The effects of trainee ability and motivation on the transfer process

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Training represents an expensive investment organisations make in their humanresources. For this reason, it is imperative that the knowledge, skills, attitudes andbehaviours gained in training be transferred into visible on-the-job performance andresults.Unfortunately, despite the increasing amounts of time, effort and money being spent onorganisational training, the so-called 'transfer problem remains a threat. Continued lowtransfer puts a major portion of the training investment at risk, thus justifying practicalefforts to leverage greater transfer of training. This study is one such effort.The primary goal of this study was to develop and test an empirical model of the transferprocess so as to establish the effects of trainee ability and motivation on this process.More specifically, it aimed to establish the relationships between the constructs traineeability to learn, motivation to learn, intention to learn, learning and retention, motivationto transfer, intention to transfer and consequently, transfer.A comprehensive study of the transfer of training literature was conducted so as to gain abetter understanding of the issues relevant to the purpose of the study. The sample usedfor this study consisted of 116 trainees attending an assessor training course provided bythe Wholesale and Retail Sector Education and Training Authorities (W&RSETA) inSouth Africa. Five questionnaires were administered during the course of the study, of which two weredeveloped especially for the purposes of the study. The Motivation to LearnQuestionnaire consisted of three sections. Section A was designed to give an indicationof the demographic data of the trainees. Section B measured Motivation to Learn andSection C measured Intention to Learn by means of a Likert-type scale. The Motivationto Transfer Questionnaire also consisted of three sections, with Section A providingdemographic data, Section B measuring Motivation to Transfer, and Section C measuringIntention to Transfer via a Liker-type scale. A Mental Alertness Scale, giving anindication of ability to learn (i.e. general cognitive ability), as well as a pre- and postKnowledge Test, measuring learning and retention, also had to be administered duringthe study. These measures were distributed to the various training facilitators foradministration according to specified instructions at their respective training sessions.The data was subsequently analysed using SPSS. Unfortunately, not all hypotheses couldbe corroborated in this study, yet useful insights were nonetheless gained. It wasdiscovered that ability to learn significantly affects the amount of learning and retentionthat occurs during training. Ability to learn was also positively correlated withmotivation to learn the training material. Motivation to learn produced significantrelationships with three variables, namely intention to learn, intention to transfer, as wellas motivation to transfer learning into on-the-job performance. Intention to learn wasalso found to positively correlate with intention to transfer. Finally, motivation totransfer indicated a significant correlation with intention to transfer. Consequently,conclusions were derived from the results obtained and recommendations for futureresearch made.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University