Abstract:
Changes in the nature of work, such as the shift away from repetitive and well-defined
tasks toward increasingly novel and ambiguous tasks, require training programs to
prepare trainees to be adaptable. As a result, researchers have examined a variety of
training interventions designed to encourage different self-regulatory processes that
theory suggests are important for promoting knowledge acquisition and adaptive transfer
(e.g., Bell & Kozlowski, 2008). The current study focused on two of these approaches:
error management training and prompting strategy regulation. These interventions are
based on active learning principles and are theorized to increase adaptive transfer via
self-regulation and task knowledge. Despite the growing body of research in this area,
this line of research has developed independently from the literature on the nature of
knowledge acquisition—despite evidence that self-regulatory processes are differentially
beneficial at different stages of knowledge acquisition. As such, the present study was
designed to integrate research on adaptability training interventions with the literature on
the nature of knowledge acquisition. The results highlight the importance of considering
the timing of implementing training interventions. Specifically, receiving error
management training in the first half of training led to higher levels of mid-training
emotion control and basic knowledge, while receiving strategy regulation prompts in the
second half of training led to higher levels of post-training motivation and strategic
knowledge. Additionally, results from mediation analyses suggested that self-regulation
processes and knowledge levels fully mediated the relationship between training
conditions (early and late training) and adaptive transfer.
