Elsevier

Educational Research Review

Volume 8, January 2013, Pages 48-74
Educational Research Review

Review
Influencing variables and moderators of transfer of learning to the workplace within the area of staff development in higher education: Research review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2012.05.007Get rights and content

Abstract

The goal of staff development in higher education is a change in teacher practices to positively influence student learning. In other words, the goal of staff development is the transfer of learning to the workplace. Research illuminates that this transfer of learning to the workplace is a complex issue. To make an accurate assessment of staff development initiatives one must consider what works for whom and under what conditions. We need to understand which influencing variables actually lead to which effects. Furthermore, we have to gain insight into moderators in the relationship between influencing variables and transfer of learning.

With this interdisciplinary review we combine the findings of management, Human Resource Development (HRD), and organisational psychological research with educational research. We attempt to generate guidelines for further research to improve staff development by revealing gaps in earlier research on impact of staff development.

Introduction

The recognition of the importance of staff development has never been greater than it is today. Staff development can play a critical role in ensuring the quality of teaching and learning in universities (Devlin, 2006). Staff development is emphasised in proposals to reform, restructure or transform schools. Staff development is seen as the most important vehicle in efforts to bring about much-needed change (Guskey, 1996).

A wide range of other terms are used to describe the profession of staff development, being instructional development, instructional training, academic development, faculty development, faculty training, professional development, educational development, educational training, pedagogical training. In this study we opt for the term staff development. Staff development is a general term that can encompass a whole set of processes (Fraser, 2001). According to Stefani (2003) the term staff development would refer to working to improve the capabilities and practice of educators.

In this study, staff development is defined as the coherent sum of activities targeted to strengthen and extend the knowledge, skills and conceptions of the teachers in a way that will lead to changes in their way of thinking and their educational behaviour (Fenstermacher & Berliner, 1985) and to the maximisation of the learning process of students (Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1990). These changes take place continuously within the context of institutes of higher education as organisations, and are aimed at the school team as an organised group (Guskey, 1996). The focus is on the needs of the individual teacher and the school team. Staff development is the sum of formal (e.g., workshops) and informal (e.g., exchange of ideas among teachers) learning experiences of the teacher (Fullan, 1990).

The definition of staff development indicates that teachers have to translate their acquired knowledge, skills and conceptions into changes in their way of thinking and their educational behaviour. Based on Baldwin and Ford (1988) we define this transfer of learning to the workplace as a result of staff development as: ‘the effective (generalisation) and continuing (maintenance) application in the job environment of the skills, knowledge and conceptions gained in a staff development context’. Transfer of learning to the workplace seems to be rather complex. In their regular work environment teachers have to overcome a lot of barriers before they can really use their newly acquired knowledge, skills and conceptions. Management studies mention that only 10% of learning actually transfers to job performance (Fitzpatrick, 2001, Holton and Baldwin, 2000, Kupritz, 2002). Transfer of learning to the workplace is not easy to achieve and is complex.

Earlier educational reviews have studied the impact of staff development on different levels (Levinson-Rose and Menges, 1981, McAlpine, 2003, Steinert et al., 2006, Stes et al., 2010, Weimer and Lenze, 1998). Examples of these levels studied, are change within teacher, change within students, and so on.

The reviews reveal some interesting findings. The first one is that they prove the complexity of transfer to the workplace. The reviews accentuate the difficulty of measuring transfer of learning to the workplace (McAlpine, 2003). More attention should be given to research studying transfer of staff development learning, especially measuring actual changes in teacher performance (Stes et al., 2010).

In order to gain insight into this complex process, previous reviews also emphasise the importance of more qualitative or mixed method studies (Levinson-Rose and Menges, 1981, Steinert et al., 2006, Weimer and Lenze, 1998). The reviews reveal that well-designed studies are scarce and elucidate the importance of more and better-designed research on the impact of staff development (Levinson-Rose and Menges, 1981, Steinert et al., 2006, Stes et al., 2010, Weimer and Lenze, 1998). A satisfying conclusion of Stes et al. (2010) is that research on the impact of staff development is gaining importance.

Next to this the reviews make a call to researchers to take the individual differences of teachers participating in staff development initiatives into account (Levinson-Rose & Menges, 1981). Also, a framework is needed for studies to build upon each other and to enable comparability of study results (Steinert et al., 2006, Stes et al., 2010). Furthermore, the reviews illuminate the importance of taking related fields into account (Weimer & Lenze, 1998).

Taking these conclusions of educational staff development reviews into account, we will describe what is lacking in educational research in the following paragraphs. In the succeeding part the research questions of the current review are presented.

