hutchins identifying trainers' knowledge of training transfer research findings

8/10/2019 Hutchins Identifying Trainers' Knowledge of Training Transfer Research Findings

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Identifying trainersknowledge of training

transfer research findings closing the gap between

research and practice

Holly M. Hutchins and Lisa A. Burke

Training professionals were surveyed concerning their knowl-edge of transfer of training research. Survey items were devel-oped from an integrative literature review based on empirical

findings of factors that directly or indirectly (through learning)influence training transfer. Survey results suggest that training

professionals are in agreement with empirical transfer findingsin the areas of training design and the work environment, butdiffer in their agreement of how individual differences impacttransfer success and of relevant transfer evaluation findings.Training professionals were more familiar with academictransfer research when they occupied higher job positionswithin their organization, held a training certification and hada college degree. The results of our study and the implications

for addressing the research-to-practice gap among trainingprofessionals are also discussed.

One imperative facing training researchers is making study results available and usefulto practitioners. Known as the research-to-practice gap, a transparent exchangeof ideas from study to application is lacking in the training discipline (Salas &Cannon-Bowers, 2001). Although collaborative opportunities, dedicated conference

Holly M. Hutchins, PhD, College of Technology, University of Houston, 4800 Calhoun Drive,Houston, TX 77018. Email: [email protected]. Lisa A. Burke, PhD, SPHR, College of BusinessAdministration, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 300 Fletcher Hall, 615 McCallie Avenue,Chattanooga, TN 37403. Email: [email protected] authors would like to especially thank Dr Ken Brown for his numerous gracious inputs.

International Journal of Training and Development 11:4ISSN 1360-3736

2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2QD,UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

236 International Journal of Training and Development
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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tracks and recognition opportunities (e.g. American Society of Training and Develop-ment (ASTD) Excellence in Research-to-Practice Award) have emerged to close this gap(Short, 2006), the relationship between theory and application in the training disciplineremains largely disjointed. Training transfer, the generalization and maintenance oflearning to the job context (Baldwin & Ford, 1988), is an area that can especially benefitfrom informed application in organizational settings. Although it is estimated thatorganizations expend billions1 on training, these learning investments often fail toyield comparable performance improvements (Phillips, 2002). In a survey of 150 orga-nizations, training professionals reported that less than 50 per cent of employeessuccessfully transfer their new knowledge and skills 6 months after training (Saks &Belcourt, 2006). This situation, coupled with the low percentage of firms and trainersthat actually assess behavioral training outcomes in terms of job performance andreturn-on-investment (Balagueret al., 2006; Rivera & Paradise, 2006), suggests trainingpractitioners may lack a grounded knowledge of empirical transfer findings.

Studies of practitioner beliefs concerning academic findings have produced provoca-tive insights about the research-to-practice gap in human resource and training-relatedresearch. For example, in an impressive study of US and international human resource(HR) professionals (n =946) beliefs concerning effective HR practices, Rynes et al. (2002)found HR professionals differed in their agreement with research findings on issues of

employee selection, recruitment, and performance appraisal. The authors uncovered thelargest discrepancy between practitioner knowledge and extant research in the area ofselection, a primary area of HR responsibility. The Rynes et al. (2002) study promptsspeculation as to whether or not the revealed knowledge gap has contributed toill-informed decisions concerning attracting, selecting, and developing a high-performing workforce. Closer to the domain of the present study, Huint and Saks (2003)studied the gap between Canadian research and practitioner beliefs regarding specifictraining transfer interventions. They found managers (n =174) only slightly preferredsupervisory support over other post-training transfer interventions (specifically relapseprevention) to enhance trainees use of training back on the job. Yet, the role ofsupervisory support and feedback for enhancing transfer is far more established in theliterature (Clarke, 2002; Lim & Johnson, 2002; Taylor et al., 2005) than relapse prevention

techniques (Hutchins& Burke, 2006). In addition, a case study reportinginterviews withtraining and human resource development (HRD) practitioners (n =13) describeddifferences in how that practitioners perceived and used research findings (Keefer &Stone, 2007). The authors found practitioners tend to overlook research unless thefindings help them solve practice-based problems,are easily accessible and interpretableand align with suggestions advanced in other practitioner-oriented publications (e.g.T&D, Performance Improvement). Unfortunately, as Rynes et al. (2007)have observed, whatresearchers study does not always coincide with what is used by training professionalsor published in the practitioner literature.

