Transfer and impact are tough to measure, and often through proxy measures. But yes, it is possible to measure (a large part of my doctoral thesis was on this very topic). Jack J Phillips (ROI Institute) did excellent work on measuring transfer and impact (ROI) of training.
One thing I’ve found helps tremendously with transfer and impact is to directly involve and include the line manager (as sponsor) as an accountability partner for participant(s) and have regular TouchPoint sessions with them to review the transfer and impact we aim to achieve. Bang goes the excuse of “my boss doesn’t give me opportunity/encouragement etc to transfer the learning.”
What matters in school education? The exam grades? SAT scores? That the student learns something useful?
So the context around "One thing I’ve found helps tremendously with transfer and impact is to directly involve and include the line manager (as sponsor) as an accountability partner for participant(s) and have regular TouchPoint sessions with them to review the transfer and impact we aim to achieve. Bang goes the excuse of “my boss doesn’t give me opportunity/encouragement etc to transfer the learning.” ... is more corporate? Keen to explore if this approach works in education, given the rather unique culture in schools.
There is no doubt that a line manager who is as invested in growing people as getting stuff done has a massive impact.
Don't start me on what we 'proxy value' in education through what we measure. This is one of the reverse engineering levers that has take education down the wrong path for so long.
Corporate and civil service. When I was in the strange world of academia, I rolled out the same concept (under the guise of research :-)) to great effect.
Isn’t the question of ‘proxy values’ THE question? If you get what you measure and reward, and the output is good robots who can pass exams devoid of empathy, creativity and common sense with massive expectations and enduring shock and surprise in the workplace when they don’t get a pat on the back simply for turning up?
It’s certainly not just in schools and education. The corporate world is filled with One Day Wonder programmes that need to achieve a shopping list of “learning objectives” and so long as everyone has a grand time and ticks the right boxes on the Happy Sheet evaluation, then it was a “good” event. Forget about these fancy ideas about ‘transfer of learning’ or ‘impact’ let alone ‘change’.
HR like it because they get to tick a box that says “did my job”.
Facilitators and trainers like it because they just have to make sure everyone has a good time and ticks the right box on those “happy sheets” and then they get to say “I did my job, now pay me my money.”
Participants like it because it doesn’t tax the brain, no-one really expects them to change and do anything different, and they get a nice day out of the office and enjoy a free lunch (Maybe in a nice hotel). Then they can tick the right box on those “happy sheets”.
Managers like it because it keeps staff content with a decent free lunch and they can say “did my job, don;t blame me for not training them.”
You get what you measure. So... isn’t the key to transfer and impact is to measure what matters?
If the school system can’t measure the right things (for its students, let alone for the teachers!) what chance do we have in the business world?
Love your closing questions John, reminds me of a two part question often used by an Aussie thought leader, Cameron Schwab: What seems to matter? What really matters?
Measuring transfer, however, is very hard to do. Do you know of ways of measuring observable postive change following "training"? Once we crack this one we are on our way. We are looking at the precursors to this through deeper learning analytics, but this remains indirect, and assumes that learning behaviours in a course result in "transfer".
Transfer and impact are tough to measure, and often through proxy measures. But yes, it is possible to measure (a large part of my doctoral thesis was on this very topic). Jack J Phillips (ROI Institute) did excellent work on measuring transfer and impact (ROI) of training.
One thing I’ve found helps tremendously with transfer and impact is to directly involve and include the line manager (as sponsor) as an accountability partner for participant(s) and have regular TouchPoint sessions with them to review the transfer and impact we aim to achieve. Bang goes the excuse of “my boss doesn’t give me opportunity/encouragement etc to transfer the learning.”
What matters in school education? The exam grades? SAT scores? That the student learns something useful?
So the context around "One thing I’ve found helps tremendously with transfer and impact is to directly involve and include the line manager (as sponsor) as an accountability partner for participant(s) and have regular TouchPoint sessions with them to review the transfer and impact we aim to achieve. Bang goes the excuse of “my boss doesn’t give me opportunity/encouragement etc to transfer the learning.” ... is more corporate? Keen to explore if this approach works in education, given the rather unique culture in schools.
There is no doubt that a line manager who is as invested in growing people as getting stuff done has a massive impact.
Don't start me on what we 'proxy value' in education through what we measure. This is one of the reverse engineering levers that has take education down the wrong path for so long.
Corporate and civil service. When I was in the strange world of academia, I rolled out the same concept (under the guise of research :-)) to great effect.
Isn’t the question of ‘proxy values’ THE question? If you get what you measure and reward, and the output is good robots who can pass exams devoid of empathy, creativity and common sense with massive expectations and enduring shock and surprise in the workplace when they don’t get a pat on the back simply for turning up?
It’s certainly not just in schools and education. The corporate world is filled with One Day Wonder programmes that need to achieve a shopping list of “learning objectives” and so long as everyone has a grand time and ticks the right boxes on the Happy Sheet evaluation, then it was a “good” event. Forget about these fancy ideas about ‘transfer of learning’ or ‘impact’ let alone ‘change’.
HR like it because they get to tick a box that says “did my job”.
Facilitators and trainers like it because they just have to make sure everyone has a good time and ticks the right box on those “happy sheets” and then they get to say “I did my job, now pay me my money.”
Participants like it because it doesn’t tax the brain, no-one really expects them to change and do anything different, and they get a nice day out of the office and enjoy a free lunch (Maybe in a nice hotel). Then they can tick the right box on those “happy sheets”.
Managers like it because it keeps staff content with a decent free lunch and they can say “did my job, don;t blame me for not training them.”
You get what you measure. So... isn’t the key to transfer and impact is to measure what matters?
If the school system can’t measure the right things (for its students, let alone for the teachers!) what chance do we have in the business world?
Love your closing questions John, reminds me of a two part question often used by an Aussie thought leader, Cameron Schwab: What seems to matter? What really matters?
Measuring transfer, however, is very hard to do. Do you know of ways of measuring observable postive change following "training"? Once we crack this one we are on our way. We are looking at the precursors to this through deeper learning analytics, but this remains indirect, and assumes that learning behaviours in a course result in "transfer".