Approaches to the Problems of Learning Transfer

Abstract

The question of how to get students to apply new ideas, skills and knowledge to their own work situations has been a continuing problem in management and supervisory training. Organisations complain that, despite spending large sums of money on staff training and development, no perceptible changes in on‐the‐job performance occur. Tutors reply that the subject matter they teach is both useful and relevant, but that either the individual student chooses not to apply what he has learned, or, if he does, the organisation either obstructs his attempts at innovation, or else merely fails to support him. In recent years, research has focused increasingly on the organisation's role in utilising the product of its staff training and development activities (see Vandenput; Temporal; Huczynski.