DIFFERENTIAL EFFECTS OF LEARNER EFFORT AND GOAL ORIENTATION ON TWO LEARNING OUTCOMES

Ti-aining research is beginning to examine the trainee as an active participant in the learning process. One component of this process involves the choices learners make about the effort they will apply to the learning task. Learner effort was examined in two ways: amount of effort and type of effort. Both amount and type of effort were measured in multiple ways. The results indicated that mastery orientation and time on task were the strongest predictors of performance on the knowledge learning outcome, while perceived mental workload and the use of an example during learning predicted performance on the application learning outcome. Implications for training practice and research are discussed. Given the substantial investment in time and resources devoted to training and education every year, psychologists in many disciplines have investigated influences on individual learning. Learning is typically defined as "a relatively permanent change in knowledge or skill produced by experience" (Weiss, 1990, p. 172). In organizationa l settings, we are often interested in knowledge and skill acquisition and retention as a function of some training experience (Baldwin & Ford, 1988; Goldstein, 1993). Much of training research has focused on the learner as a passive recipient rather than an active participant to various interventions or designs (Ford & Kraiger, 1995). The training literature has begun to examine the impact of increasing the level of participation of trainees in their own training. Most of this research has examined pretraining activities such as increasing trainee participation in the identification of training needs, the determination of the training content, the design of This article is based on the first author's master's thesis, conducted under the supervision of Kevin Ford at Michigan State University. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 11th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, San Diego, CA.