From Learning Settings to Performance Settings: The Psychological Challenges of Training Transfer

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From Learning Settings to Performance Settings
The Psychological Challenges of Training Transfer

• Andy Molinsky Joshua Margolis
• Brandeis University Harvard University

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Three Cases of Training Transfer

• Managers learning to conduct layoff conversations
  
• Pediatric medical students and residents learning
  to perform procedures on children and deliver bad
  news
• Russian immigrant job seekers learning to
  interview for jobs in the United States

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Managers

• Context
• Fortune 500 company, planned layoff of 150
  workers
• Training Method
• Classroom sessions, simulated encounters
• Data
• 21 interviews (line managers and HR managers)
• Archival documents (materials presented at
  training sessions)
• 3 key informants

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Russian Immigrant Job Seekers

• Context
• Recent immigrants from FSU attempting to find
  jobs in the U.S.
• Training Method
• Classroom sessions, simulated encounters
• Data
• Observation of 5 classroom training sessions
• Participant observation at 145 mock interview
  sessions (as interviewer)
• 8 interviews about cultural differences in
  interviewing behavior

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Medical Students and Residents

• Context
• Major metropolitan pediatric teaching hospital
• Training Method
• Classroom sessions, simulated encounters,
  training while doing
• Data
• 22 interviews (6 medical students, 8 residents, 8
  senior physicians)
• Weekly diaries during pediatric rotation (7
  medical students)
• 2 key informants

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A Potential Paradox?

• Learning settings facilitate skill development by
  offering trainees a safe setting for
  experimenting with new interpersonal skills.
• However, in doing so, might learning settings
  also deprive trainees of a realistic preview of
  the more difficult, stressful, ambiguous
  conditions under which they will have to use
  these skills in the workplace?

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Threat Domain
Character
Competence
Private
Threat Source
Public
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Self-efficacy under threat

• Trainees feel anxious, lost, incompetent because
  the task is less predictable/more difficult to
  handle in the performance setting and the stakes
  are higher.

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Self-efficacy threat - Illustrations

• I'm feeling really uncomfortable. I haven't
  done this before. I'm nervous about it you have
  an hour class on, These are legally what you can
  say. This is how you escort them -- like the
  mechanics of it, but not really how to handle the
  emotion of it. Manager
• I felt much less confident in what I was doing.
  And when one feels much less confident than sort
  of two things happen. One, it's harder to focus
  on the procedure itself, so you think more about
  sort of your own level of uncomfortableness with
  the situation. It sort of can get cloudy because
  you get more nervous.  If you're nervous to begin
  with and things aren't going quite right, it's
  harder for you to keep control of the
  situation.  Doctor
• I didnt understand what she was saying, I felt
  lost, asked her to say it again, and finally was
  able to guess what her question was when I
  understood a few words. I felt very confused
  because I couldnt understand her. I felt
  extremely nervous because of that. Russian

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Professionalism under threat

• Trainees feel concerned that evaluative others
  see them as incompetent when attempting to
  execute newly trained behaviors in the
  performance setting unable to complete the task
  effectively and hide their emotion.

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Professionalism threat - Illustrations

• The game is being externally a lot more
  comfortable with the situation than you are
  internally. . . Internally, theres a nervous
  stomach, you feel on edge. Sometimes you get
  physically nauseous or headache there is a
  degree of nervousness that almost makes you have
  to step back and say, I have to be calm. I cant
  show that I am nervous about delivering this
  message. Manager
• I was more worried about what her mother must
  be thinking in the sense that, if she sees her
  daughter in more pain, shes probably going to be
  even more curious of why I should be the one
  doing this. And I didnt want her to I guess
  lose confidence in me. Doctor
• I do try to act differently, but despite my
  efforts, I look pathetic, right? Me interviewing
  is a pathetic spectacle. Russian

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Identity under threat

• Managers and doctors feel distressed and guilty
  about having a negative impact on another
  persons livelihood.
• Russians feel distressed and guilty about acting
  with an interpersonal style in an American
  interview that is inconsistent with their own
  style.

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Identity threat - Illustrations

• I really took it personally, like if it was my
  personal failure that I had to deliver this
  message to these people. Somehow if we had done
  something different maybe we could figure out a
  way to save their jobs. Manager
• I felt extreme pity for the patient, and felt
  awful for putting him through what I considered
  unnecessary pain. Doctor
• Its hard for me to come to an interview and to
  tell people how wonderful I am, to praise myself,
  to say that I am the greatest thing in the world
  Saying these things makes me so uncomfortable
  my whole being revolts against it. One has to
  make a great effort to suppress one's own nature
  it's extremely difficult to do. Russian

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Image under threat

• Managers and doctors feel embarrassed or ashamed
  that the image they project as someone who causes
  pain or harm to another person
• Russians feel embarrassed or ashamed that they
  project the image of someone in an American
  interview who, they believe, is a dishonest and
  aggressive person

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Image threat - Illustrations

• Their world was just destroyed in an instant.
  They are a new grandmother, their daughter is
  expectingThey dont think about what I am going
  through. I am the no good bastard. Manager
• I was feeling bad that I was hurting her. I
  was feeling a little sort of embarrassed and
  ashamed that it didnt go the way Id promised
  the family it would go I just sort of feel them
  thinking, Youve been lying you lied to us.
  This is much worse than we expected. This is
  really brutal. Doctor
• I have difficulties selling myself. It goes
  against my nature I feel guilty for lying and
  have this heavy burden and a feeling that I am
  committing a crime against my own personality. I
  am also afraid that the interviewer can see on my
  face that I am not sincere. Russian

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Learning vs. Performance Settings
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Summary statements

• By the very way in which its structured, a
  learning setting protects/makes safe/nurtures a
  trainees sense of competence and character.
• Competence and character are subsequently
  exposed, or made vulnerable, in the performance
  setting, leading to a series of self-threats and
  elicited (negative) emotion that can interfere
  with task performance.
• Learning settings therefore enable individuals to
  focus directly on learning new skills and
  behaviors, but at the same time might deprive
  them of the opportunity to develop the skills
  necessary for coping with the distinctive
  challenges of using these skills in the
  evaluative, unprotected atmosphere of the
  real-world.

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Study 2 Your Help

• Research Opportunity
• Professional services firm (100,000 employees)
• Boot Camp training for college grads and
  experienced hires ongoing, ad-hoc training
• Training in performance feedback, coaching,
  leadership, etc.
• Your Ideas About
• Developing a Study 2 to test/refine/elaborate
  upon Study 1

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Thank you!