Theory of Transfer of Training

Transfer Outcomes

Many traditional definitions stop at defining transfer as the application of learned skills to the workplace. Application is a very general term, however, and definitions that dimensionalize transfer more specifically as generalization, maintenance, and adaptability are preferred. Generalization involves more than merely mimicking trained responses to events that occurred in training. It requires trainees to exhibit new behaviors on the job in response to different settings, people, and situations from those [Page 873]trained. Maintenance focuses on the changes that occur in the form or level of skills or behaviors exhibited in the transfer setting as a function of time elapsed from the completion of the training program. Adaptability reflects the reality that, for many jobs today, trained individuals must not only deal with routine situations and issues but must also adapt to novel or nonroutine situational demands. The most critical point is that positive transfer is more than a function of original learning in a training experience. For transfer to have occurred, learned behavior must be generalized to the job context, maintained over a period of time, and be adapted to the particular work climate of interest.

As alluded to above, even within each dimension, there are levels or distinctions. For example, with respect to generalization, it is useful to think in terms of transfer distance. To illustrate, learning to drive a car and then finding oneself in a truck would be a situation that would demand generalization, but of a relatively short distance. On the other hand, learning principles of organizational change in a management development seminar and then attempting to practice behaviors stemming from those principles over time as head of a merger and acquisition team would represent much greater generalization distance. Depending on the type of transfer outcomes desired, closing the transfer “gap” can involve greater or smaller distances. It is important to have some degree of clarity about the nature of the transfer of interest before designing and evaluating training interventions.

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