The transfer of learning: Employees' lived experiences
Creators: name: Toll, Debora K
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2004
Subjects: subject: Education, Adult and Continuing.
subject: Education, Vocational.

description: The employees' ability to continuously and collectively learn, and to apply their learning are critical to their own and their organization's performance. This study, therefore, sought to understand employees' perceptions of and experiences with the application of or, transfer of their learning. It also sought to understand the interplay between the three primary transfer sources. The overarching research question that guided this study was what were employees' lived experiences with transfer? The subquestions were how do employees transfer their learning, when did transfer enter their learning experiences, and why did they believe that transfer occurred? A hermeneutic phenomenological research design was employed. The participants' lived experiences were examined, described and interpreted. By allowing the participants' voices to resonate throughout the text, the depth, richness and meaning of their experiences were captured. Seven federal government employees, at the administrative, professional and managerial levels, comprised the purposeful sample. The participants engaged in a formal audiotaped interview, an informal interview and a focus group session. Eight main themes emerged from the data analysis. Two themes, related to the individuals' characteristics, were the desire to learn and how transfer occurred. Four themes, related to the training program's design and development features, were discourse, application of the learning to life's situations, learning by doing and when transfer entered the learners' learning experience. The last two themes, related to the organizational climate characteristics, were an open and supportive culture, and the major challenges to transfer. The transfer research, comprised of the individuals' characteristics, training program features and organizational climate characteristics, provided one lens through which the findings were interpreted. Three adult learning theories, self-directed, situated cognition and transformational learning, provided the second lens. The transfer and adult learning literatures were quite complimentary. The learning theories however, brought a broader and more comprehensive understanding to many of the participants' transfer experiences. The theories, by illuminating the interplay between the primary transfer sources, integrated the quantitative transfer research findings into a more coherent body of knowledge. This research also contributed to a more fullsome understanding of the learning theories and the difficulties in measuring transfer. Adult education principles and practices appear to be well positioned to enhance employees' transfer efforts as transfer does indeed appear to be a key concept in adult learning. This study advances our understanding of transfer from the perspective of the employees' "lived" experiences, and of the complexities of transfer. The findings are relevant to adult education practices, and to organizations and employees in better understanding and facilitating transfer.