Posttraining interventions to enhance transfer: The moderating effects of work environments

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F E A T U R E

Posttraining Interventionsto Enhance Transfer:The Moderating Effectsof Work Environments

Wendy L. Richman-Hirsch

The study reported on in this article examined the effectiveness of twoposttraining interventions—goal-setting and self-management training—and moderating effects of the work environment on improving trainingtransfer. The findings indicate that training in goal-setting was effective inimproving the extent to which trainees applied their skills to the job.Further, both interventions were found to be more effective in supportivework environments. Implications for training research and human resourcepractices are discussed.

The sine qua non of training is the successful transfer of trained skills to thejob. Baldwin and Ford (1988) identified two conditions of transfer: mainte-nance (that is, the length of time that trained skills continue to be used on thejob) and generalization (the application of trained skills to tasks or settingsbeyond the original training context). It has been argued that transfer of train-ing is a function of the training program itself as well as the work environment(for example, Facteau, Dobbins, Russell, Ladd, and Kudisch, 1995; Ford,Quiñones, Sego, and Sorra, 1992; Tracey, Tannenbaum, and Kavanagh, 1995).It is believed that aspects of the posttraining environment can encourage, dis-courage, or even prohibit the application of new skills on the job (Tannenbaumand Yukl, 1992). The present study examined the effectiveness of twoposttraining interventions—goal-setting and self-management training—that

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 12, no. 2, Summer 2001Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Note: This research was carried out for my doctoral dissertation at the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign. The study was supported in part by grants from the Center for Human ResourceManagement (CHRM) and the Office of Human Resource Development, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign. I gratefully acknowledge the support and guidance of Charles L. Hulin andMiguel A. Quiñones.

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provide trainees with skills to help them overcome potential obstacles and con-straints in the work environment and ultimately enhance the application oflearned material.

Posttraining Interventions

Several researchers have examined the effectiveness of posttraining interven-tions (for example, Frayne and Latham, 1987; Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990;Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991; Latham and Frayne, 1989; Wexley andBaldwin, 1986), but few attempts have been made to examine the extent towhich contextual variables moderate the effectiveness of posttraining interven-tions in enhancing transfer. Using several sources of data (self, supervisor, andcoworkers) collected over time, this study both replicates and extends previousresearch. This study attempts to replicate the work of Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens(1990); Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta (1991); Gist and Stevens (1998); Stevens andGist (1997); and Wexley and Baldwin (1986) by examining the differentialeffectiveness of goal-setting and self-management in improving maintenanceand generalization transfer. In addition, this study extends previous researchby investigating the moderating effects of work environments; to the authorsknowledge, this study is the first to investigate the moderating effects of thetransfer work environment on posttraining intervention effectiveness.

Goal-Setting Training. Locke, Latham, and their colleagues have gainedconsiderable support for the assertion that specific, challenging goals lead tohigher performance than easy goals, do-your-best goals, or no goals (Locke andLatham, 1990). Goals are believed to lead to higher performance because theydirect attention, mobilize effort, and encourage persistence on a task (Locke,Shaw, Saari, and Latham, 1981).

With respect to training efforts, several studies have investigated the moti-vating effects of goal-setting as a posttraining intervention to enhance transferand have reported positive findings. For example, Wexley and Nemeroff(1975) investigated the effects of introducing goal-setting following a man-agement development training program for hospital supervisors. Their resultsindicate that trainees with assigned performance goals (that is, to ask subordi-nates’ opinions and ideas and try them whenever possible) were better atapplying their trained skills than trainees who had no goals. (See also Wexleyand Baldwin, 1986.)

Self-Management Training. In its original form, self-management train-ing developed to aid people who had relapse problems with addictive behav-iors, such as smoking and alcoholism (Kanfer, 1980). It is believed that a setof generalizable coping skills helps individuals avoid or effectively handle prob-lems they encounter after therapy. Self-management techniques have beenfound to be effective in helping people stop smoking (Kanfer and Phillips,1970), lose weight (Mahoney, Moura, and Wade, 1973), and improve studyhabits (Richards, 1976).