To date, there are no comprehensive published studies examining training practitio-ners knowledge of academic research dealing with factors influencing training trans-

fer (such as learner characteristics, training design and work environment). Empiricalfindings surrounding transfer may be overlooked, given the attention garnered byother areas of training practices, such as training design and delivery methods, or byHR in general. As an example, items tapping HR professionals knowledge of trainingmade up only 13 per cent (four items) in the Ryneset al. (2002) survey compared withother HR areas (i.e. compensation and benefits, staffing, employment and managementpractices) with only one item tapping training transfer. Rynes and her colleaguesdeveloped their survey items based on the training and development content areacovered in the Human Resources Certification Institutes Professional in HumanResources exam, the certification exam recognized by the Society of Human ResourceManagement (SHRM). To identify how transfer was considered in a training certifica-

1 The ASTD State of the Industry report (2006) estimates that US organizations spend $109.25 billion onlearning and development annually.

Trainers knowledge of training transfer research 237 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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tion exam, we reviewed study materials for the Certified Professional in Learning andPerformance (CPLP) (an ASTD certification) and found information on transferrestricted to the use of coaching as a post-training method and knowledge ofKirpatricks (1998) four evaluation levels.

Notably, Zenger et al. (2005) suggest that a lack of emphasis in supporting trainingtransfer might be attributed to an imbalance between the resources provided by firmsfor each phase of the instructional design process and the actual value each phasecontributes to sustained performance improvement. Specifically, the authors estimatethat 85 per cent of training resources are dedicated to designing and delivering train-ing, with the remaining 15 per cent divided between front-end analysis and follow-up(i.e. transfer and evaluation) activities. However, when considering the value of eachphase to overall performance improvement, the authors suggest that 50 per cent of allperformance improvement resulting from training interventions may be attributed topost-training activities that support transfer and measure performance. Based on thiswork alone, the discrepancy between the importance of transfer to performanceimprovement and the emphasis placed on building trainer knowledge of transfermethods is an area of concern.

Although transfer researchers have made substantive strides in linking trainee char-acteristics (Colquitt et al., 2000), the design of training interventions (Machin & Fogarty,

2004) and the role of the work environment (Holtonet al., 2000; Lim & Johnson, 2002;Traceyet al., 1995) to transfer outcomes, no studies have explored the extent to whichtraining practitioners transfer beliefs are consistent with findings in the researchliterature. However, such guidance on what makes transfer successful is futile iftraining practitioners are simply unaware of research-based findings captured in theacademic base. We agree with Short (2006) that research examining the theorypracticetension is needed within the training and HRD discipline to understand how the gapis actually experienced within the profession. We would also suggest that researchersnot stop at just recognizing that such a gap exists, but also demonstrate how it ismanifested within a particular area of interest, and then base targeted suggestions onthese findings. In this empirical study, we assess the extent to which a gap in transferknowledge exists among practitioners, and offer specific ways to bridge the gap

between theory and practice based on our findings.

Method

Participants

Our sample of survey respondents was composed of members of a regional ASTDchapter located in a south-central metropolitan city, initially contacted by chapterleadership regarding voluntary survey participation. Our survey invitation included adescription of the research questions, how subjects were identified, incentives to par-ticipate, security measures, researcher contact information and the URL link to oursurvey. The survey was created and administered online using Survey Monkey forconvenient participant access and data control (Ilieva et al., 2002). Incentives includedfour small Amazon.com gift certificates, randomly awarded from the pool of partici-pants. The survey was available for 2 weeks and two reminder messages were sent toparticipants. The use of upfront branching questions ensured subjects were currentlyworking practitioners in the training, HRD or workplace learning field. Of approxi-mately 413 surveys distributed via email to valid addresses, 172 surveys were returned(41.6 per cent), of which 139 provided usable data (i.e. passing our filter questions andwith complete data), yielding a higher than average response rate of 33.7 per cent (139of 413) for survey research.

