Given the proliferation of training transfer studies in various disciplines, we provide an integrative and analytical review of factors impacting transfer of training. Relevant empirical research for transfer across the management, human resource development (HRD), training, adult learning, performance improvement, and psychology literatures is integrated into the review. We synthesize the developing knowledge regarding the primary factors influencing transfer—learner characteristics, intervention design and delivery, and work environment influences—to identify variables with substantive support and to discern the most pressing gaps. Ultimately, a critique of the state of the transfer literature is provided and targeted suggestions are outlined to guide future empirical and theoretical work in a meaningful direction.

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Training Transfer: An Integrative Literature Review:

The role of therapist training in the implementation of psychosocial treatments: a review and critique with recommendations.

This article describes an evaluative study focused on the transfer of trained knowledge and skills back to the practice setting A model of transfer was developed based on factors identified in the literature Survey methodology was used to obtain data from training participants at the completion of training and again six months later They assessed attainment of learning outcome and its other model components The regression model that resulted accounted for 52% of the variance in participants' perceptions of their learning Training participants having an opportunity to perform new tasks on the job, support of peers for using new skills and familiarity with the content prior to training were the variables in the model Recommendations for training and evaluation of training efforts are also presented

Transfer of Training

Despite significant progress in the field of training transfer research over the past two decades very little empirical research in the area has been conducted within human service organisations. As a result, our knowledge of the extent to which those factors posited within the training literature to influence the transfer of training are necessarily those found in these particular work settings very much remains in its infancy. This article presents findings from qualitative research that was undertaken as part of a wider training evaluation strategy to investigate (1) those factors which influenced the transfer of training within a UK social services department; and (2) how these factors compared or differed from those suggested within the literature as influencing training transfer. The findings suggest a range of specific factors as they pertain to both the nature of the jobs and the workplace within such work settings as mediating training transfer. However, a number of these were closely associated with the dimensions of social support and opportunity to use as posited within Baldwin and Ford's (1988) transfer of training model, suggesting that the model is potentially generalisable to human service agencies.

Job/Work Environment Factors Influencing Training Transfer within a Human Service Agency: Some Indicative Support for Baldwin and Ford's Transfer Climate Construct

Identifying substance abuse in maltreating families: A child welfare challenge

Abuse of alcohol or other drugs is at the root of many child welfare problems, yet most workers receive little academic training to cope with these difficulties in their clients. Continuing education is a useful tool to facilitate the adoption of attitudes necessary for effective response to addicted persons. Workers may not approach continuing education with an eye to identifying specific opportunities for changing their practice, however, and impediments in the workplace make implementing change difficult. Continuing education is most effective if supervisors help in setting goals, removing obstacles, and facilitating workers' efforts to incorporate into practice what they learn in the training classroom.

Assessing the Benefits and Increasing the Utility of Addiction Training for Public Child Welfare Workers: A Pilot Study.

A vigorous and long standing argument continues in an effort to define the etiology of alcoholism and prescribe its treatment. Each sideaadvances its cause by challenging the other's efficacy. However, none of the prevalling responses to alcoholism is very effective. Fighting on the ideological battlefield of western science results in a sterile understanding of alcoholism and provides social workers little information to help them understand the experience of alcoholism and the complexities of recovery. The experience of alcoholism is profound. More than a bad habit or a disease, alcoholism is an attempt to give life meaning, to assuage existential dilemmas. Effective recovery from alcoholism occurs when clients learn to disengage from their relationship with alcohol and give their lives a new sense of meaning. Sources of knowledge outside empirical science offer important principles to help workers facilitate recovery.

Thomas K. Gregoire

Papers

Assessing the Benefits and Increasing the Utility of Addiction Training for Public Child Welfare Workers: A Pilot Study.

Alcoholism: The quest for transcendence and meaning