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Analysis Overview
Identify Outcome
Identify Performance
Identify Skills
Identify Learners
Table of Contents
Click for ISD Concept Map
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Allison Rossett (2001) said it best when she described analysis as the study we do in order to figure out what to do. The analysis phase is the building block of a training program. The basis for who must be trained, what must be learned, when training will occur, and where the training will take place are accomplished in this phase. The product of this phase is the foundation for all subsequent design activities.
The main purpose of analysis is to perform a systematic exploration of the way things are and the way they should be. This difference is called the Performance Gap.
The analysis phase is sometimes called a Front-End Analysis. That is, although analysis is normally performed throughout the entire Instructional System Design process, this "front end" of ISD is where the main problem identification is performed.
Donald Kirkpatrick's Four Levels of Evaluation was introduced in the late fifties:
- Reaction - how the learners react to the learning process
- Learning - the extent to which the learners gain knowledge and skills
- Performance (behavior) - capability to perform the learned skills while on the job
- Results (impact) - includes such items as monetary, efficiency, moral, etc.
Because of its age and with all the new technology advances, it is often criticized nowadays for being too old and simple. Yet, almost five decades after its introduction, there has not been a viable option to replace it. And I think the reason why is that because Kirkpatrick basically nailed it, but presented it wrong. Rather than being just an evaluation tool, it should have been presented as both a planning and evaluation tool. To do this, it needs one simple adjustment. . . flip it upside-down! That is, rearrange the steps into a "backwards planning" tool by starting with the end in mind:
Thus, planing and analysis needs to work backward by identifying:
- the desired impact (outcome or result) that will improve the performance of the business
- the level of performance the learners must be able to do to create the impact
- the knowledge and skills they need to learn in order to perform
- what they need to perceive in order to learn (the need to learn)
Planning it backwards will help to ensure there is a circular causality:
The learners' perception of the need to learn should motivate them to learn, which in turn causes the desired performance that drives the impact (result) desired by our customer (client). This causality should continue in a circular fashion in that the results achieved should now drive the performers', client's, and Learning department's perceptions of the need to learn more and perform better in order to achieve even better results. Of course this assumes that everyone understands the level of impact achieved through evaluations.
This chapter on analysis will be divided into four parts:
A Couple of Quotes on Why to Train
Motorola calculates that for every $1 spent on training, there is a $30 productivity gain within three years - Ronald Henkoff, "Companies That Train Best" Fortune (March 22,1993). See NWAC.
Formal training programs in manufacturing accounted for a 19 percent greater rise in productivity over three years than those without such programs. Ann Bartel, "Productivity Gains from the Implementation of Employee Training Programs," Industrial Relations. High Performance Work Practices and Firm Performance. U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC, August 1993, pp. i, 3, and 19.
A study by the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce at the University of Pennsylvania found that a dollar invested by a company in education was more than twice as effective in boosting the firm's productivity as a dollar invested in new machinery - Washington Post (December 29, 1996).
Reference
Kirkpatrick, Donald, (1994). Evaluating Training Programs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Rossett, Allison & Sheldon, Kendra (2001). Beyond the Podium: Delivering Training and Performance to a Digital World. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, p. 67.
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