Procedures for survey developmentCritical to this study was the development of survey items representative of establishedresearch findings in the training transfer literature. First, we identified a relevant

238 International Journal of Training and Development 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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taxonomy of major factors influencing transfer to categorize the diverse transfer litera-ture. Specifically, we examined the developing knowledge regarding three primaryfactors influencing transfer including learning characteristics, intervention design anddelivery and work environment influences as based upon influential conceptualmodels in the field (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Ford & Weissbein, 1997; Salas et al., 1999). Wealso used a recent integrative review of training evaluation and effectiveness factors (cf.Alvarezet al., 2004) to confirm emerging transfer variables that were not represented inearlier models, but were found in our review. Our guiding framework for reviewingarticles was Torracos (2005) methodology for creating integrative reviews. We synthe-sized incremental training transfer studies by identifying relevant meta-analyses andempirical articles that establish relevant research findings. Our goal was that each surveyitem would be supported (at a minimum) by a meta-analysis or two published empiricalstudies located in peer-reviewed journals and had a statistically significant relationshipin the same direction. Focusing on studies using field sample data, we included case andlab data only where quantitative studies are scant. We searched online databases, such asBusiness Source Premier, Academic Source Premier, MasterFILE, Psychology andBehavioral Sciences Collection, PsycINFO, Professional Development Collection, ERICand Vocational and Career Collection using relevant key words, including transfer oftraining, transfer of learning, training transfer, skill maintenanceand skill generalization to

identify published empirical articles on transfer of training.The next step was generating specific survey items that were accurate (i.e. true to theresearch) based on the array of research findings in the extant literature. A pilot test ofour initial 40-item survey was performed using several leading training researchersand training practitioners, who had an average of 10.3 years of experience. The goal ofthe pilot test was to enhance the content validity of the survey items. We did this byhaving the researchers rate each item on domain relevance, item clarity and appropri-ateness of the items tapping each factor (Rubio et al., 2003). Practitioners rated only itemclarity, but both groups provided open-ended comments and suggestions for improve-ment in the survey.

Item analyses of the ratings were performed and used to eliminate or modify prob-lematic items using expert suggestions. All but nine of the 40 original items scored 3.6

(4.0) or higher on clarity, and all but seven of the 40 original items scored 3.6 (4.0) orhigher on domain relevance. After modifying and eliminating items as necessary, wepiloted an online version of the 32-item survey with undergraduate and graduate HRDstudents to ensure item clarity, reasonable survey completion time, aestheticallyappealing survey format, appropriate response validation parameters and accuracy ofdata submission procedures (Burke & James, 2006). To establish testretest reliability,we then administered the online survey to senior-level undergraduate students (n =33)enrolled in management courses at two US-based universities. A time 1 and time 2measure were gathered using a 4-week interval. The correlation between the two setsof responses was 0.78 (p


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Table1:Transfersurveyitems,answers,participantresponses,researchsupporta

ndcommentsforfutureresearc

h

Item

Answer

%Correct

(%Uncertain)

Researchsuppo

rt

Notes

Learne

rcharacteristics

(1)Traineeswhoperceive

trainingtobeusefulfor

achievingtheirjoband/or

careergoalswillexperience

highertransfersuccess.

True

96%(1.4%)

Inthemeta-analysisbyColquitt

etal.(2000),the(corre

cted)

correlationcoefficient

was0.30

forthecareerplannin

g-transfer

relationshipand0.22forcareer

exploration-transfer.

(2)Traineeswhovaluethe

outcomestrainingwill

providethem(suchasskill

development)willachieve

highertransfersuccess.

True

94%(2.9%)

Baumgarteletal.(1984)found

thatmanagerswhobe

lievein

theutilityoftraining,

orvalue

theoutcomestraining

will

provide,aremorelike

lyto

applyskillslearnedin

training.

Axtelletal.(1997)also

found

thattraineeswhoperceived

trainingasrelevanthadhigher

levelsofimmediatetr

ansfer.

Ruonaetal.(2002)foundutility

reactionsaddedminimal

powerasapredictorof

motivationtotransferand

arguedthat

perceptionsof

utilityprovidenominalvalue

inpredictingtransfer.

(3)Traineeswhoaremotivated

totransferwillachieve

higherlevelsoftransfer

success.

True

91%(4.3%)

Intheirempiricalstudy,Axtell

etal.(1997)foundmotivationto

transferwasasignific

ant

predictorofpositivet

ransferat

1year.Nijmanetal.(2006)

foundthatmotivation

to

transfermoderatelypredicted

transfer(B=

0.33,p

0.001).

