface’ approach (Marton and Saljo 1976) is one example. Deep learning activities are defined as those that maximize understanding, such as wide reading, discussion, theorizing, linking and hypothesizing. Surface learning approaches concentrate more on the literal – the lower order skills such as rote learning, describing and explaining. While inevitably learning interventions will require some surface learning (such as the use of mnemonics and acronyms for remembering procedures), people at higher levels in organizations are required to demonstrate more complex skills in areas such as analytical and conceptual thinking, handling motivation issues, dealing with resistance to change, and so on. Development and transfer of these sorts of skills, which is the focus of this book, is more likely to require a deep approach to learning.

Constructivist Learning

The changes just described are at the heart of an increasingly popular approach to learning, known as the constructivist approach. Central to this approach is the idea that learners are encouraged to create their own meaning from the range of material and arguments with which they’re presented. Constructivism asserts that learners bring to a learning intervention different personal knowledge and beliefs about ‘how things are’. They are not ‘empty vessels’ waiting to be filled with new knowledge, and the knowledge they already have may be difficult to change. Dialogue is the starting point, and understanding occurs through question and explanation, through challenging, and through support and feedback. Intervention designs that promote constructivist learning will challenge learners to be more active, to interact with their peers, and to continually search to understand what they’re learning. Indeed the same principles are also important in the context of ‘adult’ approaches to learning, and have important implications for learning transfer. These principles will be discussed further in Chapter 2.

Action Learning

As discussed earlier, the growth in the adoption of adult learning principles and more constructivist teaching methods reflects a perceived need for a more active role for the learner in the process of learning, in order to enhance transfer. Another relevant development in this regard has been that of action learning. Interestingly, although action learning includes a number of the components mentioned already in this chapter, it rarely appears as a strategy in discussions on learning transfer. Action learning as a technique arose out of some original work by Revans (1982). Since then, other schools of practice, based on philosophies of experiential learning and critical reflection, have adapted its principles and action learning today is often loosely used as an overall term for some form of ‘learning by doing’. Although a single, generally accepted definition of action learning is hard to find, it is generally described in broadly similar terms to those of Revans – as learning from concrete experience of real world problems, critically reflecting on that experience through group discussion, trial and error, discovery, and learning from and with each other. Action learning will be discussed further in Chapter 2.

Learning in the Workplace

There is no doubt therefore that research on learning has focused greater attention than before on the study of learning in the workplace. This research, by its nature, helps examine the links between individual and organizational knowledge. It is particularly important in the context of an increasing emphasis on the development of ‘knowledge workers’ within organizations, and indeed the creation and maintenance of ‘learning organizations’. Knowledge is now seen as a key resource, which must be generated, captured and generalized throughout the organization for effective performance. Thus the two related constructs of knowledge management and the learning organization have links with learning transfer and so will be discussed briefly here.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

In the same way as transferring learning from classroom to workplace requires specific, focused effort, so does transferring individual learning to organizational learning. An important part of that process is making the tacit knowledge residing in the heads of its members explicit, or, as others put it, codified. Knowledge management is therefore the process by which the knowledge, skills and expertise of people in the organization is brought to the surface and put into a form where it can be more widely distributed, and therefore available to organizational decision makers (Pan and Scarbrough 1999). It is really about the coordination of learning in different parts of the organization and its integration into organizational knowledge in order to build strategic capability.

The job of coordinating and integrating learning throughout organizations presents quite a challenge for their management. On the one hand, managers have a responsibility to drive change in order to ensure that the organization remains competitive within its business environment. On the other hand, they have a responsibility to maintain some degree of stability to ensure that cohesive strategies can be put in place and implemented. In terms of learning and knowledge transfer, this means they have to find the right balance between exploring new opportunities, which will require the creation of new knowledge, and exploiting current ones, which necessitates making explicit and widespread what the organization collectively knows already. Successful knowledge organizations are the ones that can find that balance (McKenzie and Van Winkelen 2004).

Of course ‘knowledge organizations’ employ ‘knowledge workers’, a term coined by Peter Drucker back in the 1950s. Knowledge workers are individuals with high levels of education and specialist skills combined with the ability to apply these skills to identify and solve problems. So the challenge for organizations today is not only to meet their continuing learning needs, but to ensure that these knowledge workers are prepared to use their knowledge for the benefit of the organization – in other words to maintain their levels of organizational commitment. Whilst there are undoubtedly some shining examples of organizations that can do this, unfortunately many others, and the way in which they manage their people in a controlling, hierarchical way, make the generating of organizational commitment more difficult for themselves, and in doing so inhibit the promotion of knowledge transfer.

THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

As already suggested, much of the knowledge or expertise organizations possess is within the heads of their people. It resides there as ‘chunks’ of information built up over time, and is activated by stimuli such as organizational problems that need to be solved. For the organization to transfer this knowledge into ‘organizational memory’ and respond to problems in a similar way, systems need to be put in place to facilitate the process.

Although not the first to describe it, Senge (1990) has certainly popularized the notion of the learning organization. He describes it as a place where people are continually expanding their capacity to achieve results, and where new thinking is constantly being encouraged and nurtured. Garvin (1993) more simply suggests it’s about creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge and modifying behaviour to reflect this. The latter description has more in common with the direction of this book, dealing as it does with how conditions can be optimized to enable knowledge transfer to take place. According to Garvin, learning organizations achieve this status by the systematic solving of problems, by experimenting with new approaches, by learning from their own and others’ experience, and by transferring knowledge quickly and efficiently throughout the organization.

Creating the Commitment

Consideration of the above brings us to a really crucial point regarding learning transfer. Above all, organizations need to create the conditions where their employees can give of their best. One way in which they do this is by providing the tools and technologies that enable individuals to perform their tasks with a minimum of inconvenience. More importantly, however, are the conditions they create in terms of best leadership practices, putting the main responsibility for generating commitment firmly on the shoulders of leaders at all levels. Work on what is often called the human resources climate by, amongst others, Schneider (Schneider et al. 2003; Schneider et al. 2005) strongly indicates that the use of best practices in human resource management (setting clear and challenging goals, managing performance effectively, recognizing and rewarding effort and energizing the team to meet its challenges) as demonstrated by those leaders, facilitates ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Learning and Learning Transfer
• Chapter 2 Getting the Programme Right
• Chapter 3 Bridging the Gap
• Chapter 4 Getting the Work Environment Right
• Chapter 5 It’s up to You: Making it Happen
• Chapter 6 Dealing with Resistance
• Chapter 7 Measuring Learning Outcomes
• Chapter 8 How to Improve Learning Transfer
• Appendix A: Understanding Learning Transfer from a Management Development Programme
• Index