A review and meta-analysis of the nomological network of trainee reactions.

A review and meta-analysis of studies assessing trainee reactions are presented. Results suggest reactions primarily capture characteristics of the training course, but trainee characteristics (e.g., anxiety and pretraining motivation) and organizational support also have a moderate effect on reactions. Instructional style (ρ = .66) followed by human interaction (ρ = .56) were the best predictors of reactions. Reactions predicted pre-to-post changes in motivation (β = .51) and self-efficacy (β = .24) and were more sensitive than affective and cognitive learning outcomes to trainees' perceptions of characteristics of the training course. Moderator analyses revealed reactions- outcomes correlations tended to be stronger in courses that utilized a high level rather than a low level of technology, and affective and utility reactions did not differ in their relationships with learning outcomes. The current study clarifies the nomological network of reactions and specifies outcomes that are theoretically related to reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Power to the people: Using learner control to improve trainee reactions and learning in web-based instructional environments.

This experimental study investigated the mechanisms by which learner control influences learning in an e-learning environment. The authors hypothesized that learner control would enhance learning indirectly through its effect on trainee reactions and learner engagement (in particular, off-task attention), such that learners who were more satisfied with the training and devoted more cognitive resources toward the instructional content versus off-task thoughts would possess greater posttraining knowledge. The study also examined the role of individual differences (training motivation and goal orientation) in the prediction of these 2 mediating variables. A sample of 274 undergraduates completed an e-learning program, either with or without interactive, learner control tools. Results suggest that both training satisfaction and off-task attention predicted subsequent learning. Learner control had a positive impact on training satisfaction but was not related to off-task attention. The individual difference variables had a differential impact on the mediating variables. In particular, performance orientation was linked to off-task attention, whereas mastery orientation was found to indirectly influence satisfaction via its direct effect on training motivation. Implications for the design and further study of e-learning are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between felt accountability as a stressor and strain reactions: The neutralizing role of autonomy across two studies.

Felt accountability, conceptualized as a workplace stressor, has been gaining increased attention in terms of its importance for explaining variance in work attitudes and behaviors. Building on these investigations, the present research tests in 2 studies a conceptualization that positions job autonomy as a moderator of the relationships between felt accountability and strain reactions. In Study 1, the interactions of Felt Accountability × Job Autonomy on job tension and job satisfaction were investigated. As hypothesized, the results demonstrated that autonomy neutralized the dysfunctional effects of accountability for each outcome. Study 2 extended the findings from Study 1 by replicating the form of the interactive effects, with job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion serving as strain reactions. Implications, strengths and limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age Differences in Emotional Reactivity: The Sample Case of Sadness.

Past studies have suggested that the intensity of subjective reactions to emotion-arousing stimuli remains stable, whereas the magnitude of autonomic reactions declines with age. The goal of the present studies was to investigate whether this evidence will generalize to newly edited films dealing with age-relevant themes such as the loss of loved ones. In Study 1, greater self-reported sadness was found in older than in younger adults in response to all films. Findings of Study 2, which were based on an independent sample, replicated those of Study 1. In addition, 6 indicators of autonomic nervous system activity were assessed. Young and old adults did not differ in their autonomic reactions to the films. This evidence suggests that when older people are exposed to stimuli featuring themes that are relevant to their age group, they show greater subjective and physiological reactions than would be expected on the basis of past research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Core Self-Evaluations and Job and Life Satisfaction: The Role of Self-Concordance and Goal Attainment.

The present study tested a model explaining how the core self-evaluations (i.e., positive self-regard) concept is linked to job and life satisfaction. The self-concordance model, which focuses on motives underlying goal pursuit, was used as an explanatory framework. Data were collected from 2 samples: (a) 183 university students (longitudinal measures of goal attainment and life satisfaction were used) and (b) 251 employees (longitudinal measures of goal attainment and job satisfaction were utilized). In both studies, the core self-evaluations concept was positively related to goal self-concordance, meaning that individuals with positive self-regard were more likely to pursue goals for intrinsic and identified (value-congruent) reasons. Furthermore, in both studies, goal self-concordance was related to satisfaction (job satisfaction in Study 1 and life satisfaction in Study 2). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social Network Schemas and the Learning of Incomplete Networks.

