PS451 Unit 8 Training Evaluation Paper Example

Four Minutes to Bring a Climber Down: A PS451 Unit 8 Training Evaluation Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS451: Selection and Assessment in Organizations

Unit 8 Training Evaluation Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the tree care company, the drills and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Need

When a climber is injured or loses consciousness in a tree, the crew below has minutes, not hours. A climber hanging in a harness can develop serious circulation problems, and a bleeding injury at height cannot wait for the fire department's ladder truck, which may not reach the tree anyway. Every climber at our Chattanooga company had sat through a one-day aerial rescue class at some point, usually years ago. Nobody had practiced since.

In April, after the fall described in an earlier unit, I ran an unannounced drill on each of our eleven climbing crews. A weighted mannequin was tied in at thirty feet, and the crew was told their climber was unresponsive. Four crews brought it to the ground in under ten minutes. Five took between ten and twenty minutes. Two could not complete the rescue at all; in one, nobody on the ground knew how to set up a lowering line from the base, and in the other, the second climber's gear was locked in the truck.

Lessons From Training Research

Salas et al. (2012) summarized what the science of training shows matters in practice. Before training, organizations should analyze what needs to be learned, by whom and under what conditions, and prepare people to take it seriously. During training, people learn complex skills best through realistic practice with feedback, rather than through lecture. After training, what happens back at work, especially supervisor support and chances to use the skill, decides whether it lasts. Evaluation should measure more than whether people liked the class.

Arthur et al. (2003) analyzed the design and evaluation features of organizational training programs. Across hundreds of programs the payoff was solid, about 0.6 in effect size units, and it held whether researchers looked at trainee opinions, test scores, on-the-job behavior or company results. The method used, the type of skill and the criteria chosen all affected how effective training appeared. Our old class measured only attendance, which says nothing about any of those levels.

Designing the Program

The needs analysis came from the drills. Three problems stood out: ground workers did not know their role in a rescue, second climbers often lacked ready gear, and nobody had practiced the decision about whether to climb to the victim or lower them from the base.

The new program has three parts. First, a half-day session for each crew at our training tree, run by two senior climbers who hold rescue certifications. The session uses almost no lecture. Each crew practices two kinds of rescue repeatedly, a lower from the base using the victim's own rope system and a climb-and-lower by the second climber, with the instructors adding complications such as a radio failure or a ground worker who freezes. Every run is timed and debriefed.

Second, roles. Each crew assigns, every morning, who climbs for a rescue, who calls 911 and who runs the lowering line. The second climber's gear stays rigged and ready at the base of every tree being worked. These assignments are written on the job sheet.

Third, refreshers. Every crew runs one unannounced rescue drill each quarter, timed by the foreman.

The skill we needed was not knowing how to do a rescue; it was doing one fast, under stress, with whoever happened to be on the ground.

Planning for Transfer

Blume et al. (2010) examined what predicts whether people use training back at work. Trainees who were brighter, more conscientious and more eager carried more back to the job, and so did trainees whose workplaces backed the new skills. Their results also suggested that predictors related differently to transfer depending on whether the trained skills were closed, done one correct way each time, or open, adapted to each situation.

Aerial rescue has closed elements, such as tying the lowering hitch, and open ones, such as deciding how to reach a victim who is upside down on a limb. The closed parts benefit from drilling until automatic. The open parts depend on judgment, which the scenario complications are meant to build. The work environment piece is what the morning role assignments and quarterly drills provide: foremen must schedule and time the drills, and their own reviews now include whether they did.

Evaluating the Program

I set out four levels of evaluation, matching the categories Arthur and colleagues used.

Reactions: a short survey after each half-day session asked whether the training felt realistic and useful. Average ratings were high, but as Arthur and colleagues note, reactions are not a measure of learning, so I treat them as a check on engagement only.

Learning: at the end of each session, every crew completed a timed rescue without instructor help. All eleven crews completed both rescue types, with median times of five minutes for a base lower and nine minutes for a climb-and-lower.

Behavior: the quarterly unannounced drills measure whether the skill holds up on an ordinary workday. In the first quarterly round, ten of eleven crews completed a rescue in under ten minutes; the median was six minutes. Gear was rigged at the base on all eleven sites.

Results: the organizational outcome we care about is that an injured climber gets down fast. We have had one real rescue since the program began, a climber stung repeatedly by hornets who became dizzy at forty feet; his crew lowered him in four minutes.

Limits

The evaluation has no comparison group; every crew trained, so improvement may partly reflect the drills themselves or extra attention from management. Quarterly drill times may improve simply because crews expect a drill at some point each quarter. One real rescue is an anecdote, not an outcome measure. And retention beyond six months is unknown; I will keep tracking drill times for two years to see whether skills decay between refreshers.

Cost

The half-day sessions took about 190 crew hours plus instructors' time, roughly the labor of two removal jobs. The quarterly drills add about forty-five minutes per crew per quarter. Against the cost of one serious injury, or a death, the program is small.

Conclusion

Surprise drills showed that most crews could not perform a timely aerial rescue. Salas and colleagues' review shaped a program built on needs analysis, realistic practice and support afterward. Arthur and colleagues' findings guided evaluation at four levels, and Blume and colleagues' work on transfer explained why role assignments and quarterly drills are part of the training, not extras. Median rescue times fell from well over ten minutes to six.

References

Arthur, W., Jr., Bennett, W., Jr., Edens, P. S., & Bell, S. T. (2003). Effectiveness of training in organizations: A meta-analysis of design and evaluation features. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 234-245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234

Blume, B. D., Ford, J. K., Baldwin, T. T., & Huang, J. L. (2010). Transfer of training: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 36(4), 1065-1105. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309352880

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Kraiger, K., & Smith-Jentsch, K. A. (2012). The science of training and development in organizations: What matters in practice. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(2), 74-101. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612436661