Reviewers of the training literature have generally concluded that training theory and practice are not well integrated, and that research findings are not often translated into useful training methods. In an effort to bridge the gap between training theory and practice, an organizing framework for conceptualizing training research is presented. The purpose of the framework is to highlight the linkages between training-related theory and technique in the areas of training analysis, design, and evaluation. The linkages are described in detail, and illustrated via consideration of research into mental models. We hope that the framework will lead to future research programs that enhance the transition of training research from theory into practice, and integrate more fully these two perspectives
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ackerman, P. L. (1987). Individual differences in skill learning: An integration of psychometric and information processing perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 3-37.
2.
Anderson, J. R. (1985). Cognitive psychology and its implications. New York: Freeman.
3.
Anderson, J. R. (1987). Methodologies for studying human knowledge. Behavioral and Brain Science, 10, 476-477.
4.
Ajzen, I., and Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
5.
Alluisi, E. A. (1991). The development of technology for collective training: SIMNET, a case history. Human Factors, 33, 343-362.
6.
Anastasi, A. (1988). Psychological testing (6th ed.). New York: MacMillan.
7.
Asher, J. J., and Sciarrino, J. A. (1974). Realistic work sample tests: A review. Personnel Psychology, 27, 519-534.
8.
Augustine, M. A., and Coovert, M. D. (in press). Simulation and information order as influences in the development of mental models. Association for Computing Machinery SIGCHI Bulletin.
9.
Ausubcl, D. P. (1960). The use of advance organizers in learning and retention of meaningful material. Journal of Educational Psychology, 51, 267-272.
10.
Baldwin, T. T., and Ford, J. K. (1988). Transfer of training: A review and directions for future research. Personnel Psychology, 41, 63-101.
11.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
12.
Bayman, P., and Mayer, R. E. (1984). lnstructional manipulation of users' mental models for electronic calculators. Instructional Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 20, 189-199.
13.
Bereiter, C., and Scardamalia, M. (1985). Cognitive coping strategies and the problem of “inert” knowledge. In S. Chipman, J. W. Segal, and R. Glaser (Eds.), Thinking and learning skills: Current research and open questions (Vol. 2, pp. 65-80). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
14.
Broadbent, D. E., Fitzgerald, P., and Broadbent, M. H. P. (1986). Implicit and explicit knowledge in the control of complex systems. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 33-50.
15.
Campbell, J. P. (1971). Personnel training and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 22, 565-602.
16.
Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Prince, C., Salas, E., Owens, J. M., Morgan, B. B., and Ganos, G. H. (1989). Determining aircrew coordination effectiveness. In Proceedings of the Interservice/Industry Training Systems Conference (Vol. 1, pp. 128-135). Washington, DC: American Defense Preparedness Association.
17.
Cascio, W. F. (1991). Costing human resources: The financial impact of behavior in organizations (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Kent.
18.
Chase, W. G., and Simon, H. A. (1973). The mind's eye in chess. In W. G. Chase (Ed.), Visual information processing (pp. 215-281). New York: Academic.
19.
Chi, M. T. H.Feltovich, P. J., and Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121-152.
20.
Cook, T. D., Campbell, D., and Peracchio, L. (1991). Quasi-experiments. In M. D. Dunnette and L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial/organizational psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 491-576). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists.
21.
Cooke, N. M., and McDonald, J. E. (1987). The application of psychological scaling techniques to knowledge elicitation for knowledge-based systems. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 26, 533-550.
22.
Coovert, M. D., and McNelis, K. (in press). Team decision making and performance: A review and proposed approach employing Petri nets. In R. W. Swezey and E. Salas (Eds.), Teams: Their training and performance. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
23.
Craig, R. L. (Ed.). (1976). Training and development handbook: A guide to human resource development (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill
24.
Crawford, A. M., and Crawford, K. S. (1978). Simulation of operational equipment with a computer-based instructional system: A low cost training technology. Human Factors, 20, 215-224.
25.
Cream, B. W., Eggemeier, F. T., and Klein, G. A. (1978). A strategy for the development of training devices. Human Factors, 20, 145-158.
