LEARNING AND TRAINING

 INTRODUCTION

Learning
is a key and most used tool for individual growth and organisational
development. Learning strategies are encapsulated in all training efforts of
organisations. Training is a bonafide activity of the human resource
department conducted by industrial/organisational or personnel psychologists
with the aim of improving employees’ competencies for improved productivity and
organisational development.

 MEANING OF TRAINING

Learning is a key process in
human behaviour. It plays a crucial role in language, customs, beliefs, attitude,
personality and perceptions of people. Learning can be defined as any relative
change in behaviour occurring as a result of practice or experience. Thus, the
basic elements of learning are (i) change of behaviour (ii) change occurring
through practice or experience, and (iii) the behaviour change must be
relatively permanent. Learning occurs in three ways; informally, that is
spontaneously and incidentally and formally through structured processes.

There is a
distinction between the terms ‘learning’ and ‘training’, even though they are
distinct but complementary terms which involve the process and means of
injecting new knowledge, skills and attitudes into workers for the efficient
discharge of their job roles.

Training according to Naylor
and Blum (2001) is a process that develops and improves skills related to
performance. Effective training programme they said results in increased
production, reduced error and labour turnover and greater employee
satisfaction. Also, Cascio (2006) views training as consisting of planned
programmes designed to improve performance at the individual, group and/or
organisational levels. Also Harrison (1988) views training as ‘to instruct and
discipline in or for some particular art, profession, occupation or practice;
to make proficient by such instruction and practice’. 

In reality, improved
performance implies observable, sometimes measurable changes in knowledge,
skills, attitudes, and or other organizationally/socially acceptable behaviour.
Training can equally be described as human resource and personnel activities
designed to facilitate the learning and development of new and existing skills
and to improve the performance of specific tasks or roles. Training can be said
to incorporate the following:

1.   
It is a process

2.    
Can be used to improve/develop skills

3.    
Can, in all probability, increase production and
reduce errors

4.    
Relates to performance in some ways

5.    
It is a planned/programmed activity of the human
resource department.

6.    
Can facilitate learning in the area of skill,
knowledge and attitude

FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING

In brief
the factors affecting learning are so numerous and has to do with the
environment, the learner and the tutor as reflected in the figure below, they
can however be classified as internal and external factors:

Fig 3.1: Factors influencing the learning process

Forgetting. This means
either temporary or total loss of material previously learnt.

IQ. Higher IQs are able
to learn and recall better than low IQs

Distraction. It is
believed that distractions arising from the environment of learning e.g.
background noise, heat etc have a negative effect on learning.

Individual differences. There
are factors in learning that are inherent in the learner. For instance, while some
learn quickly, others may take a longer time in learning similar material. Also,
motivations to learn and interest are personality variables that will
ultimately affect learning.

  LEARNING THEORIES

Psychologists
have been interested in the intriguing processes involved in human learning. As
a result of such efforts; a body of knowledge has built up which describes the
principles and processes involved in learning. Important learning theories are behavioural,
social-cognitive and information processing theories. Theories
provide explanatory frameworks for understanding crucial variables in an
experience or phenomena.

Behavioural
theories. 

Two notable approaches are presented which are classical
and operant conditioning principles.

a.    ClassicalConditioning. The classical conditioning approach was promoted
by the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) who earned the Nobel Prize experiments
on the activities of the dog’s salivary gland relative to different types of
food accidentally discovered that dogs began to salivate – at the presence
(sight) of food, food dish, smell or even the person delivering the food -long
before food was placed in their mouths. The initial puzzle was; why do
salivation, though a reflex response which is largely involuntary and automatic
response to an external stimulus, occur at mere sight or smell of food? He
interpreted the salivation as neither inborn nor biological but acquired
through experience and a form of learning. 

