Making My Learning Stick

The holiday break and new year gave me more time for reflection and looking inward, and I’d like to share a few ruminations with you.

Six weeks ago I got a new computer with Windows 7, Explorer 9, and MS Office 2010.  The transition has been quite painless with two exceptions.  Version 9 of Internet Explorer places the favorites (aka bookmarks) on the right side of the screen/toolbar.  My previous version of Explorer placed them on the left side of the screen.  In addition, when I click on the X in the upper right corner of Explorer 9, the entire browser closes down, while in my former version when I clicked on the X in the upper right corner only that screen closed.  Simple things, right?  But I can’t tell you how many times I have looked for my favorites on the left side of the screen and closed out the browser when I intended to only close a window.  I’m getting better, but learning these simple tasks – actually un-learning the old way and learning the new way – is taking time, practice, and experience.  Frankly, if I didn’t have to learn the new way, I wouldn’t.

Transfer rates (that is, the application) for “open skills” such as leadership and other soft skills are much lower than transfer rates for “closed” skills such as specific steps for performing a task.  If it takes me 30+ days to learn/relearn a simple task, how long does it take a learner to learn a complex, soft skill?

Human beings tend to revert to previous ways of doing things unless they receive post-learning support.  In my situation with my browser, the system reinforces my learning by providing an unfavorable consequence when I perform the task incorrectly.  In many other situations, there are no built-in consequences, making post-training reinforcement is even more important.

Here are a few simple suggestions to reinforce training and be sure it is being used:

 

•  Collect or save tips for using the skills taught in training.  Develop a series of follow-up emails for trainees to receive at weekly intervals, for 6-8 weeks following training, and include one tip in each email.
• Contact each participant (I prefer voicemail but email will work) once a week or every two weeks for 1-2 months post-training.  Ask how they are using the training, if they have questions, etc.
• Ask/remind trainees’ managers to observe or review their work, to provide support, reinforcement, and possibly corrections.

Over the Holidays I saw the new silent movie The Artist.  A good movie, but a bit frustrating for me as an auditory learner.  After the movie my more visual friends pointed out many aspects of the film that I’d missed.   A good reminder to include as many media as possible in a learning experience.  This helped me with the decision to include audio in a current e-learning project.

• Provide instructions and learning content visually and verbally:  visual aids, verbal instructions and lecture content, attractive screens with photos and audio voiceovers in e-learning, and good vocal variety especially in live virtual classes.

Have you reflected recently on your own learning transfer?  What makes a difference for you in making your learning stick?  Share your reflections with me. Sometimes a look inward can provide good reminders and ahas for our work with trainees.

Until next time…

Santa Makes Training Stick

Once upon a time at the North Pole, Santa had a problem. Boys and girls were not very happy with their presents from Santa. In the past his elves had done a good job making the toys for girls and boys with their hammers and other tools. But recently the children were asking for electronic games and gadgets, not the simple toys the elves made. Santa had to either re-train his elves or lay them off. It was unrealistic to turn the elves into electronics engineers, but he decided to train them to become negotiators and expediters to work with the electronics manufacturers.

Santa enlisted Rudolph to train the elves. Rudolph attended train-the-trainer sessions and educated himself on the skills the elves needed to learn. While he wasn’t a SME, he did learn enough to put together lesson plans and teach the elves what they needed to know for their new roles. The trainings went well. The elves demonstrated they had learned the material and then they went back to their workshop. Three weeks later Santa and Rudolph visited the workshop….and their jaws dropped. The elves were still making dolls and trucks at their workbenches – just as they had done before the training. The headsets and phone lines Santa had set up for their new roles were untouched. The training didn’t stick!

Santa and Rudolph thought and thought. “What can we do that will help the elves remember and use what they have learned?” They pulled their copy of the book Making Learning Stick off the shelf and started using some of the Techniques to Integrate Education (TIEs, for short) to reinforce the training. In just a short time the elves starting using more of what they learned, the boys and girls got the electronic toys they wanted, and Santa and Rudolph were heroes once again.

And they lived happily ever after – that is, until the next major change.

My best wishes for a wonderful Holiday Season and a happy and prosperous New Year!  Until next time…..

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Training Transfer & the LMS

Your learning management system (LMS) is a great administrative tool for course registration, student tracking, and end-of-course evaluation.   But are you using it to drive and support better transfer of training?