26.
Cronbach, L. J., and Snow, R. E. (1977). Aptitudes and instructional methods: A handbook for research on interactions. New York: Irvington.
27.
Dreyfus, H. L., and Dreyfus, S. E. (1979). The psychic boom: Flying beyond the thought barrier (Tech. Report 79-3). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Operations Research Center.
28.
Ebel, R. L. (1977). Prediction? Validation? Construct validity?Personnel Psychology, 30, 55-63.
29.
Eden, D. (1990). Pygamalion in management. Lexington, MA: Lexington.
30.
Ericsson, K. A., and Simon, H. A. (1984). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
31.
Eylon, B. S., and Reif, F. (1984). Effects of knowledge organization on task performance. Cognition and Instruction, 1, 5-44.
32.
Fisk, A. D., and Eggemeier, F. T. (1988). Application of automatic/controlled processing theory to training tactical command and control skills: 1. Background and analytic methodology. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting (pp. 1227-1231). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
33.
Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 327-358.
34.
Fleishman, E. A., and Quaintance, M. K. (1984). Taxonomies of human performance. Orlando, FL: Academic.
35.
Fredericksen, J., and White, B. (1989). An approach to training based upon principled task decomposition. Acta Psychologica, 71, 89-146.
36.
Gagnè, R. M. (1970). The conditions for learning. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
37.
Gentner, D., and Gentner, D. R. (1983). Flowing waters or teeming crowds: Mental models of electricity. In D. Gentner and A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 99-129). Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum.
38.
Gill, R., Gordon, S., Moore, J., and Barbera, C. (1988). The role of conceptual structures in problem solving. In Proceedings of the 1988 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Engineering Education (pp. 583-590). Washington, DC: ASEE.
39.
Glaser, R. (1989). Expertise and learning: How do we think about instructional processes now that we have discovered knowledge structures? In D. Klahr and K. Kotovsky (Eds.), Complex information processing (pp. 269-282). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
40.
Glaser, R. (1990). The reemergencc of learning theory within instructional research. American Psychologist, 45, 29-39.
41.
Goldsmith, T. E., and Johnson, P. J. (1990). A structural assessment of classroom learning. In R. W. Schvaneveldt (Ed.), Pathfinder associative network: Studies in knowledge organization. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
42.
Goldstein, A. P., and Sorcher, M. (1974). Changing supervisor behavior. New York: Pergamon.
43.
Goldstein, I. L. (1978). The pursuit of validity in the evaluation of training programs. Human Factors, 20, 131-144.
44.
Goldstein, I. L. (1980). Training in work organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 31, 229-272.
45.
Goldstein, I. L., Braverman, E. P., and Goldstein, H. W. (1991). The use of needs assessment in training systems design. In K. Wexley (Ed.), Developing human resources (Vol. 5, pp. 35-75). Washington, DC: BNA Books.
46.
Greeno, J. (1989). Situations, mental models, and generative knowledge. In D. Klahr and K. Kotovsky (Eds.), Complex information processing (pp. 285-318). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
47.
Guion, R. M. (1978). Content validity in moderation. Personnel Psychology, 31, 205-214.
48.
Halff, H. M., Hollan, J. D., and Hutchins, E. L. (1986). Cognitive science and military training. American Psychologist, 41, 1131-1139.
49.
Hays, R. T., and Singer, M. J. (1989). Simulation fidelity in training system design. New York: Springer-Verlag.
50.
Hutchins, E., McCandless, T., Woodworth, G., and Dutton, B. (1984). Maneuvering board training system: Analysis and redesign (Tech. Report NPRDC-TR-84-19). San Diego, CA: Navy Personnel Research and Development Center.
51.
Hedge, J. W., and Lipscomb, M. S. (Eds.). (1987). Walk through performance testing: An innovative approach to work sample testing. (Tech. Report AFHRL-TP-87-8). Brooks AFB, TX: Training Systems Division, Air Force Human Resources Laboratory.
52.