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Marx (1982) brought these ideas into the workplace by developing arelapse prevention model for managerial training. Self-management training,as it is called now, involves teaching people to assess potential obstacles to per-formance, monitor ways in which the environment facilitates or hindersperformance, plan coping responses when faced with those obstacles, andadminister rewards upon successfully avoiding or overcoming obstacles (Gist,Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990; Noe, 1986; Wexley and Baldwin, 1986). Researchexamining self-management training as a posttraining intervention indicatesthat it is effective in enhancing transfer (for example, Frayne and Latham,1987; Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990; Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991) andmay have long-term effects (Latham and Frayne, 1989).

Several researchers have compared the effectiveness of goal-setting andself-management interventions in enhancing transfer (Gist, Bavetta,and Stevens, 1990; Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991; Stevens and Gist, 1997;Wexley and Baldwin, 1986). These studies have found that goal-setting isessential to the success of self-management training. For example, Wexley andBaldwin found that, for improving time management skills, self-managementtraining (without goal-setting) was inferior to goal-setting training (that is,monitoring achievement toward either assigned or participatively set goals);goal-setting trainees demonstrated greater maintenance of their time manage-ment skills over a two-month period. Gist and associates (Gist, Bavetta, andStevens, 1990; Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991) discovered that, following anegotiation skills training program, trainees who were taught goal-setting andself-management principles demonstrated greater transfer than did traineeswho were taught only goal-setting principles following training.

Consistent with previous findings, it is expected that goal-setting and self-management training (with goal-setting components) will have differenteffects on the maintenance and generalization of trained skills. Because self-management techniques involve identifying obstacles to performance and plan-ning coping responses, self-management trainees may acquire the abilityto apply learned material to new situations. Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens (1990,p. 506) suggest that “in contrast to training that emphasizes goal-setting alone,self-management training may focus attention on the learning and orchestra-tion processes involved in performing a complex task, as well as the desiredoutcome.” They found that following a negotiation skills training program, aself-management posttraining intervention resulted in greater generalizationthan did a goal-setting posttraining intervention. In addition, Gist and Stevens(1998) found that when participants experienced stressful practice conditions,supplemental training in self-management after negotiation training led toimproved generalization. This study hypothesizes that self-managementtrainees will exhibit the greatest generalization transfer.

HYPOTHESIS 1. Self-management trainees will exhibit greater generalization thaneither goal-setting trainees or trainees receiving no posttraining intervention.

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Although Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta (1991) concluded that self-managementtraining results in greater maintenance than goal-setting training, their depen-dent measure was a self-report inventory of the self-management and goal-settingtechniques that trainees had used since training (reflexive and active mainte-nance activities); the maintenance measure did not assess the maintenance(over time) of the negotiation skills taught in the negotiation skills training course.In contrast, Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens (1990) used a measure of repetition(the total number of times any negotiation strategy was used divided by the totalnumber of strategies used) that seems to be a better assessment of the extentto which trainees continued to use their negotiation skills following training(that is, maintenance). In that study, Gist and colleagues found that, comparedto self-management trainees, goal-setting trainees tended to use their skills morerepeatedly on the transfer task.

In the present study, using a maintenance measure of the frequency withwhich trainees were observed (by their colleagues) engaging in the behaviorstaught in training, it is expected that goal-setting training will lead to greatermaintenance transfer. Self-management training is expected to help traineesfocus on how to apply their training to novel tasks and settings (that is, gen-eralization), whereas goal-setting is expected to enhance effort and persistencetoward transfer; this enhanced effort and persistence is expected to result ingreater maintenance of trained skills over time.

HYPOTHESIS 2. Goal-setting trainees will exhibit greater maintenance than eitherself-management trainees or trainees receiving no posttraining intervention.

