Complete Training Evaluation by Richard Griffin

Author:Richard Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kogan Page

In the 1950s my father won ballroom dancing competitions, he was that good at dancing. I, on the other hand (or foot), have two left feet. I believe I am rubbish at dancing. My partner, though, has always wanted to learn to dance so two years ago we signed up for a day-long introductory dance course. It is no exaggeration to say that it was one of the most hideous experiences of my life. By the end of it I could hardly remember how to walk, let alone do the cha-cha or rumba!

This learning non-outcome for me had nothing to do with the dance teacher, who was excellent and managed to get everyone else gliding around the dance floor effortlessly while I stumbled and stepped on toes. I suspect the reason that I was quite so terrible is that I came to the course with a fixed belief that I was going to be poor. I had weak, well, maybe zero, self-efficacy: I did not believe I could dance. This created a barrier to my ability to learn. Setbacks were just that – setbacks, rather than learning challenges to be overcome. They reinforced my feeling that I am not able to dance. In fact all the items in the box below that characterize weak self-efficacy apply to dancing lessons and me!

I did not go back to the dance school – probably to the relief of the rest of the class and teacher! But if I had maybe I would have slowly got better. Small successes can snowball. A couple of successful turns and my self-efficacy would have increased. However, weak self-efficacy meant that I was not committed to the training and so that was that.

I should point out at this stage that a little bit of self-doubt is no bad thing. In fact some research suggests that there may be value in reducing high levels of self-efficacy to make learners work harder (Vancouver and Kendall, 2006). If a learner has very high levels of self-efficacy they may not believe that they have to work too hard to succeed. Luckily for us this is a training design rather than evaluation issue! What we are interested in as evaluators is the degree of self-efficacy learners bring to training, the extent to which the training changes that and what happens when learners return to the workplace.

REFLECTION 11.1: SELF-EFFICACY

Can you think of learning experiences that you have had where you had a strong sense of self-efficacy and others where you had a weak sense? Characteristics of weak self-efficacy might include trying to avoid the learning altogether, a belief that it is not possible for you to master what is being taught and apply it, general feelings of negativity and a loss of confidence.

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