Seefindingsforitemno.25.

Futureresea

rchissuggestedto

exploremed

iatingvariables

(i.e.jobdesign)thatmight

impactperceivedsupportof

transfer.



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(25)

Traineesaremorelikelyto

usewhattheylearnin

trainingwhentheyget

helpandsupportfrom

theircoworkers.

True

97%(2.9%)

Peersupportemergeda

stheonly

significantrelationship

(B=

0.65,p

80 per cent) on the positive relationship betweentransfer and utility perceptions for career advancement and skill development, moti-vation, openness to experience and self-efficacy. This finding might be the result ofcommonsensical reasoning on the part of training respondents; that is, it may justmake intuitive sense that a trainee who has high self-efficacy (beliefs about task per-formance) would successfully transfer skills more than someone low in self-efficacy. Incontrast, only 33 per cent of respondents believed cognitive ability would positivelyinfluence transfer outcomes, and almost 20 per cent were uncertain. Similar to Ryneset al. (2002), practitioners appear to place minimal importance on the role of generalmental ability in workplace performance and learning, despite the wealth of supportfor its relationship with learning and transfer (see Colquitt et al., 2000).

Concerning the role of personality traits, almost one-fourth of practitioners were

uncertain about the role ofnegative affectivity on transfer outcomes. Although the effectsof trainee emotions on transfer have fairly strong support in the literature, trainingpractitioners are apparently not cognizant of how emotions impact performance. In

Correct number of transfer items

35.0030.0025.0020.0015.00

Numberofrespo

ndents

25

20

15

10

5

0

Figure 1: Histogram of transfer of learning scores**n =139 respondents; 32 total survey items.



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addition, only 50 per cent of practitioners correctly responded that utility perceptions aremore important than affective reactions in terms of transfer outcomes, despite twocomprehensive meta-analytic studies showing a minimal relationship (Alliger et al.,1997; Colquitt et al., 2000) between affective and transfer performance. This findingcould be explained by the common use of Kirpatricks (1998) training evaluation frame-work, which has been used by practitioners to infer that positive affective outcomes arerelated to transfer performance. Although 74 per cent of participants believed extro-vertedindividuals are more likely to have higher transfer success than those identifiedas less social, 22 per cent were uncertain of this finding. The relatively low agreementof practitioner responses in the area of personality, coupled with the high degree ofuncertain responses, indicates that practitioners are either unaware of or do not under-stand its role in generalizing and maintaining trained knowledge and skills. As men-tioned previously, the one exception was foropenness to experience, where 85 per cent ofparticipants agreed that trainees who have a willingness to change and try new thingswere more likely to transfer than those who are not.

Training designIn contrast to knowledge of individual differences in transfer success, practitionersexpressed high agreement (>80 per cent) on most practices (11 of 13) describing the

design and development of training, indicating that knowledge of certain designelements has penetrated the field of practice. This result could also be attributed tosome trainers assuming that activities used during training (and of which they facili-tate) were more likely to impact transfer than those used before or after training wherethey may not be directly involved (Saks & Belcourt, 2006). For example, practitionersagreed that the role ofover-learning through practice (99 per cent), avoiding cognitiveoverloadin content presentation (95 per cent) and the use ofgoal-setting(94 per cent) intraining influence trainee ability to apply and maintain skills in the post-trainingperiod. Even though more empirical work is clearly needed to substantiate the use ofactive learning methods for impacting transfer, 94 per cent of training practitionersassume interactive techniques are more effective for promoting transfer than passivemethods (i.e. lecture). Practitioners expressed some degree of uncertainty about the use

ofmultiple examples (13 per cent) and error-based examples (12 per cent) to promotetransfer despite their moderately established support (Ivancic & Hesketh, 2000; Smith-

Jentsch et al., 1996) in the academic literature. The high level of agreement amongtrainers on the use of these specific instructional practices is also commensurate withstudies that have found support between specific learning principles (i.e. identicalelements, stimulus generalization, modeling, practice and feedback) and transferperformance (cf. Alvarezet al., 2004).