Work Environment

Current reviews of the training literature, as well as empirical studies on trans-fer, have suggested that work environments are important with regard totransfer of training (for example, Baldwin and Ford, 1988; Facteau, Dobbins,Russell, Ladd, and Kudisch, 1995; Rouiller and Goldstein, 1993; Tracey,Tannenbaum, and Kavanagh, 1995). For example, Ford, Quiñones, Sego, andSorra (1992) demonstrated that trainees who perform similar jobs may begiven different opportunities to perform their trained skills on the job depend-ing on their work environment; the work environment was found to limittrainees’ ability to transfer the learned material to the job. Tracey, Tannenbaum,and Kavanagh (1995) found that behaviors that send a message that learn-ing and the application of learning are important and valued encourage theapplication of newly trained skills. The present study extended this researchby examining the extent to which the work environment moderates the effec-tiveness of posttraining interventions.

Previous research examining the effectiveness of posttraining interventionson transfer of training have not explored potential moderating effects of workenvironments. Because trainees’ perceptions of the work environment have

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been found to influence transfer of new behaviors to the job (for example,Ford, Quiñones, Sego, and Sorra, 1992; Rouiller and Goldstein, 1993; Tracey,Tannenbaum, and Kavanagh, 1995; Tziner and Falbe, 1993), one might alsoexpect that trainees’ ability to make use of posttraining interventions dependson the type of work environment in which they work.

In a work environment that supports the application of trained skills andvalues learning and development activities, for example, goal-setting traineesmay be better able to apply their new skills because they have the resources,support, and encouragement needed to translate their goals into effort and per-formance. In addition, self-management trainees may be better able to focuson transfer constraints (personal or organizational) present in their work set-ting when they work in a supportive environment. Goal-setting and self-management training are expected to help trainees overcome barriers totransfer and enhance the application of trained skills, yet the efficacy of theinterventions may be hindered in a work environment that is fraught withtransfer constraints. Therefore, it is hypothesized that goal-setting and self-management training will be more effective at enhancing the transfer of learnedmaterial when trainees work in supportive environments.

HYPOTHESIS 3. Posttraining interventions will interact with trainees’ perceptions ofthe transfer work environment to affect transfer. Specifically, trainees in the goal-setting and self-management interventions who work in a supportive work envi-ronment will exhibit greater transfer than either trainees in the no posttrainingcondition who work in a supportive work environment and all trainees who workin unsupportive work environments. No differences in transfer across interventionsare expected in unsupportive work environments.

Method

The study method was as follows.Participants. Data were collected from 267 employees at a large mid-

western university. Participants were enrolled in a customer service skills train-ing course offered by the university’s human resource office. Courseparticipation was voluntary; supervisory evaluations were not expected toaffect enrollment. The average response rate in training was 74 percent (a totalof 360 trainees were enrolled in the course) and the return rate for the follow-up questionnaires was approximately 76 percent for the trainees and 44 per-cent for trainees’ colleagues (138 supervisors and 458 coworkers responded).Approximately two surveys per trainee were received from trainees’ colleagues.(A total of 1,335 surveys were sent to trainees’ colleagues, however, it wasanticipated that only three completed surveys per trainee were necessary foranalysis—corresponding to a response rate of only 60 percent.)

Design. An experimental design containing three levels of a between-subjects variable was used. The manipulated variable was the posttraining


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intervention to which trainees were randomly assigned (goal-setting versusself-management versus placebo, or no intervention). There were approxi-mately ninety trainees per condition.

Procedure. Following the customer service skills training, participantscompleted a questionnaire assessing their perceptions of the transfer envi-ronment in their workplace and a declarative knowledge test on the trainingcontent. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the three post-training conditions. (Kanfer and Ackerman, 1989, assert that motivationalinterventions are more effective during later stages of skill acquisition; there-fore, the training interventions were conducted after training was completed.)The two posttraining interventions consisted of a training session lastingapproximately one hour. Following these sessions, participants completed ashort manipulation check. Participants in the control condition completed theknowledge test and manipulation check immediately after the initial trainingwas completed and were excused. All questionnaires were returned directlyto the researcher.