Ilgen, D. R., Fisher, C. D., and Taylor, M. S. (1979). Consequences of individual feedback on behavior in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 64, 349-371.
53.
Johnson-Laird, P. (1983). Mental models. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
54.
Kelley, H. H. (1972). Attribution in social interaction. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanhouse, H. H. Kelley, S. Valins, and B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning.
55.
Kieras, D. E. (1988). What mental model should be taught: Choosing instructional content for complex engineering systems. In J. Psotka, L. D. Massey, and S. A. Mutter (Eds.), Intelligent tutoring systems: Lessons learned (pp. 85-111). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
56.
Kieras, D. E., and Bovair, S. (1984). The role of a mental model in learning to control a device. Cognitive Science, 8, 255-273.
57.
Kirkpatrick, D. L. (1976). Evaluation of training. In R. L. Craig (Ed.), Training and development handbook: A guide to human resources development. New York: Mc-Graw-Hill.
58.
Kuhl, J. (1985). Volitional mediators of cognition-behavior consistency: Self-regulatory processes and action versus state orientation. In J. Kuhl and J. Beckman (Eds.), Action control: From cognition to behavior (pp. 11-39). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
59.
Kyllonen, P. C., and Alluisi, E. A. (1987). Learning and forgetting facts and skills. In G. Salvendy (Ed.), Handbook of human factors (pp. 124-153). New York: Wiley.
60.
Kyllonen, P. C., and Shute, V. J. (1989). A taxonomy of learning skills. In P. L. Ackerman, R. J. Sternberg, and R. Glaser (Eds.), Learning and individual differences: Advances in theory and research (pp. 117-163). New York: Freeman.
61.
Larkin, J. H. (1983). The role of problem representation in physics. In D. Gentner and A. L. Stevens (Eds.), Mental models (pp. 75-98). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
62.
Latham, G. P. (1988). Human resource training and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 545-582.
63.
Lawshe, C. H. (1975). A quantitative approach to content validity. Personnel Psychology, 28, 563-575.
64.
Levine, E. L. (1983). Everything you ever wanted to know about job analysis. Tampa, FL: Mariner.
65.
Levine, E. L., and Baker, C. V. (1991. April). Team task analysis: A procedural guide and test of the methodology. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, St. Louis, MO.
66.
Manz, C., and Sims, H. (1989). Superleadership: Leading others to lead themselves. New York: Simon and Schuster.
67.
Marrow, A. J. (1969). The practical theorist: The life and work of Kurt Lewin. New York: Basic Books.
68.
Marx, R. D. (1982). Relapse prevention for managerial training: A model for maintenance of behavior change. Academy of Management Review, 7, 433-441.
69.
Mayer, R. E. (1979). Twenty years of research on advance organizers: Assimilation theory is still the best predictor of results. Instructional Science, 8, 133-167.
70.
Mayer, R. E. (1989). Models for understanding. Review of Educational Research, 59, 43-64.
71.
Moore, J. L., and Gordon, S. C. (1988). Conceptual graphs as instructional tools. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting (pp. 1289-1293). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
72.
Morgan, B. B., Glickman, A. S., Woodard, E. A., Blaiwes, A. S., and Salas, E. (1986). Measurement of team behaviors in a navy environment. (Tech. Report TR-86-014). Orlando, FL: Naval Training Systems Center.
73.
Naveh-Benjamin, M., McKeachie, W. J., Lin, Y., and Tucker, D. G. (1986). Inferring students' cognitive structures and their development using the “ordered tree technique.”Journal of Educational Psychology, 78, 130-140.
74.
Noe, R. A., and Schmitt, N. (1986). The influence of trainee attitudes on training effectiveness: Test of a model. Personnel Psychology, 39, 497-524.
75.
Palmer, S. E. (1975). The effects of contextual scenes on the identification of objects. Memory and Cognition, 3, 519-526.
76.
Prince, C., Chidester, T. R., Cannon-Bowers, J. A., and Bowers, C. (in press). Aircrew coordination: Achieving teamwork in the cockpit. In R. Sweezey and E. Salas (Eds.), Teams: Their training and performance. New York: Ablex.