In addition to administrative tasks such as course registration, student tracking, and evaluation surveys, an LMS can deliver training content (e-learning and live virtual classes), communicate with students and their supervisors, support collaboration and trainee interaction, and support mobile learning.  The latest trend in LMSs is performance management so that development plans in the employee’s performance review can be linked with available classes (internally and externally), and tracked.

So how can an LMS drive and support better transfer of training?  Here are some suggestions:

•  Use the email feature to automatically send a pre-training note to students at a prescribed time prior to training (no earlier than one week in most cases).  Summarize what they will learn in the training and how they are expected to use it in their jobs.  Also remind them to expect to give their full attention to the training with limited access to emails, IMs, and text messaging.  This last point is especially important for students who will be taking e-learning or live virtual (webinar) classes.

• Use the email feature to automatically send a pre-training note to students’ supervisors.  This note should also summarize, perhaps in more detail, what the participant will learn and how it can be applied to their job.  In addition to reminding the supervisor to plan for job adequate coverage during the time the participant is in training, this email should also ask supervisors to plan for skill practice and use as soon as the participant completes the training.

•  Add a short video to these emails from the CEO, senior leader, or other influential manager describing the importance of the training and how the skills support the organization’s mission, goals, and objectives.  Don’t stop at one – use a montage of several video clips to drive this message home.  Desktop web cams make these videos easy and affordable. Many organizations are using YouTube to house (link to) for non-confidential employee messages.

• Use the social media and collaboration tools available in many LMSs to promote or require trainee interaction before and after the class.  Studies show that when trainees interact with one another about their learning, they have higher levels of learning and transfer of training.  Specifically, set up a discussion board prior to face-to-face, e-learning, or live virtual learning.  Pose questions such as “What has been your biggest challenge with______?”, “How do you think having ____ skills will enhance your ability to do your job?  To advance in your career?”  Use the same sort ofdiscussion board for post-trainingdiscussion and include questions such as “What has been your biggest challenge in applying ____?”   Consider other social media and collaboration tools such asYammer, (internal Twitter) and a wiki(everyone contributes to FAQs and tips/pointers for using the skills).

• Use the LMS survey tool to find out how skills are being used 6 weeks and 3 months post-training.  Consider withholding credit for the class until this survey is completed.  Share results with participants’ supervisors.

How do you use your LMS to support better transfer of training?  Drop me a note.  The first 10 people to respond will receive a pack of Boss Bookmarks.

****Our best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to our U.S. subscribers!

Until next time….

 

 

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @StickyTraining

Let Learning Sink In – To Make it Stick

I’ve found some interesting cognitive psychology research that I think you’ll find interesting because it can be applied to making learning stick.

• Have you ever wondered why new learning needs to “sink in”?
• Did you know that students who study right before an exam don’t do as well as those who study at least several days ahead of time?
• Would you like some ideas for maximizing training retention and transfer?

Read on -

Scientists have known for over a century that we have two types of memory, short-term and long-term, located in two different parts of the brain.  Short-term memory is converted into the more stable long-term memory, which is then be drawn upon to solve problems and make decisions.

The process works this way.  The information is first gathered in the learning event through the senses and is processed in the brain’s short-term memory, where it is related to existing information already stored in long-term memory.  From here the new information is transferred to long-term memory storage and it becomes encoded into neuron patterns.  New synapses (spaces between nerve endings) are then formed through protein synthesis.  This process is called long-term potentiation and was first demonstrated by Nobel-winning scientist Dr. Erik Kandel.  The important point here is that t takes a few weeks for the protein synthesis and new neuron patterns to form.    

This is why we often say something new needs to “sink in”, and why students who cram right before a test don’t do as well as students who study a few days ahead or even the night before.  And this is why we need to provide spaced learning, repetition, and/or practice to help learners retain and apply the learning whether it is face-to-face, live virtual, e-learning, or a combination of these.

Here are a few suggestions to help learning sink in and stand a better chance of being applied:

• Divide the learning into at least two events, spaced at least 3-4 weeks apart.   For ease in scheduling, consider a live virtual (“webinar”) or e-learning format for one or more of these learning events.  The potentiation research indicates that the longer the spacing, the better the retention.  This of course needs to balanced against other things that compete for memory space – if the learning is spaced too far, the initial learning may be completely lost.
• Do not test at the end of the class.  Instead use the test to follow up, no sooner than two weeks after the end of the learning event.  The research clearly shows that allowing some time before testing will result in better learning and retention.  And remember, the goal is not to pass the test… the goal is to retain the learning so it can be used. 
• Require participation in learning communities – discussion boards, blogs, communities of practice – as part of the class.  Don’t award credit for the class until a required number of posts are made in the community.  This serves to reinforce the initial learning, provide application ideas, and aid the brain in connecting new, short-term memory learning with long-term prior learning so that it can be used.