To diminish the diffusion of treatment effects, trainees were encouragednot to discuss the content of the posttraining intervention with colleagues whomay have been in the other posttraining groups. If they did, they were askedto focus only on the techniques taught in their intervention and to avoidattempting the techniques taught in the other groups.

Approximately four to six weeks after training, the trainees’ colleagueswere asked to complete two assessments of the trainees’ transfer behaviors:maintenance and generalization. As before, all questionnaires were returneddirectly to the researcher.

Training Courses. The customer service skills course focused on serviceskills, teamwork, communication skills, and the prevention of commonuniversity student problems. It was a full-day program lasting eight hours.Eight sessions of the course, with approximately forty-five trainees persession, were evaluated.

Goal-Setting Intervention. Modeled after Gist and others (Gist, Bavetta,and Stevens, 1990; Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991), the training includeda discussion of why goal-setting is important (definition of goals), a descrip-tion of the goal-setting process, characteristics of effective goals (for example,challenging and specific), an explanation for the effectiveness of goals, exam-ples of how goal-setting has been used in other organizations, and adiscussion of how goal-setting could be effective in one’s own organization ordepartment.

After a discussion and demonstration of how to set difficult, specific goals,each trainee developed a goal-setting plan. Each person received a worksheetto use to personalize his or her goal to meet individual needs and strengths.The trainees were instructed to fill out the worksheet by (1) indicating theinterim steps they intended to take to achieve their goal and (2) writing downthe date by which they intended to achieve each step. They were given extra

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blank goal-setting sheets to encourage them to use the goal-setting techniquesback on the job.

Self-Management Intervention. Self-management training included anoverview of Marx’s (1982) relapse prevention (self-management) model,listing of the newly trained skills that trainees wished to apply to the job,examination of potential obstacles to effective transfer of those newly learnedskills, development of potential coping responses to handle unfavorableenvironmental influences, and instruction on how to experience a sense ofaccomplishment after attempting to use a coping skill in a problematicsituation (Marx, 1982; Noe, 1986; Wexley and Baldwin, 1986). Examples ofeffective self-management programs used in other contexts were provided(Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990; Gist, Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991). Traineeswere also reminded that temporary difficulties and slips were to be expectedand that they should revise and add new coping strategies as they encoun-tered new situations that caused additional difficulties on the job (Wexley andBaldwin, 1986).

Consistent with the goal-setting intervention, all of the self-managementtrainees received a self-management plan worksheet to help them personal-ize the self-management process according to their individual needs andstrengths. They were instructed to fill out the worksheet by (1) focusing onthe specific skills taught in training that they wanted to apply to their job,(2) listing potential obstacles that might hinder their ability to apply theirnewly learned skills to the job, (3) describing specifically how they wouldcope with or avoid each of those obstacles, (4) determining how theywould monitor their performance toward avoiding or overcoming each obsta-cle, and (5) deciding how they would reward themselves for successfullyavoiding or overcoming each obstacle. They were given extra blank self-management worksheets to encourage them to use the self-management tech-niques back on the job.

Measures. The measures were as follows.Work Environment. A twenty-five-item scale was used to assess the transfer

work environment. The content of the items was adapted from Tracey,Tannenbaum, and Kavanagh (1995) and Tracey (1998). To determine theextent to which the environment reinforced or blocked transfer behaviors,each item assessed a contingency between performing transfer behaviors onthe job and organizational responses. Trainees were asked to indicate theirbeliefs about the likelihood of organizational reactions when supervisors andcoworkers facilitate (or fail to facilitate) transfer of training, and when theysupport (or fail to support) knowledge, skill, and behavior acquisition andapplication. (For example, “Do you think it would be noticed if a newly trainedemployee in your department was not performing his or her job as taught intraining?”) (See Exhibit 1 for additional examples.) Each question used a four-point Likert response scale, with higher scores indicating perceptions of asupportive transfer of training climate.


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Exhibit 1. Sample Survey Items

Work Environment

1. Do you think it would be noticed if a newly trained employee in your departmentwas not performing his or her job as taught in training?