Social networks that are missing relations among some of their members--termed incomplete networks--have been of critical theoretical and empirical interest in sociological research on weak ties and structural holes but typically have been overlooked in social psychological studies of network learning. Five studies tested for schematic processing differences in the encoding and recalling of incomplete networks. In Studies 1 and 2, prior knowledge of missing relations facilitated learning an unfamiliar, incomplete network. Study 3 ruled out differences in general pattern recognition ability as an explanation. Study 4 manipulated the degree of familiarity with missing relations, which produced predicted differences in learning rates. Finally, Study 5 examined how improved learning of an incomplete network affected a strategic organizational choice. The findings suggest that people can become schematic for complex, incomplete social networks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Promoting Forgiveness Among Co-Workers Following a Workplace Transgression: The Effects of Social Motivation Training.

Forgiveness is one construct that is beginning to demonstrate promise as a health and relationship promoter within the workplace. The primary aim of this research was to examine the effects of one psychological intervention (social motivational training) that was developed to promote forgiveness among co-workers. In the first of two studies, workers were randomly assigned to one of two intervention conditions (i.e., job satisfaction training, social motivational training). Participants read a vignette in which they were to imagine themselves as victims of a co-worker transgression. Judgments of responsibility and co-worker forgiveness were then measured at two intervals: before and after training. In Study 2, workers recounted an actual critical incident involving a co-worker transgression, completed a pretraining questionnaire measuring judgments of responsibility, self-image, and forgiveness, received either a one-on-one job satisfaction training or social motivational training session, and completed a post-training questionnaire. Results from both studies indicated that social motivational training enhanced participants' forgiveness of a hypothetical and actual co-worker. In addition, Study 2 showed an increase in workers' self-image following social motivational training, suggesting affirmation of the self as a possible mechanism for the effects of social motivational training on forgiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The In-Session Self-Awareness of Therapist-Trainees: Hindering or Helpful?

Although therapist self-awareness has been hailed as a critical component of psychotherapy, recent evidence suggests that therapists' in-session self-awareness may hinder rather than help the therapeutic process. The authors examined the in-session self-awareness of therapists in training (trainees) in relation to their interpersonal involvement and the reactions of volunteer student clients (volunteer clients). Trainee in-session self-awareness variables predicted over 50% of the variance in their interpersonal involvement and the volunteer clients' perceptions of the therapeutic alliance. Contrary to previous research, trainees' level of in-session self-awareness was generally helpful rather than hindering from both the trainee and student-client perspectives. Potentially hindering aspects of in-session self-awareness did emerge, however, in that trainees' increasing efforts to manage their self-awareness were related to decreased trainee involvement and lower volunteer client ratings of the therapeutic alliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-compassion and reactions to unpleasant self-relevant events: The implications of treating oneself kindly.

Five studies investigated the cognitive and emotional processes by which self-compassionate people deal with unpleasant life events. In the various studies, participants reported on negative events in their daily lives, responded to hypothetical scenarios, reacted to interpersonal feedback, rated their or others' videotaped performances in an awkward situation, and reflected on negative personal experiences. Results from Study 1 showed that self-compassion predicted emotional and cognitive reactions to negative events in everyday life, and Study 2 found that self-compassion buffered people against negative self-feelings when imagining distressing social events. In Study 3, self-compassion moderated negative emotions after receiving ambivalent feedback, particularly for participants who were low in self-esteem. Study 4 found that low-self-compassionate people undervalued their videotaped performances relative to observers. Study 5 experimentally induced a self-compassionate perspective and found that self-compassion leads people to acknowledge their role in negative events without feeling overwhelmed with negative emotions. In general, these studies suggest that self-compassion attenuates people's reactions to negative events in ways that are distinct from and, in some cases, more beneficial than self-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subordinate participation and reactions to the appraisal interview.