And the next time you need to remember something yourself, keep in mind that your brain needs time to form new neuron patterns and protein synthesis.  Let some time pass and then revisit the information.

Until next time….

 

 

 

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @StickyTraining

Using Photos to Make Training Stick

I recently ran across an interesting article in HR Magazine that brought back memories of research I did quite some time ago on subconscious influence.  Sometimes called subliminal programming, certain words, sounds, and/or pictures are introduced as a way of influencing the receiver’s subconscious mind.  Dr. Gary Latham, who has also conducted research on training transfer, and his research partner at the University of Toronto, Amanda Shantz, recently conducted some new studies on subconsciously influencing employee behaviors.  Skeptical at first, they were nonetheless impressed by studies in which groups of participants were left to browse dieting and exercise magazines.  Later, when offered fruit or chocolate as a snack, participants in that group were more likely than other participants to choose fruit.  Fruit instead of chocoloate?  Hard to believe!

Latham and Shantz then conducted three experiments in call centers.  In each case, the employees were given written instructions on how to urge donors to contribute to a university.  Half of them received the instructions printed over a color background photo of a woman winning a race.  The other half received their instructions over a neutral colored background.  In each of the three experiments, the employees who were exposed to the photo significantly outperformed the others.  Further analysis of similar studies has revealed consistently positive results for such subconscious “goal priming” as the researchers called it.

How could this be applied to training transfer?  The same principles apply – to influence employees’ behavior to remember and use the skills and knowledge learned in training, and to influence their managers to reinforce and support practice and use.  This technique is easy and inexpensive for a trainer to use, so why not try it?  Here are some specific ideas:

Find a photo that depicts “success”.  Remember, the one used in the experiment was a woman winning a race.  I usually have good luck with Microsoft images.  Other trainers I know like photos.com.  Another option is Google images, but do be careful about copyrights.

Toward the end of the training — whether face-to-face, virtual live training, or e-learning , summarize the key learning points and either identify what participants should do or practice when they get back to work, or ask them to develop their own action plans.

Next, place the action items over the background of the “success photo” you’ve chosen.  If participants have developed their own action plan, include the success photo, perhaps in soft focus, as a handout.  Ask participants to write their action items on this page.

Or, use the photo as background in a PowerPoint slide as part of your presentation, in the same manner as above.

Or, email the photo with action item reminders on it as an attachment, to participants after the training.  Encourage them to use it as a screen saver for 30-60 days to help ingrain their new performance.

Use the photo as background in the body of an after-training email reminder to use what they learned.

Have posters made of the photo with reminders.  Send to participants and encourage them to post in their cubicles.

I can’t wait to try some of these ideas in my next training!

If you try any of these, will you please share your experiences with us – what you did and how it went?

Until next time….

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @StickyTraining

Making Training Stick and Belief

Does believing in yourself and the ability to apply new skills help make the training stick?

A review of current research on training transfer shows a trainee characteristic called “self-efficacy”.  Similar to but not the same as self-confidence, the notion of self-efficacy is the belief in one’s own competence.  It is rooted in several theories in the field of psychology, and impacts people’s choices of behavior, their motivation, and thought patterns.  For example, people are more likely to take on a task if they believe they can succeed.  People who have higher self-efficacy are more likely to try out new skills and behaviors, and people who have lower self-efficacy are unlikely to take on new challenges and may avoid them altogether.

Self-efficacy is also related to motivation.  People with high levels of self-efficacy are likely to persist longer at learning a new task and applying it on the job, and they are also likely to make more of an effort at it than those with lower self-efficacy.  People with lower self-efficacy are likely to believe a task is harder than it actually is.

The link with training transfer is obvious.  In every research study on training transfer that included self-efficacy as a factor, a relationship with training transfer has been found.  Trainees with higher levels of self-efficacy are much more likely to transfer their training to the job than are those with lower levels of self-efficacy.