2. Do you think a newly trained employee would be praised for using his or her newskills on the job?

3. How likely is it that a supervisor would give recognition and credit to those whoapply new knowledge and skills to their work?

Maintenance Transfer

1. Remained attentive and focused on a customer while talking with him or her.2. Asked fact-finding questions to clarify a customer’s needs and to check for

understanding of his or her problem.3. Assured a customer that he or she heard and understood the customer’s concern.

Generalization Transfer

1. Remained attentive and focused on a coworker while talking with him or her.2. Asked fact-finding questions to clarify a team member’s or colleague’s needs and to

check for understanding.3. Assured his or her supervisor, boss, or coworker that he or she heard and

understood the concern that was voiced.

Manipulation Check

Self-Management Activities

1. Identified obstacles to successful performance2. Engaged in coping strategies to overcome obstacles3. Monitored progress in the use or review of strategies

Goal-Setting Activities

1. Thought about how to achieve the goal2. Monitored progress toward goal attainment3. Thought about how to maintain persistence toward goal attainment

Performance in Training. Following training, a declarative knowledge testwas used to assess the extent to which trainees learned the content oftraining. The test items were multiple choice questions derived from acontent analysis of the training course and all relevant training materials. Thetotal number of correct items was used to generate an overall performancemeasure. Individual performance scores across training sessions were linkedby converting performance scores to standardized z-scores within session.

Transfer. Transfer maintenance and generalization were assessed approx-imately four to six weeks after training completion using measures from twosources: the trainees’ supervisor and two to three of their coworkers. To assessmaintenance behaviors, respondents were asked to indicate how often thetrainee engaged in specific behaviors taught in the training course. To assessgeneralization behaviors, respondents were asked to indicate how often thetrainee engaged in behaviors that were not directly taught in training but thatrepresented extensions of behaviors taught in the course. For example, trainees

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were taught communication skills such as how to remain attentive and focusedon a customer while talking to him or her; a generalization item, therefore, washow often the trainee remained attentive and focused on a coworker when talk-ing with him or her. (See Exhibit 1 for additional examples.) For both main-tenance (twenty-one items) and generalization (ten items) transfer measures,respondents used a six-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 6 (severaltimes a day).

Trainees’ colleagues were asked to complete the questionnaire only if theyfelt they had adequate contact with the trainee to observe the transfer behav-iors. If not, they were asked to return the questionnaire blank with a note indi-cating lack of contact. Maintenance and generalization measures were computedby (1) finding the mean response for each item by averaging the responsesobtained from trainees’ colleagues, and (2) taking the mean of the item meanscomputed in the first step. The average reliability across all behaviors fortrainees’ colleagues was found to be � � .80 and .77 for maintenance and gen-eralization behaviors, respectively, and the average correlation between any pairof raters was .73 and .68 for maintenance and generalization, respectively.

Manipulation Check. To ensure that appropriate content was covered inthe interventions, trainees were asked what was taught in the posttraininginterventions. They indicated the activities taught by using a checklist of self-management and goal-setting activities. They completed this checklist imme-diately after completion of the posttraining session. (See Exhibit 1 for examplesof self-management and goal-setting activities included on the checklist.)

Results

The results were as follows.Descriptive Statistics. Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations,

scale reliabilities, and intercorrelations of the study variables. As the tableshows, coefficient � for each of the scales ranged from .80 to .92. Scores onthe knowledge test were positively correlated with colleagues’ reports oftrainees’ maintenance behaviors (r � .14, p � .05); this indicates that traineeswho learned more during training exhibited the trained behaviors more fre-quently on the job. The work environment was marginally related to reportsof trainees’ generalization behaviors (r � .12, p � .10) suggesting that gener-alization transfer was somewhat greater in supportive work environments.