A major revolutionary
discovery about the principle of human learning has been made. This type of
learning was described by Pavlov as classical conditioning. Classical
conditioning is learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus (NS) becomes
paired (associated) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) to elicit a
conditioned response (CR). The learning scheme can be presented in three
stages:

In
the first stage meat is seen bringing about salivation which is the natural,
inborn and biological response. In the second stage, pairing of meat and bell
which is a neutral stimulus (because it is not capable of igniting salivation
on its own) brings about salivation. In stage three, mere sounding of bell (now
a conditioned stimulus because of association with meat), leads to salvation,
meaning that the dog had learned to expect food at the ringing of the bell. A
student whose performance improves as a result of being given gifts who
continue to show good performance without gifts typifies this kind of
situation.

You
may wonder how dogs salivating at the sound of a bell apply to you? Classical
conditioning turns out to be the basic and fundamental way that all animals,
including humans -you and I – learn most new responses, emotions and attitudes.
Your love for your parent (or other significant others), hatred and prejudice
or drooling at the sight of sweet smelling jolof rice are largely a result of
classical conditioning with is pairing between neutral responses and positive
or negative stimulus (PNS or NNS) to bring about attraction or withdrawal from
the stimulus experience.

Classical
conditioning was later further developed by J. B. Watson by emphasizing that
behaviour can be studied by only focusing on what is observable. According to
him emphasis on unobservable mental processes can only lead to subjective
conclusions. His new approach was christened behaviourism which summed
up behaviour as result of observable stimuli (in the environment) and
observable response (behavioural actions).

b.     Operant Conditioning. Classical conditioning has the power to affect
emotions, attitudes, physiology and health, but could neither explain how a
behaviour is learnt nor elicited. It only works on behaviours that are
automatically triggered. In classical conditioning, the consequences of
behavioural responses are not the focus. This is the major point of departure. 

Operant conditioning was pioneered by Edward L. Thorndike, an American who was
studying how animals learn to solve puzzles. He constructed puzzle boxes in
which cats learn to either press a lever or pull a string in other to get to a
food (reward) in another compartment. The cat pushes, tried to climb or dig the
floor and over time learned to press the lever that gives access to the food.
Because performance, which was by trial-and-error, improved slowly over time,
by gradually eliminating responses that failed to open the door, Thorndike
concluded that animals did not learn by ‘insight’ but through a process called instrumental
learning.

This
means that the cat acts in such a way as to attain an outcome – reach the food.
He proposed the law of effect which states that ‘in a given
situation, a response followed by a ‘satisfying’ consequence will become more
likely to occur, and a response followed by an unsatisfying outcome will become
less likely to occur’. This simply means that the probability of occurrence of
behaviour is strengthened if it is followed by pleasant or satisfying
consequences. B. F. Skinner also an American, further popularized behaviourism
and coined the term operant behaviour, meaning that organisms operates
on their environment in some ways to elicit responses that produce certain
consequences. Operant conditioning according to him is the means by which
organisms achieve personal adaption to the environment.

Operant
conditioning works on the principles of strengthening or weakening
of responses by use of reinforcement which can be either positive or negative.
If you tickle a baby and he/she smiles, the probability that you will further
tickle the child increases. That is his/her smiles increases (strengthens) the
likely that you will tickle the child. The smile is the positive reinforcer.
On the other hand, if a little boy is upset and crying and you hug him and he
stops crying. The removal of crying is a negative reinforcer and the
process is called negative reinforcement because taking away of crying by
hugging increases also the likelihood that you will hug him if he cries in
future.

In
this vein, negative reinforcement is not necessarily punishment. Whereas
reinforcement (positive or negative) strengthens behaviour, punishment weakens
behaviour. Reinforcement is important as a way of increasing (desired
behaviour) or decreasing or stopping (undesired behaviour). Various schedules
of reinforcement are available and of varied efficacy.