Self-efficacy doesn’t stop with the belief one can learn a new skill.  It is also the belief that one can successfully transfer it to the job.  Recent research studies have found that a participant’s self-efficacy is strengthened when a participant’s manager shows support for the training and the use of the skills that are a part of the training.  This is one more reason to include trainees’ managers in transfer plans and strategies.  See previous Sticky Notes in my blog for ideas for including trainees’ managers.

Is it possible to raise participants’ levels of self-efficacy?  

What can trainers and HR professionals do to increase participants’ self-efficacy? 

Yes, it is possible to increase trainees’ self-efficacy.  Or rather we should say it is possible to create an environment where a trainee may be ready to increase their self-efficacy, because ultimately it is their choice whether or not to change their inner beliefs about themselves and about the world.  Here are three suggestions:

• Plan positive messages about the training content.  “I know you can do it” comments are fine, but even better are comments specific to the skills being taught, such as “When you go back to work, I know and believe that you’ll be able to use these skills without any problem.”  Write the comments down for easy reference during training.

• Provide opportunities for trainees to see others like themselves using the skills.  A trainee or two from a previous class could be invited back to talk about or demonstrate how they have used the skills.  Fellow classmates in the same class or video clips of “real people” using the skills (digital video technology makes this very easy) will work too.

•  Break down a skill into smaller components, or “sub-skills” that can be more easily mastered.  Provide plenty of positive reinforcement as trainees master each smaller skill.  As they experience more successes, trainees’ self-efficacy will increase and they will be more likely to see themselves as competent to master the main skills.

More strategies for trainers and HR professionals to impact trainee self-efficacy can be found in my most recent book, Making Learning Stick. 

Until next time….

Making it Stick – Before

Which of these learning and development roles applies to you?

• You’re getting ready to teach a class for the first time…..or the 100th time.
• You’re developing material for an online or face-to-face class,
• You’re developing or modifying the company training calendar.
• You’re working with senior management to address skills gaps and key learning goals and needs.
• You’re identifying external training opportunities for individual employees’ needs.

In each of these roles, it’s important for you to not only think about the learning event itself – face-to-face, e-learning, virtual live, or blended. It’s also important for you to plan what happens before and after the learning event(s). Broad and Newstrom’s research revealed that the time periods before and after the learning event are as important or in some instances, more important than the learning event itself. My white paper on time periods explains more about time periods as well as critical roles for making learning stick. Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman estimate that 50% of performance improvement comes from activities outside the training event itself.

Here are a few suggestions for what various trainer roles can do before the training, to help make it stick:

• Design the training/instructor manual to include a pre-training email to both the participant and their manager. Write it out verbatim to assure consistency.

• Record an audio introduction to the course and the instructor – and/or send an email with this information. Ask participants to think about a situation or challenge they have had that ties in with the training topic or the need for this training. Include this pre-training communication with the registration confirmation sent by your LMS.

• Clarify and confirm specific skills that participants need to be able to know or do as a result of the training. Confirm the “business case” for this training topic with senior management. Specify what they need to do to support the training.

• Send participants and their managers a list of the objectives for the training. Simplify the objectives for easy understanding by non-trainers. Ask them to add their own objectives and/or rank order the objectives in order of importance, and to send them to the instructor prior to training or bring them to the training.

• Record a brief webinar or e-learning – no more than 5-10 minutes – that covers the key points of the training. Ask or require managers and senior leaders to participate in this “executive summary” the first time one of their employees participates.

• Create a blog or chat feature in a protected area of your training website. Ask (require) participants to visit the site at least X times (no fewer than twice) over the next X days (at least 3 days) before the training will begin. Post several questions about the training topic which will gauge prior learning and/or application need. Or, schedule a phone conference to address these questions.

• In your pre-training communication, express confidence that participants will learn the skill and be able to use it/them in their jobs. Use the “feel-felt-found” technique: Example: “You may feel overwhelmed at all the material we will cover in these 3 days. Others have felt this way before they started the class. But they found that when they did the practice exercises and took notes in their manuals, they were able to pass the certification test and start programming right away.”

Do you already use one or two of these suggestions, or a variation of them? Great! But don’t stop there. Recent research on training transfer emphasizes the importance of using multiple strategies and techniques. Different strategies will resonant and connect with different trainees and their managers. There can also be a building effect and synergy so that the results from using multiple strategies will be better than using any single strategy.

Until next time….

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @StickyTraining

Generational Differences in Making Training Stick

I’m often asked if there is any research on generational differences related to making training stick.  In other words, do certain transfer strategies and techniques “work better” with Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y?