Table 1. Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations of Study Variables

Variable M SD � 1 2 3 4

1. Work environment 64.35 11.51 .91 —2. Knowledge test 0.00 1.00 .80 .00 —3. Maintenance 4.11 .58 .92 .10 .14** —4. Generalization 3.62 .71 .84 .12* .08 .48** —

Note: *p � .10.; **p � .05.; ***p � .01.

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Tests of Posttraining Intervention Hypotheses. There were several testsof the hypotheses.

Manipulation Checks. Goal-setting trainees reported that significantlymore goal-setting activities were taught in the posttraining session (M � 5.48)than did either the self-management trainees (M � 3.26) or trainees in thecontrol group (M � 1.55), F(2,261) � 121.92, p � .01, R2 � .48. In addition,self-management trainees indicated that significantly more self-managementactivities were taught in the posttraining intervention (M � 5.80) than dideither the goal-setting trainees (M � 2.77) or trainees in the control group(M � 1.36), F(2,261) � 179.76, p � .01, R2 � .58. These results indicate thatthe appropriate content was covered in the two posttraining interventions andthat the content of each of the interventions was viewed as different.

Postraining Intervention Analyses. Hypotheses 1 and 2 predicted that goal-setting and self-management training would have different effects on thetraining transfer; self-management was expected to lead to greater gener-alization while goal-setting was expected to lead to greater maintenance. Twocontrast variables were created to examine the overall effect of posttrainingintervention on transfer of training; the contrast variables were created to beconsistent with the predictions in Hypotheses 1 and 2. One dummy variablewas created comparing goal-setting trainees with all other trainees(Hypothesis 1) and a second dummy variable was created comparing self-management trainees with all other trainees (Hypothesis 2). The two dummyvariables were used to predict the two transfer measures.

As seen in Table 2, goal-setting trainees were rated by their colleaguesas exhibiting more generalization behaviors (M � 3.73) than self-managementand control group trainees (pooled M � 3.55; b � .18, p � .05). No differ-ences were found between self-management trainees and all other trainees foreither measure of transfer. Although these results do not support Hypotheses1 and 2 predicting differential posttraining effects for different transfer mea-sures, the findings do suggest that goal-setting was more effective in enahanc-ing transfer.

Interactions Between Work Environments and Posttraining Interven-tions. Hypothesis 3 predicted an interaction between type of posttraining

Table 2. Standardized Regression Coefficients for the Effect ofPosttraining Intervention on Transfer of Training

Independent Variables

Goal-Setting versus Self-Management versusDependent Self-Management, and Goal-Setting andVariables R2 Control Group Control Group

Maintenance .01 .12 �.01Generalization .01 .18** .01

Note: *p � .10; **p � .05; ***p � .01.

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intervention and the work environment. To predict the two transfer measures,three variables were entered into the regression equation: a dummy variablecoding for posttraining intervention, work environment, and the interactionbetween the dummy variable and work environment. (Note that in order tomaintain the variance in the work environment measure, it was entered as acontinuous variable.) Examination of the significant interactions showngraphically in Figures 1 and 2 demonstrates that the goal-setting interventionwas more effective in enhancing transfer when trainees worked in asupportive environment. More specifically, the interaction betweenposttraining intervention (comparing goal-setting with the control group) andthe work environment was in the right direction in predicting generalization(b � 1.09, p � .10). The interaction between posttraining intervention(comparing goal-setting with self-management) was significant in predict-ing maintenance (b � .68, p � .01) and was in the right direction in pre-dicting generalization (b � .86, p � .10).

To illustrate the nature of the significant interactions, the work environ-ment measure was dichotomized into a supportive work environment group(one standard deviation above the mean) and an unsupportive workenvironment group (one standard deviation below the mean) and thencrossed with the dummy variable coding for posttraining intervention.Trainees in the goal-setting intervention who worked in a supportive envi-ronment were rated by their colleagues as enacting more generalization


Figure 1. Posttraining by Work Environment Interaction onGeneralization Transfer

4

3.8

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Supportive WorkEnvironment

Unsupportive WorkEnvironment

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Goal-SettingSelf-ManagementControl