Schedules
of reinforcement

a. Continuous schedule.
This means the behaviour is rewarded each time it occurs. It is only useful to
establish behaviour in a conditioned operant conditioning process, after which
it may produce negative outcome. The individual exposed to continuous
reinforcement may become suffused and reduce or stop responding favourably. The
incentive is either insufficient or altogether ignored with regards to the
expected behaviour. Just as one can get tired of one’s favourite meal if
repeatedly served, continuous reinforcement can produce satiation and reduced
responses.

b.   
Interval schedule: Reward is given at
specified interval. A parent who sucks her young one, at every four hours is
using an interval schedule. The interval could be fixed or variable.

i.    
Fixed-interval: Regular interval is maintained
between successive reinforcements.

ii.   
Variable-interval. Reward is given at varied
intervals. For instance, a variable schedule is being implemented if the mother
sucks at an interval such as four hours followed by five hours, by three hours
and so forth. That is, each successive interval varies from the next.

c.    
Ratio schedules. In this schedule,
desired behaviour is reinforced after specified number of responses. The ratio
schedule can be fixed-ratios or variable ratios:

i.  
Fixed-ratio. If a boy is being trained for
correct use of potty he may be rewarded every order time he correctly uses the
potty.

ii.   
Variable-ratio. The same boy may be given
reinforcement at the 1^st, 3^rd, 7^th and 8^th
correct usage of potty. The variable ratio is said to be the most effective
schedule in situation requiring higher persistence response rates. All gambling
situation involves variables ratio schedule of reinforcement. No wonder
gambling behaviour is difficult to break! This is also true of addictive
behaviours such as cigarette smoking and drug use. Continuous reinforcement on
the other hand, produces more rapid acquisition of a response but with scalloping
– a situation in which response is higher just before reinforcement. The fixed
interval approach produces low frequency of response, especially immediately
after reinforcement.

Five
important principles of both operant and classical conditioning are: stimulus
generalization, stimulus discrimination, extinction, spontaneous recovery
and higher-order conditioning.

i.     Stimulus generalization. Though the conditioning may be originally with
specific conditioned stimulus (such as low-pitched sound), dogs will equally
salivate, that is extend response to other sound pitches, high, medium etc.
This is called stimulus generalization. The more the stimulus closely resembles
the initial conditioned stimulus, e.g. one dog barking in a neighbourhood, the
stronger the conditioned response. Fear of police car may extend to all cars
with flashlights on their roofs. After learning the word Daddy (through
operant conditioning), the child tend to refer to all adult men as Daddy.

ii.  Stimulus discrimination. Organisms will soon learn to distinguish
(discriminate) between original CS and similar stimuli if they have enough
exposure to both, just little children learn to distinguish the voice of the
mother, father and siblings from other people and as you learn to distinguish
between your cell phone ring tone and others.

iii.    Extinction.
Learning in general brings about only relatively permanent change in behaviour.
Behaviours learnt through classical conditioning can become weakened or
suppressed through extinction. This occurs when the UCS is repeatedly withheld
whenever the CS is presented. The association is weakened and responses
(behaviour) stops.

iv.    Spontaneous recovery. This means reappearance of a previously extinguished
conditioned response. This means that previously learnt experiences, that is,
association between UCS and NS, are not completely erased. When the stimulus
condition is reintroduced, learning becomes faster. This fact perhaps explain
why you suddenly feel excited coming in contact with your old school sweetheart
after a long period of separation. Also separated couples often experience
sudden ‘flareup’ of feelings and may be tempted to return to a doomed
relationship.

v.       Higher-order conditioning. Higher-order conditioning explains what occurs when a
neutral stimulus (NS) becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) through repeated
pairings with previously conditioned stimulus. For example, on first time
encounter of a Yoruba child with an Ibo man (NS), there was no negative
reaction. But after repeated pejorative comments by say his father about Ibo
people, the Yoruba child will likely begin to respond negatively toward Ibo
men.

