DIGITAL LIBRARY
A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS
Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (INDIA)
About this paper:
Appears in: ICERI2013 Proceedings
Publication year: 2013
Pages: 4208-4216
ISBN: 978-84-616-3847-5
ISSN: 2340-1095
Conference name: 6th International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
Dates: 18-20 November, 2013
Location: Seville, Spain
Abstract:
Organizations invests a lots of money and time for training their employees with a focus of development and learning transfer which can add to the effectiveness of the business. Training is defined as a systematic processes designed to provide trainees with knowledge, skills and develop positive behavioural attitudes. A well defined learning objective and corresponding evaluation of change in knowledge, skill and behaviour can be the measure of success of training programme. Training effectiveness is also widely researched linking learning outcomes to objectives, linking training to learning transfer on the job, influence of context. Contribution of Kirkpatrick is acknowledged as the pioneer work in terms of evaluation of training. However, a lack of awareness about the structured learning objective as well as defined instructional design by the trainers poses a lot of challenge to the success of the training programme. The outsourcing of the programmes to the training houses and educational institutions adds a new dimension to the participant’s expectation as well as success parameter. This study tried to analyse the experience and feedback of the participants of six training programmes by using phenomenology approach. The sample consisting of three private sector and an equal number of programmes from public sector undertaking organised in an outsourced environment tried to explore the measures of effectiveness of training as well as the difference between the sectors. Some of the common parameters across sectors were ability of the trainer, pedagogy, and programme content. While participants from public sectors emphasized on the trainers, the private sector participants have identified the pedagogy used in the programme as the major criteria of success. Similarly, while infrastructure (environment) of the training is identified as one among the success parameter by the participants from public sectors, this was absent among their counterparts in private sectors. This study tries to add a new dimension to the research on training effectiveness by bringing in the qualitative experience of the participants. This study will have implications not only for the researchers, but also for the trainers and the corporate human resource professionals who are involved in defining, designing, and delivering the training programmes.
Keywords:
Training effectiveness, trainer, sector, and phenomenology.