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behaviors (M � 3.75) than goal-setting trainees who did not work in suchan environment (M � 2.90; Figure 1); no differences were found betweenself-management trainees or between control group trainees who work ineither environment. Trainees in the goal-setting intervention who worked in asupportive environment were also rated by their colleagues as enacting moremaintenance behaviors (M � 4.42) than goal-setting trainees who did notwork in such an environment (M � 3.92; Figure 2); again, no differenceswere found between self-management trainees who worked in either envi-ronment. Together, these results lend preliminary support for Hypothesis 3.Trainees’ perceptions of the supportiveness of the work environment moder-ated the effectiveness of the goal-setting intervention; goal-setting was moreeffective in a supportive work environment.

Discussion

This research examined the effectiveness of two posttraining interventions,goal-setting and self-management training, on improving transfer of trainingand explored the potential moderating effects of work environments.

Posttraining Interventions. The results indicate that goal-setting traineeswere rated by their colleagues as enacting more generalization behaviors thanself-management and control group trainees. No such advantage, however, wasfound for self-management trainees. There are two likely explanations forwhy the goal-setting intervention, in comparison to the self-management

Figure 2. Posttraining by Work Environment Interaction onMaintenance Transfer

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4.8

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Supportive WorkEnvironment

Unsupportive WorkEnvironment

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nten

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Goal-SettingSelf-ManagementControl

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intervention, may have resulted in improved transfer over the control group;one relates to training philosophies of organizations today and the secondrelates to the operationalization of the posttraining interventions.

First, the goal-setting intervention, compared to the self-managementintervention, may have resulted in improved transfer over the control groupbecause the use of goal-setting terminology is common in organizations today.Employees are somewhat familiar with the general notion of goal-setting(although not necessarily with all its facets). In contrast, the self-managementprinciples were relatively new. The self-management principles may have beenfairly complex for both the trainers and the trainees, and therefore may haveaffected the face validity of the intervention. Just as face-validity perceptions ofselection tests can influence the effectiveness of selection procedures (for exam-ple, Arvey, Strickland, Drauden, and Martin, 1990; Chan, Schmitt, DeShon,Caluse, and Delbridge, 1997), the face validity of the self-managementintervention may have affected the strength of the manipulation and its subse-quent effectiveness on transfer of training.

Second, it is well established that goal-setting is an essential element ofself-management training (for example, Gist, Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990; Gist,Stevens, and Bavetta, 1991; Locke and Latham, 1990; Wexley and Baldwin,1986). Goal-setting helps trainees direct attention and mobilize efforts towardtranslating self-management principles into behaviors. In this study, althoughthe self-management intervention contained some goal-setting components, afull explanation of the goal-setting process was limited because of time con-straints. Therefore, the manipulation in this study may not have been an ade-quate operationalization of self-management training. If such is the case, thisstudy provides further evidence to support the claim that although self-management training adds something more than goal-setting alone, it is noteffective without additional explanation of the goal-setting process (Gist,Bavetta, and Stevens, 1990).

Moderating Effects of Work Environments. Perceptions of the work envi-ronment moderated the effectiveness of posttraining interventions on transferof training. Interactions between the work environment and posttraining inter-ventions illustrate that the goal-setting intervention resulted in greater trans-fer when trainees worked in an environment that supports skill acquisition andtransfer. The lack of significant differences between self-management traineesin supportive and unsupportive environments may not be surprising. Self-management training may attenuate the differences in transfer between workenvironments that vary in their degree of supportiveness. For self-managementtrainees, it may be that the supportiveness of the work environment does notmake a difference because self-management trainees are prepared to self-manage transfer; they have been trained to recognize the potential inadequa-cies of the work environment and are prepared to cope with them. The workenvironment may make a significant difference for goal-setting trainees becausethey are focused on an outcome goal and the means to achieve it; they are notprepared to identify and cope with potential obstacles to transfer. In sum, the