Conducted 2 studies which examined relationships of subordinate participation in an appraisal interview to reactions to the appraisal and subordinate satisfaction. In Study 1, 25 managers rated their last appraisal on (a) helpfulness and (b) the Wexley et al measure of psychological participation, and then rated their overall satisfaction with supervision. The lack of significant intercorrelations among the psychological participation items indicated that different concepts of participation were represented. Items representing participation in interaction correlated significantly with appraisal helpfulness and satisfaction, while control of goal setting did not correlate significantly. In a 2nd field study, 56 hourly employees and 1st-level managers in a bank rated (a) their appraisal on certain characteristics, (b) their satisfaction with the appraisal, and (c) their job satisfaction. The invitation to participate was most predictive of appraisal satisfaction. The occurrence of goal setting correlated significantly with both appraisal and job satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological well-being and job satisfaction as predictors of job performance.

The happy–productive worker hypothesis has most often been examined in organizational research by correlating job satisfaction to performance. Recent research has expanded this to include measures of psychological well-being. However, to date, no field research has provided a comparative test of the relative contribution of job satisfaction and psychological well-being as predictors of employee performance. The authors report 2 field studies that, taken together, provide an opportunity to simultaneously examine the relative contribution of psychological well-being and job satisfaction to job performance. In Study 1, psychological well-being, but not job satisfaction, was predictive of job performance for 47 human services workers. These findings were replicated in Study 2 for 37 juvenile probation officers. These findings are discussed in terms of research on the happy–productive worker hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences among supervisees at different levels of training: Implications for a developmental model of supervision.

Three studies examined differences across 3 counselor trainee levels (beginning practicum, advanced practicum, and doctoral interns) with regard to (a) the interpersonal influence process between the supervisor and supervisee (Study 1), (b) trainees' perceptions of specific supervisor behaviors contributing to supervisory effectiveness (Study 2), and (c) trainees' perceptions of the most important or critical incidents that occur within supervision during a semester (Study 3). Ss were 58 beginning practicum students, 51 advanced practicum students, and 36 doctoral interns. Overall results are congruent with a developmental model of supervision and suggest that across trainee levels, variables related to the interpersonal influence process differ; different types of supervisor behaviors appear to be effective at different levels of supervision; and different types of critical incidents are reported within the supervision process. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of learning modules on the acquisition of counseling strategies.

Two studies investigated the effects of learning modules and classroom lecture on the acquisition of 3 counseling strategies. In Exp I, 42 students in introductory counseling courses were assigned randomly to classroom lecture and written self-paced module groups. Results indicate that the latter group performed significantly better than the lecture group on both a post- and retention test. In Exp II, 64 counselor trainees were assigned randomly to 1 of 3 treatment groups: classroom lecture, written module, and slide-tape module. No significant differences were found between treatment groups for acquisition of 2 counseling strategies: problem identification or developing goals. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale (JAWS) to investigate affective responses to work stressors.

Prior research linking job stressors to psychological strains has been limited to a small number of emotional reactions. This article describes research linking job stressors to a wide range of affective states at work. In Study 1, a multidimensional scaling procedure was used on a matrix of similarity judgments by 51 employees of 56 job-related affective statements to support a 2-dimensional view of affective well-being. In Study 2, ratings of the affect statements by 100 employees further supported the contention that the dimensions were pleasure–displeasure and degree of arousal. In Study 3, 114 full-time university employees responded to the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale, which was found to be related to measures of job stressors as well as job satisfaction and physical symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional exhaustion as a predictor of job performance and voluntary turnover.

Recent research suggests that a better understanding of emotional exhaustion requires the development of new theoretical perspectives. To that end, with the conservation of resources model (COR) as the theoretical framework, the present 1-year longitudinal study was undertaken. Composed of 52 social welfare workers, this research examined the relationship of emotional exhaustion to job satisfaction, voluntary turnover, and job performance. Positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA) were used as control variables. Whereas emotional exhaustion was unrelated to job satisfaction, it was associated with both performance and subsequent turnover. In addition, the relationship between emotional exhaustion and performance and also between emotional exhaustion and turnover remained significant above and beyond the effects of PA and NA. Future research directions and implications of the findings are introduced. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Helping skills training for undergraduates: Outcomes and prediction of outcomes.