Practitioners were less confident about the link between self-management strategies (18per cent uncertain) on transfer of training, possibly reflecting some of the mixed resultsin the academic literature. That is, although practitioners agreed with the efficacyof goal-setting (as noted above) and the use of other cognitivebehavioral (self-

management) strategies such as positive self-feedback outlined in question no. 21 strategies such as relapse prevention appear to be less recognized (Richman-Hirsch,2001) or perhaps are less understood by practitioners. Similarly, practitioners werecautious in their agreement (74 per cent; 15 per cent uncertain) as to whether or notinstructional media or instructional methods had more of an influence on transfer oftraining. Relevant meta-analyses of instructional media are only recently forthcoming(see Sitzmannet al., 2006) and perhaps have not infiltrated the practitioner literature.

Work environmentSurvey responses representing work environment factors reflect the continuingresearch support in management, psychology and education for the role ofpractice(100per cent),manager support(99 per cent) andpeer support(97 per cent) andorganizational

goal linkage(91 per cent) on positive training transfer. Practitioners were in less agree-ment about the utility of holding traineesaccountable(85 per cent) for transfer and theuse oftechnology (75 per cent) to support transfer success. Holding trainees accountable



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for skill and knowledge transfer through the use of sanctions, follow-up reporting onperformance outcomes and as a part of performance appraisal have been positivelylinked to increased transfer (Taylor et al., 2005), although calls for more research explor-ing the socio-technical aspects of transfer exist (Kontoghiorghes, 2001; Longnecker,2004). The evidence for using performance support technology to support transfer viaElectronic Performance Support System (EPSS) unfortunately is heavily reliant uponcase-based studies (Eddy & Tannenbaum, 2003; Rossett & Mohr, 2004), but EPSSs arepoised to help employees efficiently locate resources, support processes and guidedecision-making on an as-needed basis. Indeed, practitioners may not be well-versedin the use of technology as a job support mechanism, making the specific use ofperformance technologies as a training transfer support tool a fairly remote concept.

Evaluation of transferItems assessing research-based evaluation findings garnered the least agreementamong training practitioners in our survey. Given the attention in practitioner journalsto the topic of evaluation, these results were somewhat unexpected. The most glaringexample was in the area oftrainee reactions and learning. A hefty 95 per cent of practi-tioners disagreed that the relationship between trainee reaction and transfer success isminimal, even though affective outcomes have been found to have a weak association

with training transfer (r =0.07 in Alligeret al., 1997) in the literature. Practitioners weremore agreeable (72 per cent) although they still expressed some uncertainty (15 percent) with research findings regarding the relationship betweenlearning and transfer.Finally, practitioners varied in their responses concerning the role of supervisors forassessing transfer back to the job, with almost 26 per cent uncertain of the correctanswer. Their confusion is somewhat understandable given that sources to confirmtransfer success likely depend upon the initial training and work design for trainees(Kupritz, 2002).

Discussion of results

As with any study, ours has limitations, including a moderate sample size constrainedby geography and participant diversity. Our findings may actually underestimate theresearch-to-practice gap in transfer, as the bulk of our respondents were highly edu-cated and active ASTD chapter members, indicating a keen interest in keeping abreastof new ideas an attribute that may be different from the average training profes-sional. In addition, our sample was located in the USA, and so results may not beindicative or generalizable to training professionals located in other countries. There-fore, replication of our survey with a larger and more internationally diverse sample oftraining practitioners is suggested.

The results of the present study indicate that training practitioners are in generalagreement with standing findings in the areas of training design and the work envi-

ronment. In contrast, training practitioners agreed less with findings concerning indi-vidual differences that impact transfer success and on evaluation practices used tomeasure transfer outcomes, thus suggesting a research-to-practice gap in these areas.Consequently, our results suggest trainers may be neglecting information in front-endaudience analyses or needs assessments that could be useful for predicting transfer anddesigning interventions to buttress transfer for certain learner profiles (Broad, 2005).The relationship between needs analysis and transfer is not a new idea; researchershave long suggested conducting needs analysis to identify obstacles to transfer(Hesketh, 1997; Holtonet al., 2000), and included needs analysis as a primary point ofdeparture in evaluation and effectiveness models to ensure that training content willinfluence change in learners and result in positive business results and return-on-investment (Alvarez et al., 2004; Broad, 2005). In their evaluation of learning interven-

tions, trainers may inaccurately reason that stopping at a reaction level (satisfaction) ofmeasurement is sufficient, as they erroneously reported trainee reactions were predic-tive of transfer. This misinterpretation alone would represent a flawed assumption in



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the field and may explain, in part, the widespread neglect of measurement activities infirms beyond assessing learning outcomes or the overreliance on evaluation modelsthat do not consider multiple individual variables (Balaguer et al., 2006).