There isn’t any research that I’m aware of (and I think I would be, if there were) that links training transfer strategies and techniques with different generations.  There is, however, some interesting research on generational differences that we can use as we consider ways to increase training transfer.  Keep in mind as you read below that we need to be careful to avoid over-generalizing, and a person’s birth year is only one of many characteristics that describe an individual.

Most of us are familiar with the characteristics of generational groups.  For interesting articles and background information on this, here are some helpful articles:
http://rtc.umn.edu/docs/2_18_Gen_diff_workplace.pdf
http://www.camex.org/Portals/CAMEX/uploaded_docs/handouts/2-12_HO.pdf
http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05ws/generations.htm

Baby Boomers and Making Training Stick.  In a study of European managers, researchers found that organizational commitment is significantly higher among older generations – Traditionalists and Baby Boomers (although there are not many Traditionalists that remain in the workforce these days).  Organizational commitment is one of the characteristics that training transfer research has linked with higher rates of transfer, and is in the Training Transfer Process model I propose in my book, Making Learning Stick.  This commitment to the organization suggests that Boomers are more inclined to want to transfer learning to their jobs, and we may just need to show them how to do it.

Another characteristic of Boomers is that they tend to prefer the structure of a formal classroom, whether face-to-face or virtual.  The most effective transfer strategies for this group are likely to involve completing and returning forms such as action plans, post-training assignments, and possibly pre-work.  (I have found that whether or not trainees do pre-work also has a lot to do with the organization’s culture).  While many Boomers are comfortable with computers and the internet, others are not.  Consider whether to use digital, hard copy, or both versions of the action plans, and pre-training and post-training assignments you use in training designs.

Value of Learning and Gen X/Gen Y.   In the study of European managers I mentioned earlier, researchers found that younger generations (late Gen X and Gen Y) tend to place a higher value on learning than older generations do.  This is indeed good news and may well be an indication that these younger learners are more self-motivated to participate in learning and perhaps also more self-motivated to apply it.  When we look at other research and information about generational differences, we see that while both Gen X and Gen Y tend to place a high value on learning (higher at least than their older cohorts), they tend to differ in the types of learning they prefer.  This is probably also true for the types of transfer strategies that surround the learning.

Generation Xers and Making Training Stick.  Gen Xers value personal interaction such as coaching and mentoring.  Training transfer strategies that capitalize on the trainee’s manager and post-training follow up with the instructor are likely to be most effective with this group.  While they may participate in e-learning to learn key concepts, you should see the best training transfer with pre- and post-training in-person and/or virtual discussions, coaching, mentoring, and other interactions with their manager, with peers, and with their instructor.

Generational Y and Making Training Stick.  As digital natives, members of this generation are most comfortable with virtual learning – formal and informal.  Transfer strategies that may be most effective with this group might include e-learning modules, follow-up websites, collaborative wikis, threaded discussions, and Twitter reinforcers and reminders, all that can be accessed as needed, just in time.

If you’re like me, the training you develop and conduct has participants from at least two of the generational groups.  I mentioned in an earlier Sticky Note the importance of using multiple transfer strategies rather than relying on one or two.  Keep these generational differences in mind as you develop many techniques and strategies for making the training that you do, stick.

Until next time….

P.S.

Announcing a new tool for you to give to trainees’ managers!  This simple bookmark will help managers understand their role in turning learning into performance and has specific suggestions to help every busy manager help to make their employees’ training stick.  Only $24 for a pack of 50 with FREE SHIPPING.  Click here to view and order.   

Distractions to making learning stick.

Brain scientists and psychologists regularly confirm that although we think we can “multi-task” and do/think about more than one thing at a time, in truth we can’t think about more than one thing at any one time. We’re just not wired that way.

This has huge implications for learning and development.  Most of us are finding that in face-to-face classrooms learners are distracted (and distract themselves) with checking email, IMs, and text messages while they are in class as well as on breaks.

It’s just as well that we can’t see participants in webinars and e-learning classes because if we could, I have no doubt that we would see a lot of multi-tasking not to mention phone and in-person interruptions from coworkers who don’t realize the participant is in a training session (and perhaps some who do).   Personal disclosure:  while I try to avoid it, I have been known to figure out a way to navigate away from webinars that didn’t hold my attention.

