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Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageJuly, 2002 Editor’s Notes |
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Article Summaries
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| Using Evaluation to Build Organizational Performance and Learning Capability: A Strategy and a Method by Robert O. Brinkerhoff and Dennis Dressler The causes of variability of training impact have more to do with the performance system and organizational environment factors than they do with the training design and content. For years, the Kirkpatrick model has been the standard approach for evaluation, but this model can misrepresent the role of training, ignore performance system factors, and fail to provide accurate, relevant feedback that managers need to guide performance improvement. The Success Case Evaluation approach is a straightforward, powerful way to measure the impact of training and build learning capability to increase the business value of training. It achieves evaluation efficiencies by focusing on only a few trainees who have applied the training and made an impact on the business. The study produces rich, in-depth stories of documented business impact and knowledge of factors that enhance or impede the impact of training. An Overview of E-Learning and Its Business Imperative by Jeffrey D. Clem In an increasingly competitive, fast-paced business environment that is inundated with rapid changes and new information, organizations' ability to continuously update customers' skills and knowledge is becoming more difficult. Business success can depend on an organization's ability to satisfy customers' learning needs in a timely, appropriate, and efficient manner. A properly designed e-learning system can provide the competitive edge an organization needs, but a holistic view of learning and how it is facilitated is required to successfully design one. An e-learning system should provide access to the optimal balance of instruction, information, and knowledge. Otherwise, resources will be wasted on an initiative that does not fully meet the customers' needs. Matching the Method to the Message: Strategies for Instruction by Stephen L. Cohen, PhD Instructional developers have the responsibility for assuring that they create human resource development and performance improvement programs that optimize business results. One way to ensure that this happens is to carefully craft solutions that best match the intended message and desired outcome with the most blended learning solutions. Yet few, if any, frameworks exist to guide developers through the relevant factors that yield these best matches. This article identifies and defines five key variables: the instructional approach, learner role, learning objective, intended outcome, and expected behavior; that, when taken together, can inform the most relevant instructional methods from which to draw in creating a strategic learning solution. Using Collaborative Authoring to Develop a Hypermedia Performance Support System by Benny Tjahjono and Richard Greenough, PhD Workers in today's agile factories have to cope with a greater variety of complex and rapidly changing tasks than ever before. To ensure consistent high quality, workers are supported by extensive documentation for initial training and as an aide-mémoire for settings, procedures, and tolerance limits. Identifying the relevant documentation and then reading it carefully are time consuming, but research has shown that using electronic systems such as an EPSS can reduce this time. An EPSS to support a manufacturing procedure will need to be updated many times during its lifetime as the procedures change; in addition, the creators of manufacturing procedures are rarely experienced EPSS authors, so a technique to allow such individuals to create and maintain an industrial EPSS is essential. Such a process allows those with the relevant manufacturing expertise to create electronic procedures that support shop floor workers more effectively. |
