Thanks for all your feedback, and I apologize for not responding to your fine points sooner.

The program has been in place for 2 years, but up till December, there has been no "Level 3" evaluation tool. We have just created an "on-job-site" audit as a Lev.3 tool, to evaluate job behavior and performance. We have yet to develop a Lev.4 tool. I fully realize this has been lacking, and perhaps, up to this point, we've been leaning too heavily on the exams to validate the training instead of going to Lev's 3-4 to establish whether or not the training outcomes are meeting business goals. Would you agree?

With the educational element being more than 50% of the course, rather than a pure "here's-how-to-do-the-job" training, is the question of using notes or not on the Lev.2 assessment a moot point?

Thanks again...

To reply to Nero, our employees are allowed and encouraged to use notes or job-aids on the job. They likely won't have the specific class notes on job-site with them, but there's no reason why they couldn't. The culture we're cultivating is that it's more important to know where to find the information, rather than to necessarily know it outright, since a technical employee's scope and range of equipment with which they may deal with is so vast.

The trials we conducted in Dec-Jan allowing them to use notes found that we went from a 15-25% failure rate prior to using notes to -0- failures over the 13 courses offered during the period (excluding a small class of employees by job description which we decided to permanently exempt from the training after the third course in the trial).

We have not yet spoken to direct line supervisors about their feelings. Upper management is dubious about using notes, but are replying on our (training dept) expertise and research to disprove their concerns.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shawn S,

quote:

Originally posted by Shawn S:

With the educational element being more than 50% of the course, rather than a pure "here's-how-to-do-the-job" training, is the question of using notes or not on the Lev.2 assessment a moot point?

One would hope, though, that any knowledge imparted is necessary for functioning at the company to accomplish some goal or set of goals. In other words ... the knowledge part or the "educational element" is part and parcel of performing up to par...yes? In other, other words... In order to do X on the job, I probably need to know P, D and Q in addition to the actual task itself. If I can do the task correctly then I am obviously applying the knowledge. I really don't care if you can remember the knowledge itself. I want to know if you can apply it.

Knowledge for knowledge sake is fine in certain contexts ... usually at University where one is simply trying to expand one's horizons. I'm assuming we're talking about corporate training here, though.

If these are technicians in an operations environment, I wouldn't be concerned with the ins-and-outs of a level 2 assessment and whether or not to let participants use notes. It's mostly irrelevant to teaching them to do their jobs. I am assuming that we are talking about a classroom experience here. Technicians don't learn to do their jobs by sitting in a classroom and taking notes. They learn on the job - hopefully a structured OJT experience. Safety and procedures are the nuts and bolts of the job. I know a lot of people will disagree with me - but technicians simply do not need to know theory in order to do their jobs. It does no good for a non-destructive test technician to understand how electrons behave..

quote:

Technicians don't learn to do their jobs by sitting in a classroom and taking notes. They learn on the job - hopefully a structured OJT experience. Safety and procedures are the nuts and bolts of the job. I know a lot of people will disagree with me - but technicians simply do not need to know theory in order to do their jobs.

Although I agree that in many cases OTJ/structured mentoring is the best training vehicle for most technical positions, our techs in the audio-visual industry have to be able to think and problem solve, and those processes must be based on the premises of theory, which we teach in these classroom courses. Unlike some technical positions which may be rather rote and unchanging in their duties, there are any number of things which can and do go wrong in setting up AV. In my opinion, the best way to troubleshoot these problems is by going back to the basics and basing their troubleshooting methods on the theory which governs whatever they're working on, their understanding of which is what is being evaluated in these Lev.2 assessments.

Our program is currently 50% "classical classroom-style learning" and 50% "hands-on training." In the future, we hope to develop a split program where all of the theoretical instruction is done via E-learning/CBT, and the hands-on portion is 100% OTJ/structured mentoring. Until then, this 50/50 mix is our model. Although there are some very practical questions on the current exams relating to the hands-on portion, the bulk of the exams are assessing the learner's understanding of the 50% classroom part. What I'm attempting to sort out is whether or not allowing the techs to use their self-written class notes during this classroom-style portion reinforces knowledge transfer or is short-circuiting it, and I very much appreciate the comments and advice previously offered.