We've explored and learning towards the three key components, that we're looking for when we're looking at learning transfer, is looking at the issue of learning, how knowledge, skills, and capability have increased. The second area is the fundamental, the behavior, the extent to which people behave, perform and capabilities improved is a second significant factor and the essence of most of learning is about a behavioral change. The third key characteristic is results. Can we make sure that the benefits that we're learning for the individual and business and organization commensurate with the amount of investment that we're making. And what I want to explore now is one of the enablers and barriers to individual learning and using the principle of what, where, when, and how, to look at how the transfer of learning is supported and enabled to make people transfer their learning. So, why do people learn? And underneath that question is the issue of motivation, that people may learn something if they think they can apply their learning. If the amount of learning that you require is commensurate with the amount of energy and satisfaction that they're going to gain, that it fits in with their values and purpose, and the time of their learning. When it's in line with my view of the world and my identity or when I have a commitment to change my or other people's world view. I may want to learn just about my development or I may want to learn to a particular level of personal mastery. But I also need not only my commitment, but the commitment of other people around me. And then we come back to traditionally what we've done in organizations is taking people's motivation, and giving them a learning event, and then put the responsibility on them to change their environment. And traditionally we relied on individuals to implement their learning by improving their performance and large amounts of money have been invested in designing effective learning interventions and programs to change culture and deliver business change through changing behavior. And while we've invested those large amounts of money on the design of programs, the ability to transfer the learning into actual performance in their context has been significantly neglected and undermanaged. Focusing on individual delivery lies on people that had to be in inverted commas pioneers. People take the energy, commitment and enthusiasm and try and change their environments in attempts to apply the learning from programs. We leave them to deal with resistance to change and confront established practices, but that can often be very career limiting, and often what you get at people who try to keep on going. And our research shows that there are some key characteristics in motivation of work that enable people's motivation to be increased. However, you can always tell who are the pioneers in organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones with a face down in the gutter with arrows in their backs and transferring their learning into behaving differently or performing at a high level is not easy. And the key when a key behaviors on a key enablers is an individual's motivation and their resilience to sustain that learning and their motivation. But it isn't just an individual journey. What we learn are motivation to learn is because it's relevant and applicable to my context and the specificity of what I learn in my particular context is also important. So, I can practice what I'm learning. But it also needs to deliver to me in a way that I can relate easily when I'm applying it. And sometimes the mindset in organizations begin to start stopping me from applying what I've learned. So again, I need that support from others while learning. And research shows that certain things are fundamental when I'm trying to transfer my learning. In 1987, on the date this also gives you some indication as to the approach to learning, Adam said, "Transfer was originally defined as the extent to which learning of a response in one task or situation influence the response in another task or situation." And for example, Thorndike and Woodworth in 1901 predicted that transfer would occur as long as the aims, methods, and approaches used for the learning task were similar to the transfer task. They found support for the generalization of responses when there is a similarity in the stimuli and responses in the learning and transfer environment. Research has supported a generalization gradient in which transfer is more likely in near transfer tasks which are highly similar to the learning tasks. For instance, working on a small engine in training and in a large one in the field, and less likely as one moves from far transfer in which tasks, and situations, learning situations are quite different from the transfer situation. Applying principles of electricity from training to troubleshooting, complex mechanical problems under extreme time pressures is an example of something this moves from near to fall. This generalization process allows people to react properly to new situations because of similarities with familiar ones, that was Bass and Vaughan in 1966. But that can also lead to dependency on experts and the dumbing down of learning. So, getting engagement of the learner is critical at that stage. The things that are easy to assess impact if learning is near, where it's an immediate related to life experience or job performance. When the skills that you're being asked to replicate are closed skills, whether the application is a particular behavior performed in a particular way, when there's only one variable. There's only one factor which is conditional on that performance. When the individual has full control over the behavior being performed. What we call 'low road' which is immediately related to their experience, and it's vertical. It would be easiest to identify and exploring one task and drilling deeper into a performance of those tasks, what's much harder is when it's a soft skill, when it's leadership, when it's based on concepts rather than direct applicability. And when you have to imagine yourself into a situation in the future. And it often requires participants to relate a particular concept to their own context, when it has multi-variability, when there are lots of factors involved in the performance and lots of interactions are involved, when there are environment impacts on the individual ability to control their performance not just their own behavior. And whereas horizontal, which may involve expanding expertise beyond the existing behaviors and performance. The design of learning intervention also is critical in understanding what we learned. When large amounts of money have been invested in designing and delivering of a learning events. Immediate needs have been designed by experts and done to individuals and assessed by the reaction to a learning event not the application. So, happy sheets are a fundamental way that people measure whether people have learned something on a program, and the responsibility for application rest for the individual. What we're seeing in learning transfer is that there is a need for an integration, a more holistic approach with all stakeholders involving a learning process. So, learning goals are directly linked to a corporate strategy and the user needs. Learning and focus is focused on delivering behavioral changes and long term sustainable changes in corporate values and culture. When needs assessment is done jointly by individuals, teams, management and training teams not necessarily just by experts. When content is specific, relevant, and applicable to ensure learning delivers performance improvement. And learning is assessed through behavioral change and evaluated with a calculated return on investment. Learning is not just on two people but involves, engages, and has meaning for individuals, teams, and the organization. And that the whole stakeholder process is clearly accountable and shared between the individual, the training provider, line management, and the organization. And the learning process is assessed and evaluated in an integrated way with the engagement of all stakeholders in a quality improvement process. Learning transfer is a shared responsibility for individuals, line management, and the organization.