Social-cognitive
Theory

Also called cognitive-social
learning or cognitive-behavioural theory, these set of behavioural
psychologists belief that behaviour is more than simple S-R (stimulus and
response) paradigm, rather thinking and interpretation of stimuli – S-O-R
(stimulus-Organism- Response) are bonafide part of the learning process.
According to this view, human learning is influenced by multiplicity of factors
such as beliefs, attitudes, motivations, expectations and emotions. This is
because animals, like man, are social creatures learning new behaviour through
observation, imitation and insight.

Information
processing theories

The human memory
is highly functional and biologically adapted for everyday life by receiving
and automatically filtering a barrage of information and selecting, retaining
and recovering essential information for our survival. Basically, this is what
learning is about in the consideration of information processing theorists.
This theory uses the computer metaphor to explain the basic functions of the
human memory system by conceiving human learning as composing of two
fundamentally important mechanisms; information storage and processing.

a.   
Information
storage involves three main stages
which are; sensory inputs, storage and retrieval of information.
Learning is viewed as a system involving the input of information, processing
(storage, association with old materials in the brain and
comprehension/interpretation), and retrieval for several uses like creativity,
problem solving and other functional adaptation of the human species. Figure
two exemplifies this approach to learning:

Information processing and human memory

As
depicted in figure 3.2, and in the traditional three-stage memory model, each
box represents separate memory systems which differ in purpose, duration of
information and capacity to store information. The sensory memory (SM) only
holds information momentarily before the item of focus and attention is
transmitted, so to say, to the short term memory (STM) is active and has been
described as working memory because it can receive, hold and process spatial,
visual and auditory information and has capacity to for 5-9 items meaningfully
received, analysed and made ready for storage in the long term memory (LTM).
The capacity of the LTM is infinite and items in this store are deemed to be
permanently stored, all things been equal. Information that make it to the LTM
are tagged (labelled) and filed in appropriate section of the brain.

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b.   
Information processing on the other hand,
focused on how information transmutes from the point of reception by sensory
organs to usage by encoding (translating information into understandable
neural codes like languages), storage (retaining neutrally coded
information over time) and retrieval (recovering information from memory
storage). For information to last long in the human memory, it must get into
the long term memory. This is through rehearsal or practice.

 HUMAN MEMORY

Memory is
an internal record or representation of some prior event or experience. Without
memory, learning is lost and we have no past but only the present. Memory is
one of the most important and valuable mental process. The long term memory
interlinked with the short term memory; whenever a thing is recalled, it is
brought to the conscious mind (STM) and later returned to the memory store for
keeps (LTM). There are at least two basic types or systems of memory; the
declarative (explicit) and the nondeclarative (implicit or procedural) memory.

Major systems in long term memory

Declarative memory.
Declarative memory are of two types; the semantic memory hosting factual
and general information; rules, events, objective facts, and specific
information and episodic memory which are mental diary of events and
episodes of life that were personally experienced, like high school graduation,
wedding ceremonies and the birth of first born. Some of the episodes memories,
like what you eat for breakfast or names of casual acquaintances in a ball, are
short lived in the memory while others, such as ones first kiss can last a
lifetime.

Nondeclarative Memory.
Also called memories without awareness, this refers to unintentional learning
and is classified into:

i.    
Procedural learning (motor skills) or
unconscious knowledge that has become habitual likes tying your shoes, brushing
your teeth and driving a car.

ii.   
Classically conditioned responses such as fears
or taste aversions. For instance if you open a can of drink, pour it into a cup
and found crawling maggots inside, your next encounter will automatically
remind you of the first experience.

iii.   
Priming. This is a situation where first
exposure to a stimulus (or prime) facilitates or inhibits the processing of new
information. Examples are when romantic feelings are heightened after watching
or reading a romantic movie or novel. In a way, dating is a priming experience
for courtship as courtship is a priming experience for marriage!

