Recent research looked at the differences in how participants engage with the training they attend. This can be very useful in how we design and prepare training. Three clear categories were identified.
The first are called Divers. The Divers dive right in and fully engage with the activity. They complete the pre course activity. They listen during the session, ask questions, make notes and work out how the training will apply to them in their daily work.
The second are called Dippers. Dippers are those who dip in and dip out. Sometimes they are fully engaged and sometimes they are not. They take some things from the training, and may have the full intention of implementing, but then other priorities get in the way and they allow implementation to falter, or only partially succeed. They are not fully engaged with the training in that they have not made it a key priority.
The third group we’ve called Duckers. Duckers are those who duck out of their engagement with the training. They will say, yes that was interesting, then they will put the training doc on their shelf, or file it on their computer, get on with their work and forget all about it. They attend, partially engage, but do not implement.
Divers, Dippers & Duckers. If we only use these categories to set our expectations when designing and delivering training, it may help. We’ll explore how we can use these categories in more detail, in a future post for pre-evaluation, designing training and designing follow up. Please feel free to comment on this from your experience.
Research gives new categories of training participants