Customizing learning programs to the organization and its emplyees:How HRD practitioners create tailored learning programs

This study investigates how HRD practitioners customise learning programs, that is, tailor them to take into account the demands set by organisation and participants. A theoretical account of the relations between learning programmes and organisational/individual characteristics is provided. Results from an action-research project involving 13 learning programmes conducted in healthcare institutions are presented. The main conclusion of the study is that the seven HRD practitioners in our sample used few strategies to customise learning programmes

Teachers’ goal orientation profiles and participation in professional development activities

Participation in professional development activities is important for teachers to continuously improve their knowledge and skills. However, teachers differ in their attitude towards learning activities. This paper examined how different goal orientation profiles are related to participation in professional development activities (acquiring information and asking feedback). To this end, we conducted latent profile analysis based on a sample of 984 teachers in vocational education. Five profiles were identified: diffuse (50.1%), moderate learning (12.3%), high avoidance (10.9%), performance oriented (15.9%) and success oriented (10.7%). Furthermore, means of acquiring information and asking feedback from teachers were compared across the profiles. Teachers with a success-oriented profile (high learning and performance approach goals) scored significantly higher while teachers with a high-avoidance profile scored significantly lower on asking for feedback and acquiring information. Exploration of background characteristics indicated that age, gender and work experience outside education were related to the goal orientation profiles. Our findings show that goal orientation profiles can be used to explain individual differences in teachers’ propensity to engage in professional development activities

Stability and change in teachers' goal orientation profiles over time:Managerial coaching behavior as a predictor of profile change

Goal orientation is an important predictor of motivation at work. This study introduces goal orientation profiles in the work domain, evaluates their stability over time and assesses the impact of managerial coaching behavior on change in employees' goal orientation profiles. We hypothesize that coaching managers inspire, facilitate, and guide employees to change towards profiles with relatively high levels of learning goal orientation and performance approach goals, and relatively low levels of performance avoidance goals. We conducted a two-wave study with a one-year time interval among teachers (N = 521) working in Vocational Education and Training institutions in the Netherlands. Latent transition analysis and multinomial regression analyses were applied. Four distinct profiles were identified: success-oriented, diffuse, low-performance, and high-avoidance. Although the majority of the teachers remained in the same goal orientation profile over time (91.2%) a small percentage of the teachers shifted towards the success-oriented goal orientation profile. Facilitative managerial coaching was positively associated with belonging to the success-oriented goal orientation profile while guidance was negatively associated with belonging to the success-oriented goal orientation profile. Moreover, facilitative managerial coaching supported change to the success-oriented profile while guidance and inspirational managerial coaching did not support this transition