Psychology

As science and technology advances that fast, flexibility is needed for one to cope with these changes. Inside the workplace, those who are in the forefront or the leaders must have this flexibility as they serve as role models for their fellow workers.
    Former chairman of Motorolla, one of the largest mobile companies in the United States, Robert W. Galvin said wherever you go, you always need two suitcases the one who contains your stock knowledge and the empty one, wherein you can put the new ones that you can share with your fellow workers in the near future (Wiggenhorn 2008).
    What Mr. Galvin said is true. For you to succeed in you chosen career, you need to continuously expand your knowledge in order for you to refine and better your work. The world, as we have mentioned earlier, is continuously changing and we needed to cope and adjust to those changes, and so the methods and processes of acquiring these new knowledge.
    With the development of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), new types of learning devices and pedagogical methods have been developed to cater the various needs of the different students.

Interview and Interaction
Question With virtual classroom, live online learning, e-meetings, and webinars are becoming more of a quotidian training in corporate classrooms across the country and more so in the last decade.  Where is distance learning headed  
Answer I think distance learning is heading in the wrong direction. Its causing the workforce to be impersonal and creating a divide in human interaction. People learn better when presented with a visual learning atmosphere. People need the interaction to propel them to succeed in the workplace. Without it people would keep to themselves and never be driven to success. A conventional teaching setting forces people to achive higher standards with regards to fellow peers, by creating a slight non-aggressive competition.

Question Do you believe that if one has not experienced what they are teaching that the teaching is invalid and missing some dimension of power
Answer For someone to speak on a subject they have no concept of is like trying to get the proverbial fish to breath out of water. When someone is teaching by the book they are not teaching but reading knowledge. They not giving the experience, knowledge or drive to learn by relating to the subject at hand. And you can only go so far with limited information. Its like sailing without a sail.
    On the latter end a person can blow smoke and never inhale. Meaning they can make accusations on what the experience would be like. An effective  teacher can do both. They can either breathe under water or blow smoke.

Question One strategy often used is promoting the participants to ask question.  How do you encourage participants to engage in the class making it lively and focused discussions 
Answer Throughout this class I have learned an array of techniques and strategies that can be and is often used in training seminars I have participated.

Question Some instructors believe on the idea of letting participants learn from each other to be very effective.  Do you agree with this rationale or do you feel they might do damage to one another when trying to teach something they are also trying to learn
Answer They always say two minds are better than one People look at things and see them differently. It helps people be diverse as well as open their minds to possibilities regarding the different ways we can look at things. It keeps us from being rigid in our thinking patterns and aides us in offering assistance to others as well as asking for assistance when we ourselves need it  

Question According to Kirkpatrick (2006 Evaluating training programs The four levels. 3d ed.), there are four levels of evaluations.  They are Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results. Reaction measures how the participants feel about the program. Learning consists of what knowledge was learned. Behavior evaluation evaluates the amount of knowledge the participant learned and was able to apply to their job. Results are what it s all about. In your opinion, which type of evaluation is most important and why
Answer Reaction is the primary goal that needs to be obtained while training and without it the rest falls apart. Without a good reaction people have shorter attention spans, which results there behavior into becoming distracted by insignificances and lowers learning ability, which results in very little being retained, and ultimately has the outcome of substandard results. With good reaction people become more attentive and active in participation, which feeds into retaining more of the subject and a more positive result will ensue.

Question What do you know about displaying and presenting data  Is there a difference between the two
Answer Its like drinking hot chocolate. If made with water its okay and tastes like chocolate and when made with milk it is rich and creamy. So, presenting is like hot water and chocolate. It is just presenting the facts. Displaying is of course the creamy hot chocolate which is offering a view of the subject. It shows how the company, employee and customers are affected by the outcome of the data being presented.
   
    The following lines were from my classmate Vanessa Tirpak. It is all about expertise and knowledge. For her, you cannot trust anyone who just play as an expert, especially if it is your life or health is at stake. She said that lack of training is the cause of this thing. A good training will equip one adequate knowledge in practicing your chosen field be it a nurse, a communicator, a doctor, among others.

Question What would you think if you went to your doctor today because you thought you might have the flu
Answer The nurse shows you to the examining room and very shortly the doctor comes in.  You explain to the doctor all the symptoms you seem to have and how you feel.  You then tell the doctor you think you have the flu. The doctor listens for a few minutes and then, without examining you OR even questioning you in any way, pulls out a prescription pad and writes you a prescription.  Then the doctor wishes you well and leaves....telling you on the way out to be sure to call if you dont feel better in a few days.  On the way out of the office you cant help but notice that all his other patients are leaving with the same prescription.