Training professionals showed the most variability in their agreement with itemstapping the individual differencestransfer relationship. Although practitioners gener-ally agreed that trainee expectations of valued outcomes and self-efficacy did influencetransfer, our results indicate that factors such as personality, utility perceptions, orga-nization commitment, motivation and cognitive ability are lesser known correlates oftransfer of training. These results could be attributable to the lack of exposure andavailability of research results to training practitioners, an observation made by Fordand Weissbein (1997) over a decade ago concerning the scant research exploring indi-vidual differences in transfer research. Notably, we found the highest knowledge areasexist for variables where research findings had been published in journals acrossmultiple representative disciplines (e.g. management, HRD, training and psychology),and that lower knowledge areas emerged for research findings that were only pub-lished in single disciplines. For example, research on transfer and self-efficacy have

been published in psychology, management and HRD outlets, whereas studies dealingwith personality traits and performance are predominantly distributed via organiza-tional behavior outlets; as such, their implications have less of a chance to penetrate

training practitioner knowledge bases.In addition, training practitioners may be less knowledgeable of transfer findingslinked to less established areas in the research base, referred to as a knowledge transferproblem between academics and practitioners (Van de Ven & Johnson, 2006). Studiesin the areas of emotions, rewards and incentives and certain personality factors are notlong-standing, suggesting that transfer researchers are expanding the range of indi-vidual differences past the more frequently used variables of self-efficacy and attitudi-nal outcomes. For example, research in the area of affectivity and extroversion (Machin& Fogarty, 2004; Naquin & Holton, 2002) indicates progress toward a more expansivelook at individual differences influence on transfer success. Unfortunately, suchadvances in academic models appear to remain undercommunicated to and/or not yetespoused by trainers.

The second main area where training practitioner knowledge was inconsistent withtransfer research findings is in the area of transfer evaluation, with correct responsesranging between 5 and 72 per cent for three items. As noted in Table 1, these itemsmeasured practitioner knowledge of attitudinal and learning outcomes as related totransfer and the role of supervisors in determining trainee transfer. Although manyorganizations and practitioner outlets have called for analysing training investments byusing metrics linked to profitability, the industry-generated evidence suggests there isa much lower assessment of behavioral and results-oriented outcomes compared withreaction and learning outcomes. Specifically, evaluation data collected from organiza-tions recognized for their effective training practices2 (n =39) identified that only 38 percent were assessing behavioral and results outcomes and even fewer were measuring

the return on investment of their learning investments (Rivera & Paradise, 2006). Inaddition, a survey of executives in HR and training (n =251) found nearly 40 per centof organizations had no formal measures for linking training efforts to business per-formance indicators, namely profitability and quality improvements (Balaguer et al.,2006). These prior results, together with the present findings, suggest training practi-tioners may be focusing on the micro issues of evaluating specific training interven-tions versus outcomes associated with departmental and organizational-level impactsas noted in more contemporary models of transfer and training effectiveness (Alvarezet al., 2004; Ford & Weissbein, 1997; Holton & Baldwin, 2003; Salas & Cannon-Bowers,2001).

2

Evaluation data were collected in 2006 from select organizations located in the USA recognized fortheir efforts to foster, support, and leverage enterprise-wide learning for business results. These orga-nizations submit detailed data on their learning investments and practice each year to be used in theASTD State of the Industry Report.



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Addressing the research-to-practice gap

Our survey of transfer research findings presents an examination of one aspect of theresearch-to-practice gap among training practitioners. In addition to the array ofopportunities for future research suggested by Table 1, the results of our study indicatethat targeted research and practitioner activities are needed to close the research-to-practice gap for training transfer. Although training practitioners have reported access-ing relevant research or conducting research to improve performance in their firms,their attempts appear limited to garnering anecdotal evidence from other colleagues orgathering best practices information reported in practitioner outlets, rather than theacademic base (Holton, 2004; Keefer & Stone, 2007; Rynes et al., 2002).

