"The Expanding Role of Workplace Training"

 I don't have time now to do my full reflection, so I'll come back to this over the weekend.  However, I do want to say that I think pieces from this could be useful for thinking about how we train writing teachers and how the training of these teachers has developed over time.

Also, the author looks at four time periods in which workplace training was expanding:

• 1900-1930, Scientific Management Era
• 1930-1960, Human Relations Era
• 1960-1990, Participative Management Era
• 1990-present, Strategic Learning Era  (281).

I think it's super interesting how each author divides the last century into movements and then explains what happened during that time.  However, almost everyone has different divisions.  Why?

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Here's an updated reflection on this piece as of 5/9:

When examining these four time periods when workplace training was expanding, the authors ask what the training looked like, what themes dominated, and what advancements were made (281). They could the following:

• 1900-1930 focused on efficiency (no surprise) and most training was done on site or in factory schools (282) with the model being "show, tell, do, check" (283).  In addition, machines had a large role with humans assisting the machines (rather than machines assisting humans): "Machines existed to simplify and standardize work, and workers existed to supplement what machines could not do on their own" (282).  Sounds like a fun time to have a job, right? :(
• 1930-1960 focused on worker attitudes and training with professionals.   There was a "growing appreciation for the importance of worker attitudes and motivation as well as for the changing role of the supervisor and the increasing complexity of work" (285).  I think this is key--work was getting harder.  Supervisory roles were complicated.  Thus, a position just for training was developed.  While this era focused on worker attitudes, it was still about the benefit of the organization, to "bring about the greatest returns to both the worker and the organization" (286).  Job rotation was also developed as a training tool at this time (287) and assessment for training was developed (289).
• 1960-1990 was similar to the previous era in that training methods continued to be developed, but the focus was more on assessment and self-efficacy: "social cognitive theories began to emphasize the role of self-efficacy in self-regulated behavior" (291) and "I-O Psychologists became even less interested in training methods and instead focused on assessment and design functions" (292)--I see this kind of relating to Rhet/Comp in the 80s/90s when so much focus went on assessing programs and people kind of declined in talking about the work of training up new graduate students.  I wonder what the larger cultural impulse was to make this happen in both fields?
• 1990 to present issued the development of the "corporate university" (297) whereby universities became training tools for jobs.

In conclusion, the authors write:

As jobs have become more cognitively based and as accountability for work outcomes has been more diffused, responsibility for defining and executing training has been shifted from supervisors to training professionals to the workers themselves. (304).

 Again, I see this happening in Rhet/Comp with the teaching of English 1000.  Work outcomes and job descriptions aren't as solidified any more.  Responsibilities for training are muddled.  Who teaches these people to be teachers?  Sometimes they teach themselves, sometimes they take a class, sometimes they have a mentor.  There isn't really one way.  In many ways I think this is good--we don't want robot teachers who all do the same things. However, this can also put a lot of pressure on teachers.  How could we improve this if the general impulse for most careers is going this way?



Kraiger, Kurt, and J. Kevin Ford.  "The Expanding Role of Workplace Training: Themes and Trends Influencing Training Research and Practice." Historical Perspectives in Industrial and Organizational Psychology.  Eds. Laura L. Koppes, et al.  Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007. 281-310.