Standards for Time Taken in Self-Paced Training

Abstract

Performance in a self-paced course widely used in the Bell System to train Service Representatives was studied to determine a standard that could be used to terminate training for students whose total training time was predicted to be excessively long. Trainees exhibited a high degree of consistency in the relative amounts of time taken on various parts of the course. In particular, time spent early in training was highly predictive of total time taken to complete the course (r = .83). A standard was set that is predicted to identify correctly nearly 70% of those who would exceed the maximun allowable time for course completion, with a “false alarm” rate of only 5%. The introduction of the standard is expected to result in a significant reduction of systemwide training costs.