In an attempt to forge new opportunities to understand and lessen the research-to-practice gap, a promising line of inquiry might be to identify which academic researchfindings in traininghaveactually penetrated the practitioner literature (and which havenot). A content review of popular practitioner literature bases could help to identifywhich research results have breeched the research-to-practice divide and may generateadditional ideas for how to make empirical results useful and accessible to practitio-ners. Moreover, involving editors of training journals in academic conference sessionsmight educate researchers on properly packaging their work to such outlets. Ultimately,

as transfer research matures and integrates multiple individual, design and workenvironment variables, researchers concerned about making the results useful andaccessible to practitioners would benefit from knowing how to best position theirstudies for the widest appeal to practitioners in the field.

Despite the array of suggestions in the academic literature for increasing theexchange between researchers and practitioners (Berger et al., 2004; Latham, 2001;Rynes et al., 2002; Short, 2006), which typically focus on researchers responsibilities,one angle yet to be closely examined is the trainers role and how they areinfluenced to learn about and use transfer findings in their everyday duties. We donot intend to minimize the role of researchers in bridging the gap, but there aremultiple parties involved in the exchange and application of training research, andexamining all stakeholders including trainers may help us bridge the gap more

effectively. To help us understand a trainers role in the research-to-practice gap, wecan invoke a long-standing framework in the study of workplace behavior, whichsuggests employee performance is a function of ability, motivation and opportunity(Peters & OConnor, 1980). Not surprisingly, these are some of the same character-istics outlined in the literature to shore up training transfer, thus applying aperformance-oriented perspective to developing trainers knowledge and support fortransfer. Based on this model, a trainers focus on transfer activities can be betterunderstood by examining his/her ability, motivation and opportunity to supporttransfer in organizations.

In terms of atrainers abilityto support transfer, it has been conceded that academicresearch findings are often difficult to understand (Bergeret al., 2004; Kuchinke, 2004)

and that to some, an interpreter may be needed to help trainers understand academicstudies (Bates & Bates, 2003; Huint & Saks, 2003; Salas et al., 1997). More practically,organizations could ensure trainers espouse the proper jobperson fit (for their training

jobs) so that their knowledge, skills and abilities prepare them for understanding andapplying training research findings. Commensurate with our findings, trainers whohave an academic degree in the field of HRD or training appear more knowledgeableof the basic literature in training and may therefore be better equipped to interpret andshare academic findings with colleagues, communicate with academics about transferand remain aware of outlets providing transfer research. Interestingly, our review ofASTDs CPLP exam materials yielded only a cursory assessment of transfer knowl-edge, indicating trainers are not even required to have a thorough knowledge oftransfer practices for achieving a level of professional certification. Thus, providers of

standardized knowledge-based certification exams that deal with training may want toincorporate our survey items (or some subset) to ensure certified trainers possess theknowledge of transfer needed to be successful in their job.



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In terms oftrainer motivation, it is likely that those trainers (just as trainees) who areheld accountable for transfer results are more inclined to design for and measuretransfer. In addition, affiliation with the relevant professional associations (such asASTD,SHRM and other international training associationsand societies) should encour-age trainer motivation to support transfer, as these organizations tout the importance ofevaluating training interventions and regularly disseminate information on varioustraining topics, including transfer. Consistent with our findings, those individuals withhigher-level positions in the training field will likely be motivated to stay abreast ofacademic transfer research given their job responsibilities. Lastly, we believe thattraining practitioners will be more motivated to gather and examine transfer results intheir firms if provided a simple, easy-to-administer tool for measuring transfer, such asthe Transfer of Training Evaluation Model (TOTEM), created by the Knowledge TransferCenter, Department of Energy (seehttp://learnativity.com/roi-learning.html).

Finally, in terms ofopportunities in their work environment, trainers who are affordedthe time and access to various modes of information delivery (e.g. via podcasts, list-servs and EPSS) to become knowledgeable about training research should be in a betterposition to acquire the knowledge and apply it in their everyday training duties. Inaddition, firms providing resources to their trainers to attend training conferences,including academic conferences such as Academy of Human Resource Development

(AHRD), and who are given the opportunity to apply this learning in their organiza-tion, will also be likely candidates for sustaining transfer. Ultimately, the suggestedideas could help promote the science of our discipline and advance progress towardrecouping more on training investments by supporting enhanced transfer knowledgeof trainers.

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