 REMEMBERING VERSUS FORGETTING

Because of the frailties of
human memory, many people are plagued by the problem of inability to retain and
recall what has been learnt. Information stored in the long term memory can be
recalled/retrieved on demand. When such information is easily recalled, it is
said that we remembered. Recall, as a term is
not the same as remembering. It means being able to retain what is learned, and
brings it back from memory. A German psychologist, Hermann Ebbinghaus
(1885-1964) pioneered memory research way back 1885. He used himself as a
subject studying what he described as nonsense (meaningless) syllables (e.g.
SIB, RAL) and came up with a memory curve showing how materials are rapidly
lost after they have been perfectly (recalling 100%) learnt. According to him
44% is recalled after 1

hour, 35% a day after and only 21% a week after. With this outcome he arrived
at what he called forgetting curve.

Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve.

Retention and ultimately learning and
recall are facilitated by a number of factors. Some of these are:

1.     
Nature of material learnt. Some materials are
simple while others range in level of complexity. In general, simple materials
are better recalled.

2.     
Attention. Attention is determined by the span
of time given into sorting and selection of information to be learned. The
depth and span of attention vary directly with ability to retain and recall.

3.     
Practice. It is a fact that practice makes for
perfection; practice also called rehearsal is achieved by repeatedly learning a
material, or repeatedly exposed to an experience till recall is automatic.

4.     
Memory. It is believed that individual
differences affect the ability to store and retrieve information from memory.
People with high intelligence, for instance, have retentive memory and better
ability to recall learned material.

5.     
Interest. Lack of interest in learned material
will negatively affect its retention and recall.

6.      
Organization of learned material. It is believed
that learning is not a haphazard task. The brain has its perceptual processes,
which are based on certain rules of organization of information in the memory
bank.

RATIONALE FOR TRAINING

Organizations provide training for their employees for
these and many other reasons:

To remove performance
deficiencies.

To increase employees
competencies.

To improve quality and quantity
of work.

To prevent skill obsolesces.

To increase productivity and
efficiency.

To match employees’ abilities
with the job requirement and organizational needs.

To bring about team spirit and
high morale.

To induce certain behavioural
changes in employees.

To cope with new technological
advancement.

To prevent
accident or improve health and safety.

 TRAINING NEEDS DETERMINATION

Training need determination is
addressed to three key issues; initiation of new or improvement on existing knowledge,
injection of new skills and change of attitude. Whereas it
takes knowledge and skill to excel on a job; attitude is what keeps one on the
job to achieve job satisfaction and other appurtenances of quality work life.
The determination of training needs is highly essential because it enables the
organization to draw up a good plan for training programmes, choose the
appropriate training methods as well as the course content. The five components
of the needs assessment process are:

i.     
Organizational analysis

ii.     
Task/Job analysis

iii.     
Persons analysis

iv.      
Demographic Analysis

iv.     
Operational Analysis

i.     
Organisational analysis.

It focuses
on identifying where training is needed within the organisation. This begins
with the assessment of the organization’s short and long term objectives,
goals, resources and environment of the organisation. It focuses on the
analysis of human resources needs, organizational strengths and weakness,
organization efficiency index, the

rate of absenteeism, labour turnover, grievances, accident, e.t.c. An
organizational needs analysis may also include an assessment of the
organisation’s current climate for training. s objectives.

ii.    
Task/Job analysis

While organisational analysis is a macro perspective, task analysis is a
micro perspective involving a review of job description in which the task,
duties, responsibilities and condition under which the job is done is
highlighted. This identifies the specific skills, knowledge and behaviour
needed to perform the tasks required by present and future jobs. It also
reveals the technical nature of the job, the minimum acceptable standards of
performance.

iii.   
Person analysis

This focuses on the job holder. It is aimed at identifying the ‘training
gaps’ or skill deficiencies in the job incumbent. After information about the
job has been collected, the analysis shifts to the person. Person needs
analysis identifies gaps between a person’s current competencies and those
identified as necessary or desirable. Person analysis also reflects currency or
obsolescence of skills and a need to match skills of employees with evolving
technologies and new structures and process of work.

