Phases of the Instructional Process

Answer

Phases of the Instructional Process

Training – a company’s planned effort to facilitate, through learning, the acquisition of job-related skills, competences, behaviors and knowledge by employees (Noe & Kodwani, 2018) – involves various instructional phases. According to David Merrill (2007), training or instruction cycle comprise of “activation, demonstration, application and integration” as the key instructional phases that are effectively carried out in the context of real-world tasks (p. 5). This observation is echoed in Jonassen (2008) who conceptualizes instructional design as a linear set of phases consisting of analysis to identify training needs, training program design, program implementation, and evaluation of outcomes. For Noe and Kodwani (2018), training or instruction design is a seven-step process consisting of; needs assessment, creating motivation/ incentive for training, creating a conducive environment for learning to occur, ensuring transfer of training, designing an evaluation plan, identifying the training method, and monitoring and evaluating the training program. These instructional phases can be summarized into three core phases; namely, pretraining, the learning event, and post-training. The purpose of this paper is to analyze each of these phases and single the phase which is the most important.    

Phases of the Instructional Process

Designing an effective training program calls for need to take a broader perspective, no matter its mode of delivery. The program should provide employees with an incentive to attend training events, apply the acquired skills to their jobs, share their new skills and knowledge with coworkers, and more importantly, continue to advance in their careers by acquiring skills needed to meet the evolving job demands. This implies that designing an instruction program should transcend just defining what employees will be doing during training to also create conditions that prepare and motivate employees to acquire new skills and knowledge, as well as ensure that the acquired are transferred (used on the job) and shared with colleague employees. As such, Merrill (2002) identified five principles that should guide instructional design: promote learning by; engaging trainees in solving real-world problems, activating existing knowledge as a foundation for new knowledge, demonstrating new knowledge to the learner, enabling and supporting the learner to apply the new knowledge, and ensuring that the learner integrates the new knowledge in the real world. These principles prompted development of three instructional phases; that is, pretraining, the learning event, and post-training (Halsey, 2011; Zenger, Folkman & Sherwin, 2005).

After completing the needs assessment, the instructional process commences with pretraining as the first phase. Here, the program focuses primarily on preparing, incentivizing, and energizing employees to participate in training. This phase is also where the company ensures that the organizational environment – managers, organizational climate, and co-workers – is conducive for both learning and transfer of the resulting knowledge to occur (Halsey, 2011). These activities of pretraining phase are synonymous with those of step two (motivating employees to participate in training) and step three (creating a supportive learning environment) of the training design process developed by Noe and Kodwani (2018). The instructional process then moves to the second phase – the learning event/process – where the training and development department prepares instruction (teaching materials and classes) and the physical environment to support the learning process. The phase also includes such activities as planning what employees will do during training, selecting or hiring highly-skilled trainers, identifying a training room, designing an effective program plan and engendering positive interaction with and among trainees. In the last phase, post-training, the training manager ensures proper transfer of training by ensuring that employees have the capacity to apply the new skills and knowledge to their work (Zenger, Folkman & Sherwin, 2005). Other important elements of this phase are developing an evaluation plan, and monitoring and evaluating the training program (Noe & Kodwani, 2018).  

The most important phase

Of the three phases, I believe post-training, particularly training evaluation, is the most important phase. Indeed, as Noe and Kodwani (2018) maintain, companies make hefty investments in training programs because continuous training has been found to help employees acquire new knowledge, behaviors and skills, and keep them motivated while helping the organization to improve quality, satisfy customers, increase sales and remain competitive. In addition to ensuring that employees transfer the acquired knowledge and skills, post-training phase evaluates the training program to determine if it’s meeting these outcomes (Hasselqvist & Thomas, 2012). As Moldovan (2016) adds, it also assesses the program’s effectiveness and whether it has an adequate return on investment. This way, post-training phase informs important decisions regarding whether to continue investing in the program as it is, improve its features, or outsource training to professional training organizations.