Question Do you have a lot of confidence in your doctor at this point  Have you ever seen or experienced a training initiative at work that felt like a prescription that had been handed out to everyone...no matter what the problem (or diagnosis)
Answer No, I would absolutely not have confidence in my doctor at this point because the doctor failed to diagnose me properly.  By the way, I have had one doctor actually write me a prescription for something when I felt that he didn t properly diagnose me  But, back to training  in my organization, we have a person who has the responsibility of going out to the departments who are requesting training and conducting a needs analysis and assessment.  This really helps to eliminate the  blanket effect  where companies try to put a quick fix on a situation by adding unnecessary training.  However, even with this Consultant position in place to avoid these types of situations, they do occasionally still happen.  For example, one department in my company was having difficulty quoting benefits to our customers.  No needs analysis was completed, no needs assessment.  So, the department won out over training and training conducted 8 classroom sessions to retrain this department on quoting benefits.  After the training, the benefits quoting did not improve.  The customer service representatives  performance remained almost unchanged.  The problem  The problem was that once the trainees (customer service representatives) got back to the department, they were not given the appropriate resources and system access to carry out the information that they learned in the training class.  The training was pretty much a waste of everyone s time who was involved.  Had a needs analysis been put into place, training may not have been the solution to everyone s problem.

Another participation was from Hilary Kingsley. Here, she discusses about the levels of evaluation used in trainings. She also queried if there are some things lacking, how can it be filled

Question Tell us in detail how that training incorporated each of the following Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 evaluations.  If the training you attended did not incorporate each of the levels tell us (based upon the readings in the ASTD Hand Book for Workplace Learning Professionals pages 493-538) how they could have incorporated each level that was missing and why.
Answer It has actually been several years since I had a formal work-related training program that I had to attend probably about 4-5 years ago is my best estimate.  Although the details are a bit hazy, it was a problematic program that was not very organized.  I dont recall any type of evaluations for the course.  It was for a new state instituted computer program called JNET that is used for many different law enforcement reasons.  Its a great program and I was actually looking forward to the training because it was found to be an important tool to assist my officers.
    Level 1 The level 1 evaluations wouldve been beneficial for this course because they couldve certainly helped the instructors improve considering the information was valuable.  According to our text well designed level 1 evaluation forms that ask specific questions that cover the entire training process can provide useful information for developing a habit of reflection and for real improvement (pg. 496).  Also, If participants are asked for feedback about their whole experience with the training, rather than just an overall reaction to aspects of it, they become part of the whole cycle of the training process... (pg. 498). I think that sentence is very true because instead of all the grumbling I heard among the participants, Im sure it wouldnt have ebbed it, but it couldve been directed in a constructive way towards the instructors for improvement.  I can see how designing a proper level 1 evaluation would take some time and effort, but once it is completed I can also see its worth. I like the idea of taking the feedback from the forms and entering into a spreadsheet program that can chart course progress. If the spreadsheet is designed well, it can easily be used to enter the data  from the forms for all training events on an ongoing basis. This enables all sorts of data analysis where elements of the training...can be analyzed independently of the other categories (pg. 506).
    Level 2 For this course, at the beginning of the day, we were all given a Powerpoint printout that followed the instructors Powerpoint display throughout the course.  The test we were given at the end of the day was open book and focused too much on details that were really not that important (like how an encrypted password works - that is not pertinent to our job.) Too many test writers compose items that require recall of the rules... (pg. 515). In fact, the single most common error in test design is the tendency for untrained test developers to write questions at the bottom of the hierarchy...these tests tend toward low-level memorization questions rather than items that assess higher-level skills such as application or analysis (pg. 515).  Going back to the beginning of the level 2 chapter for a minute, I thought an important point many organizations overlook was that testing properly costs little more than testing improperly and yields significant results for the individual and the organization (pg. 511).  Although cost is important, I think too many organizations worry about cost over the effectiveness and ability of their employees.
    Level 3 Now, here is where I needed a little bit of help.  Since I have been sent out for a lot of my training independent of my department, how would the trainers be able to evaluate how effective their course was  The trainer for the course Im talking about was from Harrisburg and more than likely, would have no contact with any of the course participants afterwards.  Maybe I misunderstood this section, but if not, how would level 3 evaluations play into the training I described

The following lines were from Marc. According to him, the trainings that he attended in the past use the Level 1 and Level 2 evaluation only.