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results of this study illustrate that researchers must consider contextual factorswhen examining the effectiveness of posttraining interventions on transfer oftraining; to the authors knowledge, this study is the first to investigatethe moderating effects of the work environment on posttraining interventioneffectiveness.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research. Some limitations of thisstudy should be noted. First, additional manipulation checks would havehelped rule out several rival hypotheses. The manipulation checks used in thisstudy indicated that the appropriate content was covered in the two post-training interventions. However, a measure of posttraining activities used onthe job and a measure of the degree of contact between trainees was not avail-able. Such assessments would have helped to determine (1) if trainees in theinterventions were engaging in different cognitive activities than were controlgroup trainees and (2) if there were spillover effects from the differentinterventions (for example, if trainees talked to one another about the inter-vention techniques). Although trainees were strongly encouraged not to dis-cuss the techniques with their colleagues, such behavior could not becontrolled by the researcher.

In addition, it would have been useful to assess trainees’ cognitions relatedto goal orientation or self-regulatory activities during the four to six weeks aftertraining; such an investigation might have helped to determine the exact natureof the causal relationship between posttraining intervention and transfer. Forexample, exploring the extent to which posttraining interventions orienttrainees toward either performance or mastery goals (see Gist and Stevens,1998; Stevens and Gist, 1997) might have helped explain why significantincreases in transfer were found for the goal-setting intervention and not forthe self-management intervention.

Another limitation of this study relates to the potentially weak posttrain-ing manipulations. The time available to implement fully the posttraining inter-ventions was limited. Trainers were often rushed to finish in exactly an hour.Longer and more thorough interventions should be investigated.

Future research should also consider gathering objective measures of thetransfer work environment. For example, an organization’s reward policyregarding training (pay for performance, pay for knowledge, and so on) mightprove useful in predicting transfer behaviors on the job. Such information wasnot available for this research.

An advantage of the present study was the collection of transfer measuresfrom trainees’ supervisor and coworkers. The findings illustrated that the datain this study were not contaminated by the common method variance prob-lem; measures from one source (trainees) significantly predicted measures froman independent source (trainees’ colleagues). Despite this advantage, objectivemeasures of maintenance and generalization were not available in this study.Future research should attempt to gather objective behavioral assessments ofmaintenance and generalization.

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Implications for Practice. From an applied perspective, the results haveimplications for current human resource practices as well as organizationalpolicies and procedures. First, the findings suggest ways in which organiza-tions can alter the work environment to enhance training efforts and preparepeople for future training endeavors. Human resource professionals might con-sider making attempts to reinforce the contingencies associated with trainees’enactment, or failure to enact, certain types of behavior on the job. For exam-ple, organizations should consider reinforcing or rewarding all behaviors thatreflect skill acquisition and job-related personal development. Professionaldevelopment programs that incorporate practices such as skill-based pay, payfor knowledge, and so on, are a few such examples that reward skill acquisi-tion and self-development in organizationally meaningful ways. If traineesfail to apply their training to the job, organizations should identify any orga-nizational barriers that block their ability and motivation to do so. Surveys andinterviews with employees in conjunction with training courses are a good wayto determine the extent of such barriers. By assessing the existence and impactof these barriers and mitigating them where they do exist, the organization willmake it easier for trainees to transfer their new skills and send a message to allemployees that training transfer and skill acquisition are valued by the orga-nization. These efforts may have multiplier effects on any skills training that isdone and generate information that can be incorporated into future add-ontraining, as was evaluated in this study.

This study also demonstrated that a short posttraining intervention ongoal-setting may lead to enhanced transfer of training. This effect, however, wasmoderated by characteristics of the work environment. Goal-setting reaped thegreatest benefits in transfer when trainees worked in a supportive environment.Organizations, therefore, need to consider employees’ perceptions of the workenvironment when implementing methods to enhance transfer; before spend-ing the added investment on innovative posttraining interventions, it is imper-ative that human resource professionals first assess and improve employees’perceptions of the supportiveness of the work environment.

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Wendy L. Richman-Hirsch works at William M. Mercer, Inc., New York.

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