iv.    
Demographic analysis

The objective of this is to determine the training needs of specific
populations of workers. It is to assess whether all employees are given equal
access to growth experiences and developmental changes, which are known to be
useful on-the-job methods for promoting skill development. For instance, in
comparing the development career experiences of men and women, men are likely
to be assigned to jobs that present difficult task-related challenges while
women are more likely to be assigned to jobs that present challenges caused by
obstacles to performance (e.g. difficult boss or lack of support from
management).

v.      
Operational Analysis

This
attempts to identify the content of training i.e. what an employee must do in
order to perform competently. Operational analysis is an attempt at evolving
criteria for training that reflects daily and recurrent issues in different
areas of operation. Critical incidences may be catalogued across operational
units and synthesize into knowledge, skill and attitude components. These form
the content of the training programme envisaged.

 TRAINING METHODS

Training methods can be
classified under the following headings:

On-the-job methods. This approach involves introduction of the
worker to new set of information and work related skills that are immediately
transferable to the work situation. It is often done right on the job and
though it may cause some disruption of normal flow of work and take a bit of
chunk time from the trainer who is likely to be the boss or supervisor, the
advantage is in the instantaneous transfer of learning.

Off-the-job methods. Off the job training makes up for the
disruption of flow of work hinted at using on-the-job methods. It is done in
preselected venues away from the actual work. Several methods as listed are
used. The major advantage is that it comes as an interlude to actual work, but
with much interval between learning and practice, spontaneity is lost resulting
in reduced transfer of learning. Also the methods may cost the organisation
more in terms of logistics, payment to consultants and resource persons and so
forth.

Simulation methods.
Simulation methods hope to find a bridge between the disadvantages of off and
on-the job methods. Simulation methods provide realistic, though contrived,
training situations and is useful mainly in training and development programme
for managers. The use of case studies, role playing, sensitivity training and
so forth are included in simulation.

These three methods of training are generally being used by
organizations. Organizations often use a combination of the three methods
because no one of them is perfectly sufficient for all the training needs. The
choice of training method may be constrained by the type of learning that is to
occur (cognitive, skill based or affective) as well as by cost and time
considerations. Therefore, the type of training method chosen reflects;

The objectives of training to
be accomplished,

The resources available to the
organization,

The peculiar nature and
characteristics of the individuals to be trained and

The
available time.

Table : Training Methods

 EVALUATION OF TRAINING

Training serves certain basic
objectives, which are to improve the knowledge, skill (know-how), attitude of
workers and to bring about change in relevant job behaviours. The end’s insight is improved productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness at work. Training
activities are therefore evaluated on the basis of how well these objectives are
attained.

In reality, training can be
evaluated in terms of:

1.    
Process. This address;

a.        
Effectiveness of trainer

b.
Trainees newly acquired skills as translated to
relevant job behaviour. Also, attendance, effort and involvement of trainee.

c.
Course or training materials with respect of
coverage, depth, language, timeliness and mode of presenting these materials.

d.    
Method, whether fitful to the trainee needs of
trainee.

2.    
Outcome. That is, how performance of
trainees compare to pre-training level. Outcome reflects changes in performance
level, relevant behaviour and work attitude depending on focus of training.]

3.     
Cost-effect benefit. Are process and
outcome justified in terms of cost to the organisation vis-a-vis adequacy or
otherwise of budgetary provision, current and future benefits to individual trainees
and the organisation? Training is only successful when benefits out weights the
costs.

4.    
Performance on the job. This is an
example of distal criteria measure that is commonly used in organisations to
determine workers input within the context of job criteria like productivity,
efficiency, quality of work, and so forth.

CONCLUSION

Learning
principles and theories are crucial and form the basic principles upon which
training and development activities are built. Learning brings about relatively
permanent change in behaviour as a result of acquisition of new set of
knowledge, skills and attitudes. For training to be successful training needs
has to be diagnosed and a system put in place to implement the training agenda
using appropriate methodologies. The effectiveness of training can only be
ascertained using systematized measure of the process, costs and outcome.