Educational reviews by Levinson-Rose and Menges, 1981, Steinert et al., 2006, Stes et al., 2010, Weimer and Lenze, 1998 on the impact of staff development cluster studies on the basis of level of outcome (Kirkpatrick, 1998) measured. The model of Kirkpatrick (1998) distinguishes four levels of outcome: reaction, learning, behaviour and results (effect on the environment such as student learning outcomes). This model has become an accepted cornerstone of the classification of outcomes of interventions of staff development. The description of impact on the level of behaviour, being level three of Kirkpatrick’s model, is the transfer of learning to the workplace (Kirkpatrick, 1998; Steinert et al., 2006; Stes et al., 2010).

Although Kirkpatrick’s four level model serves a useful purpose because of its ease in classifying outcomes, we can criticise the model for the same reason. The lack of detail could be problematic with regard to the many different staff development initiatives existing. They differ in goal, method, length and so on. To make an accurate assessment of these staff development initiatives one must consider the variety of variables that can influence the learning of teachers. As stated in the educational review of Lawless and Pellegrino (2007) we must consider what works for whom and under what conditions. Unless we understand which variables influence transfer of staff development learning it will be challenging to improve staff development. We need to understand which influencing variables actually lead to consequential effects. Furthermore, we have to gain insight into moderators in the relationship between influencing variables and transfer of learning. This means we have to broaden our view because major variables affecting transfer of learning are not specified in Kirkpatrick’s four level evaluation model (Holton, 1996).

It would be interesting to study the results of transfer studies in areas other than the educational field. Furthermore, it would be useful to investigate whether the results of this study could be of importance within the context of staff development in higher education. Such an approach enriches staff development research with knowledge from an interdisciplinary scientific angle, which could possibly lead to new insights and relevant suggestions for further research. In this review we will take such an approach. We will study management, HRD and organisational psychological research as those fields of research are closely related to education, and staff development in particular. In management, HRD and organisational psychological reviews on transfer we find similar descriptions of transfer to those in the staff development area: transfer of learning is defined as the degree to which learners effectively apply the knowledge, skills and beliefs gained in a learning context to the job (Baldwin & Ford, 1988). With the insights of this study process we will review the educational research measuring the transfer of staff development learning. We will use the findings of management, HRD and organisational psychological research as an analysis tool when studying the reviewed educational studies. Furthermore, we will refine our analysis tool by suggesting influencing variables additional to those mentioned in management, HRD and organisational psychological research. Therefore this review will generate new knowledge to improve staff development by discovering new horizons in the research on the impact of staff development.

The findings of reviews on the impact of staff development demand more than isolated descriptive studies and call for information to assist staff developers in understanding the extent to which staff development initiatives are effective. As previous research lacks a systematic and clear influencing variable-moderator-transfer relationship, this review attempts to provide useful insights into the constitution of effective transfer of learning for teachers in higher education.

If we want to improve staff development we need to understand which variables and moderators do have influence. Therefore, the overall attempt of this review is to generate guidelines for further research to improve staff development, by revealing gaps in earlier research on the impact of staff development on transfer of learning to educational practice.

For this purpose we formulated the following research questions:

  • 1.

    Which influencing variables – revealed in management, HRD and organisational psychology research – have an impact on transfer of learning?

  • 2.

    Which moderating variables – revealed in management, HRD and organisational psychology research – have an impact on the relationship between influencing variables and transfer of learning?

  • 3.

    Which of these influencing variables can be of importance within the context of staff development in higher education?

  • 4.

    Which of these moderating variables can be of importance within the context of staff development in higher education?

  • 5.

    Which influencing variables, additional to those found in management, HRD and organisational psychology research, can be found by studying transfer of staff development learning to the workplace in higher education.

Section snippets

Method

The method section consists of two parts. First we will present the method used to answer research questions 1 and 2. In the second part we will explain the method used to answer research questions 3–5. We will present the criteria for inclusion in our analysis. Afterwards we will present the procedures of our literature search, followed by the results of this search. Subsequently we introduce coding study characteristics and our synthesising research method.

Results

Section 3.1 reports on conclusions from management, HRD and organisational psychology research to answer research questions 1 and 2. The findings are presented as new horizons in the research on the impact of staff development and are summarised in a conceptual framework.

Section 3.2 reports on conclusions from management, HRD and organisational psychology research mirrored in educational research. The conceptual framework is the guideline for those results. First we present an overview of our

Conclusion and discussion

If we wish to improve staff development we need to know which variables really make a difference in the complex process of achieving transfer of learning. To gain new insights into this process, evidence from solid research is required.

Management, HRD and organisational psychological reviews are interesting sources to build a conceptual framework that could be used as an analysis tool for educational research (Research questions 1 and 2). This framework consists of three groups of influencing

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