77.
Rasmussen, J. (1979). On the structure of knowledge-A morphology of mental models in a man-machine system context (Tech. Report Riso-M-2192). Roskilde, Denmark: Riso National Laboratory.
78.
Rasmussen, J. (1986). Information processing and human-machine interaction: An approach to cognitive engineering. New York: North-Holland.
79.
Redding, R. E. (1989). Perspectives on cognitive task-analysis: The state of the state of the art. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 33rd Annual Meeting (pp. 1348-1352). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
80.
Redding, R. E. (1990). Taking cognitive task analysis into the field: Bridging the gap from research to application. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 34th Annual Meeting (pp. 1304-1308). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
81.
Redding, R. E., and Lierman, B. (1990). Development of a part-task, CBI trainer based upon a cognitive task analysis. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 34th Annual Meeting (pp. 1337-1341). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
82.
Revans, R. W. (1982). The origin and growth of action learning. Hunt, England: Chatwell-Bratt, Bickley.
83.
Rossi, P. H., and Freeman, H. E. (1982). Evaluation: A systematic approach (2nd ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
84.
Roth, E. M., and Woods, D. D. (1990). Analyzing the cognitive demands of problem-solving environments: An approach to cognitive task analysis. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 34th Annual Meeting (pp. 1314-1317). Santa Monica. CA: Human Factors Society.
85.
Rouillier, J. Z., and Goldstein, I. L. (1991. April). Determinants of the climate for transfer of training. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, St. Louis, MO.
86.
Rouse, W. B., and Morris, N. M. (1986). On looking into the black box: Prospects and limits in the search for mental models. Psychological Bulletin, 100, 349-363.
87.
Rutman, L. (1980). Planning useful evaluations. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
88.
Salas, E., Dickinson, T. L., Converse, S. A., and Tannenbaum, S. I. (in press). Toward an understanding of team performance and training. In R. W. Swezey and E. Salas (Eds.), Teams: Their training and performance. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
89.
Sanderson, P. M. (1989). Verbalizable knowledge and skilled task performance: Association, dissociation, and mental models. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 15, 729-747.
90.
Schneider, B., and Konz, A. (1989). Strategic job analysis. Human Resource Management, 28, 51-63.
91.
Schneider, W., and Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: I. Detection, search, attention. Psychological Review, 84, 1-66,
92.
Schvaneveldt, R. W. (Ed.). (1990). Pathfinder associative networks: Studies in knowledge organization. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
93.
Tannenbaum, S. I., Mathieu, J. E., Salas, E., and Cannon-Bowers. J. A. (1991. April), An examination of the factors that influence training effectiveness: A model and research agenda. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, St. Louis, MO.
94.
Tannenbaum. S. I., and Yukl, G. (in press). Training and development in work organizations. Annual Review of Psychology.
95.
Thornton, G. C., III, and Cleveland, J. N. (1990). Developing managerial talent through simulation. American Psychologist, 45, 190-199.
96.
Van Heusden, A. R. (1980). Human prediction of third-order autoregressive time series. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-10, 38-43.
97.
Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. New York: Wiley.
98.
Wexley, K. N. (1984). Personnel training. Annual Review of Psychology, 35, 519-551.
99.
White, B. (1984). Designing computer games to help physics students understand Newton's laws of motion. Cognition and Instruction, 1, 69-108.
100.
Whitfield, D., and Jackson, A. (1982). The air traffic controller's “picture” as an example of a mental model. In G. Johannsen and J. E. Rijnsdorp (Eds.), Analysis, design and evaluation of man-machine systems (pp. 45-52). London: Pergamon.
101.
Wightman, D. C., and Lintern, G. (1985). Part-task training for tracking and manual control. Human Factors, 27, 267-283.
102.
Zubritzky, M. C., and Coury, B. G. (1987). Multidimensional scaling as a method for probing the conceptual structure of state categories: An individual differences analysis. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 31st Annual Meeting (pp. 107-111). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.