In my dissertation research on training transfer, I identified participants who had transferred their learning back to their jobs (via self-report and subordinate-report, since the training was on management skills) and organized them into a high transfer group.  I also identified participants who had not transferred their learning back to their jobs.  Without knowing who had transferred and who had not, I conducted focus group interviews and probed for key factors that may have influenced whether or not the learning had transferred and was being used.  One of the questions I asked was, “What did you do on breaks?”  Here’s what I found:

• 59% of the low/no transfer group said they called their offices/voicemail on breaks (this was before email was easily available via phone), and almost the same percent of the low/no transfer group said that the training was close enough to their offices that on breaks they went back to their desks to do work.
• Much lower percentages of the high transfer group called their offices frequently on breaks or went back to their desks to do work.  One of the trainers in my study had some games that were related to the topic and she encouraged participants to play these on breaks.  A significantly higher number of participants in the high transfer group had been in this trainer’s classes, because their response to my question “what did you do on breaks?” was: “played games and talked about the training”.

I have not found any other studies on how distractions affect training transfer.  While it’s never a good idea draw conclusions based on a single study, it is reasonable to believe that distractions interfere with learning and therefore with making the learning stick.

So what’s a trainer to do?  Here are a few thoughts:

• Ask managers to limit interruptions when their employees are in training.  Suggest that they arrange for work coverage or not expect employees to respond to communications while in training.  See the side column for a new tool that may help!
• For webinars and e-learning, include a screen and/or verbal message that says when they are “signed in” to training, that they “sign out” of other job activities so they can provide their full attention to learning, and their manager, department, and organization can get the most out of this investment in training.
• In face-to-face classrooms, to the usual “Please turn off your cell phones” message, add:  “and refrain from texting or emailing during class and on breaks.”  You’ll probably want to add a brief explanation based on the information in this Sticky Note.

It often feels like an uphill battle for participants’ attention.  But think about it this way – isn’t the purpose of training to learn skills that will be used to do their jobs better?   And what happens when people take training and don’t learn these skills?  The company, the department, and the manager all lose, right?  So if they – participants, bosses, senior leaders, and the organization – want to get a return on their investment in training, they need to minimize distractions and interruptions during the learning.

Until next time…

Intentions to make it stick.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”  This well-known phrase comes to mind when I think about intention to transfer training.  Many end-of-training evaluation forms ask participants to respond to a statement like this:  “I plan to (or will be able to) apply this training to my job”.  Technically this is referred to as intention to transfer.  Have you ever wondered if this is an accurate prediction that the training will stick?

A research study compared intention to transfer with actual behavior change on the job.  What they found in this study was that there was a fairly high correlation between intention to transfer and the actual transfer.  I don’t know, though –

· Don’t people often tell us what we want to hear (or what they think we want to hear)?

· How many people have kept their new year’s resolutions from last month, let alone January 2010?

· Aren’t people’s perceptions of their behavior often different from what other people see?

I’m reminded of a study conducted on the nutritional practices of the residents of Green Valley, Arizona.  The researchers wanted to see how accurately people reported what they ate, so they distributed questionnaires that asked detailed questions about their eating habits.  Then the researchers went through the residents’ garbage containers.  (Wouldn’t you like that job?)  What they found was that there were a lot more pizza cartons and empty junk food sacks than had been reported, and there was a lot less evidence of healthier food choices.

Should you stop asking “I plan to (or will be able to) apply this training to my job” on your end-of-training evaluations? No.  Answers to this question can be a good indication of the relevance of the training content as well as whether it is appropriate for a particular audience.  Just be careful about confusing intention to transfer with actual behavior.

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Take a quick survey about this. I’ll share your feedback in the next Sticky Note.

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Other ideas to get an indication that the training has stuck and is being used on the job -

·  You could repeat a variation of the above question three months later, but responses to “I am applying this training to my job” may still be tainted with wanting to tell you what you want to hear.

· Ask 3-5 specific questions about content application, and make them multiple choice questions.  For an example, take a look at this previous Sticky Note in my blog.

· If it’s not possible to “boil down” to 3-5 specific questions, send more than one survey.  Just because the learning content is grouped into one learning event doesn’t mean the feedback and evaluation on it has to be.

· Compare responses to any of the above level 3 evaluations with responses to the end-of-class question.  Over time if you see there’s a lot of consistency, you could confidently drop one or the other.

Don’t rule out responses to “I plan to this training on my job” as proof that the training is sticking, but look for other indicators to improve the reliability of the responses.  Remember the garbage in Green Valley.

P.S. Follow me on Twitter: @StickyTraining

Until next time…..