Publication Date

Summer 2015

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Amber N. Schroeder (Director), Elizabeth L. Shoenfelt, and Reagan D. Brown

Degree Program

Department of Psychological Sciences

Degree Type

Master of Science

Abstract

Although training evaluation is understood as an important way of determining the effectiveness of a training program, additional research in the area of training transfer and core self-evaluations (CSE) could provide insight on measuring the effectiveness of training programs. Training transfer differences and CSE were examined in training courses offered in a workforce development program. The goals of the study were to: (1) evaluate the validity of using CSE as a means of predicting perceptions of transfer, (2) test the previous findings that utility reactions measures are a stronger predictor of transfer than affective reactions measures, (3) determine which type of enrollment format in the Career and Workforce Development program has higher transfer of training, (4) evaluate if CSE can predict different rates of learning, (5) determine if CSE correlates positively with affective and utility measures of reaction surveys, and (6) further examine the finding that utility measures positively correlate with knowledge gains. In order to do this, eight Western Kentucky University Career and Workforce Development training courses were evaluated. The study did not find support for any of the hypotheses. Possible reasons for this lack of support include a small sample size, a lack of responses to the transfer survey, the number of different courses evaluated, and characteristics of the training courses such as different trainers. Thus, additional research is needed in this area to better understand the nature of the relationships between CSE, perceptions of transfer, utility reactions, affective reactions, and training course knowledge gains.

Disciplines

Applied Behavior Analysis | Industrial and Organizational Psychology | Psychology

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