Tell us in detail how that training incorporated each of the following Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 evaluations.  If the training you attended did not incorporate each of the levels tell us (based upon the readings in the ASTD Hand Book for Workplace Learning Professionals pages 493-538) how they could have incorporated each level that was missing and why.

Nearly all of the training events that I have attended in my career have used Level 1, Reaction Evaluations. For these evaluations, which we refer to as critiques,  The purpose is to measure how attendees feel about the program (Biech, 486). The last training that I attended included this also it was an annual, required training module on substance abuse which is a problem in the military.

There was no level 2 evaluation. A Level 2 evaluation, which measures learning,  measures the effectiveness of the instruction in increasing knowledge and changing attitudes  (487). In most cases, this would be an exam of some sort. I m not certain why we don t test, but I assume that it is because the training is required and repetitive. Further, I suspect that the mandate is to deliver the training, not necessarily the knowledge.

In contrast, we do conduct Level 3, or behavior evaluations. This measures the change in trainee behavior as a result of the training. However, we do this indirectly we don t measure the trainees, we measure the substance abuse statistics and assume that everyone received the mandated training. On page 530, Biech suggests some reasons why training could be out of  synch  with goals based on our consistent issues with substance abuse, I think that two of them apply
      1. Identifying the right behavioral goals before the training we focus more on what drugsalcohol do than on what people do.
      2. Including the right examples Our training is normally one generation behind it s hard for a twenty year old to be effected by pictures of DUI crashes from the 1980s.

Jess contributed the following answers about the topic. He shares same experience with Marc most of the trainings he attended in the past do not use Level 2 assessment.

Question Tell us in detail how that training incorporated each of the following Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 evaluations.  If the training you attended did not incorporate each of the levels tell us how they could have incorporated each level that was missing and why.
Answer This is going back a few years because as I said most of our training is conducted via various vendors that the employee chooses or online courses that are developed elsewhere and simply administered.  A few years back, we hired an outside vendor to come in to our organization and deliver a course on diversity in the workplace.  My organization lacks diversity as it s comprised mostly of older, white men.  Out of approximately 200 people, there are four African Americans.  In all actuality, until senior management places more emphasis on diversity, lower level managers and employees are not likely to see the value in such training.   
Level 1  Upon completion of the training, the vendor distributed a one-page survey to evaluate the training.  Layout and topics were similar to Table 28-1, Sample Evaluation Categories, on page 501 of the ASTD Handbook.  Section one contained basic course information (i.e. title, instructor, date, etc.).  Section two contained the specific questions, such as  Were the objectives clear  Were they met  Presentation of speakers  Speaker s knowledge of subject matter  Each question was to be rated between 1 (low) and 5 (high).  Section three contained a space to record comments.  (Kristiansen, 500-501).  We never saw the data.        
Level 2  A level 2 evaluation did not exist for this training event.  I think a role-playing scenario during training would have been beneficial and a good example of a level 2 evaluation.  For example, the instructors could have created a scenario in which techniques from the training could have been incorporated to diffuse a potential discrimination complaint.  Different people could have played the role of complainant, offender, supervisor, human resources, etc., to see how the various levels interact.      
Level 3  A level 3 evaluation did not exist for this training event.  The only way I can think to escalate this to a level 3 evaluation is if there were an actual situation, the supervisor would assess the performance of the appropriate individuals.  But, I m not sure if I m on track here

Conclusion
    Most of the trainings that are being conducted to hone the skills of a worker for example lacked Level 2 evaluation that assesses the method or pedagogy used in conducting such career development training.
    The participants of the said trainings said that it would be better if there are some innovations or upgrades were made in the training materials being used as well as to make the activities more interesting. Based on my colleagues explanations, innovations and upgrades in materials and some changes in the  traditional  activities incorporated in training can not only upgrade the knowledge and hone the skills of the training participant but it will arouse the interest of other possible participants to take such course or training for their own career development.
    This means that Level 2 assessment on the methods and materials is very important for it will help the training managers and materials development team to make necessary adjustments and changes to the materials, instructions and instruments being used in their training in order to fit the needs of the clients.
    Moreover, updating training materials and using innovative practices in trainings that are connected to career and job enhancements are important for it will augment the existing knowledge of the participants, thus they can cope with the fast changes happening in every field of work.