The authors examined outcomes and predictors of outcomes for 85 undergraduates in 3 helping skills classes. After training, trainees used more exploration skills in helping sessions with classmates (as assessed by perceptions of helpees and helpers/trainees as well as behavioral counts of skills), were perceived by helpees as more empathic, talked less in sessions, conducted better sessions (from helpee and helper/trainee perspectives), and reported higher self-efficacy for using helping skills. In addition, trainees' confidence increased while learning exploration skills, dropped while learning insight skills, and then increased again while learning action skills. The authors were not able to predict outcome from the variables used (grade-point average, empathic concern and perspective taking, perfectionism). Suggestions for training and future research on training are included. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of previous performance on evaluations of present performance.

In Study 1, 82 undergraduates viewed 3 videotaped lectures presented by the same lecturer. Ss in the good-performance condition viewed 2 good lectures, followed by a lecture of average quality. Ss in the poor-performance condition viewed 2 poor lectures, followed by the same average lecture. Results show significant contrast effects both for ratings of the frequency of several critical behaviors and for performance evaluations. Ss in the poor-performance condition assigned more favorable behavior ratings and higher performance evaluation ratings to the 3rd (average) lecture than did Ss in the good-performance condition. In Study 2, 71 Ss were used to test the hypothesis that memory biases were responsible for the contrast effects observed in Study 1. Ss viewed the same videotapes but rated the 3rd tape from memory the day after viewing the tape. Results show weak, nonsignificant contrast effects, suggesting that memory biases were not sufficient to explain the results of Study 1. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A meta-analysis of self-regulated learning in work-related training and educational attainment: What we know and where we need to go.

Researchers have been applying their knowledge of goal-oriented behavior to the self-regulated learning domain for more than 30 years. This review examines the current state of research on self-regulated learning and gaps in the field's understanding of how adults regulate their learning of work-related knowledge and skills. Self-regulation theory was used as a conceptual lens for deriving a heuristic framework of 16 fundamental constructs that constitute self-regulated learning. Meta-analytic findings (k = 430, N = 90,380) support theoretical propositions that self-regulation constructs are interrelated—30% of the corrected correlations among constructs were .50 or greater. Goal level, persistence, effort, and self-efficacy were the self-regulation constructs with the strongest effects on learning. Together these constructs accounted for 17% of the variance in learning, after controlling for cognitive ability and pretraining knowledge. However, 4 self-regulatory processes—planning, monitoring, help seeking, and emotion control—did not exhibit significant relationships with learning. Thus, a parsimonious framework of the self-regulated learning domain is presented that focuses on a subset of self-regulatory processes that have both limited overlap with other core processes and meaningful effects on learning. Research is needed to advance the field's understanding of how adults regulate their learning in an increasingly complex and knowledge-centric work environment. Such investigations should capture the dynamic nature of self-regulated learning, address the role of self-regulation in informal learning, and investigate how trainees regulate their transfer of training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

When training with a partner is inferior to training alone: The importance of dyad type and interaction quality.

Dyad training, where trainees learn in pairs but ultimately perform individually, has been shown to be an effective method for training some skills. The effectiveness of this approach, however, may be tied to the type of task to be trained and the quality of the interaction in the dyad. We report two studies on the effectiveness of dyad training and the role of metacognitive activity for learning a software program. In Study 1, participants completed training alone or with a partner. Performance was assessed individually immediately after training and again after a 1-week nonuse interval. Results of Study 1 suggested that learning retention is superior when people are trained individually. Study 2 examined performance for individuals, task-switching dyads, and interdependent dyads. Results also showed that performance for individuals was superior to dyads and that the type of dyad collaboration did not affect performance. However, partner-prompted metacognitive activity was helpful for interdependent dyads and harmful for task-switching dyads, suggesting that the quality of collaboration varies by dyad type. Our findings suggest that dyad training may not be effective for all types of tasks. Possible boundary conditions for effective dyad training are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)