1> Training Needs Matrix The training-needs matrix suggested in Figure 3.

1 provides a summary
of why training needs occur and for whom. It may be found useful in providing a check list of needs
across an organization, in presenting these and in justifying recommendations. Some of the ways by
which training needs are identified are as under:
(i) Need identification by top management
(ii) Individual’s Self-Assessment
(iii) Systematic Investigation (carrying out training audits and setting up needs-identification
projects
(iv) Structured Assessment
(v) Peer Review
Why does the need
occur?
Job changes, e.g.
• Technology
• Methods
• Systems
• Products/services
• Organizational
changes
• Management
People changes,style/
 • Young people
Legal requirements
starters
• Disinvestment etc.
• Adult starters
• Transfers
• Promotions
• Performance
Career Development
• deficiencies
Personal
development
• Technical
To whom does the
skills/know-how
• need
People skills /know-
apply?
Specifi
how Specific The
c groupsskills
• Managerial of organi
individ
/know-how people zation
2>uals
Principles of learning,
as a also known as laws of learning, are readiness, exercise, effect, primacy,
recency, intensity and freedom. These are discussed:
whole
Readiness
Readiness implies a degree of willingness and eagerness of an individual to learn something new.
Individuals learn best when they are physically, mentally and emotionally ready to learn — and they do
not learn well if they see no reason for learning. Since learning is an active process, the audience must
have adequate rest, health, and physical comfort while learning.
Exercise
The principle of exercise states that those things that are most often repeated are the ones that are best
remembered. Audience will learn best and retain information longer when they have meaningful
practice and repetition. It is clear that practice leads to improvement only when it is followed by
positive feedback.
The human mind is forgetful and it can rarely retain, evaluate, and apply new concepts or practices after
a single exposure. Audiences will not learn complex tasks in a single session. They learn by applying
what they have been told and shown. Every time practice occurs, learning continues.
Effect
The principle of effect is that learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying
feeling — and that learning is weakened when associated with an unpleasant feeling. The learner will
strive to continue learning as long as it provides a pleasant effect. Positive reinforcement is more likely
to lead to success and motivate the learner.
Primacy
Primacy, the state of being first, often creates a strong impression which may be very difficult to change.
Things learned first create a strong impression in the mind that is difficult to erase. ‘Unteaching’ or
erasing from the mind incorrect first impressions is harder than teaching them correctly in the first
place. The learner’s first experience should be positive, functional and lay the foundation for all that is
to follow.
Recency
The principle of recency states that things most recently learned are best remembered. Conversely, the
further a learner is removed time-wise from a new fact or understanding, the more difficult it is to
remember. For example, it is easier for a mother to recall what children were fed this morning than to
remember what they were fed three days ago.
Intensity
The more intense the material taught, the more likely it will be retained. A sharp, clear, dramatic, or
exciting learning experience teaches more than a routine or boring experience. The principle of
intensity implies that a learner will learn more from the real thing than from a substitute.
Likewise, a learner is likely to gain greater understanding of tasks by performing them — rather than
merely reading about them. The more immediate and dramatic the learning is to a real situation, the
more impressive the learning is upon the learner. Demonstrations and role playing will do much to
increase the learning experience of audience.
Freedom
The principle of freedom states that things freely learned are best learned. Conversely, if the audience
is forced to learn something, the more difficult it is for them to learn. Compulsion and forcing are not
favorable for personal growth. For example, if you force a family to construct a latrine in their
compound, they may not be interested to do that. However, if you motivate them to do that through
proper education of the family, they are more likely to construct the latrines and use them properly.
3> Determinants of Learning:
1. Motives: also called drives, prompt people to action. They are primary energizers of behavior. They
are the ways of behavior and mainspring of action. They are largely subjective and represent the mental
feelings of human beings. They are cognitive variables. They arise continuously and determine the
general direction of an individual’s behavior without motive learning cannot occur.
2. Stimuli: are objects that exist in the environment in which a person lives. Stimuli increase the
probability of eliciting a specific response from a person.
3. Generalization: The principle of generalization has important implications for human learning.
Generalization takes place when the similar new stimuli repeat in the environment. When two stimuli
are exactly alike, they will have probability of eliciting specific response. It makes possible for a manager
to predict human behavior when stimuli are exactly alike.
4. Discrimination: What is not generalization is discrimination. In case of discrimination, responses
vary to different stimuli. For example, an MBA student may learn to respond to video teaching but not
to the oral lecturing by his professor.
5. Responses: The stimulus results in responses – be these in the physical form or in terms of attitudes
of perception or in other phenomena. However, the responses need to be operationally defined and
preferably physically observable.
6. Reinforcement: Reinforcement is a fundamental conditioning of learning. Reinforcement can be
defined as anything that both increased the strength of response and tends to induce repetitions of
behavior that preceded the reinforcement. No measurable modification of behavior can take place
without reinforcement.
7. Retention: means remembrance of learned behavior overtime. Converse is forgetting. Learning
which is forgotten over time is called “extinction”. When the response strength returns after extinction
without only intervening reinforcement it is called “Spontaneous recovery”.

4> Blooms Taxonomy:

Remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating.
 In 1956, Benjamin Bloom headed a group of educational psychologists who
developed a classification of levels of intellectual behavior important in learning.
Bloom found that over
95 % of the test questions students encounter require them to think
only at the lowest possible level...the recall of information.
Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive domain, from the simple recall or
recognition of facts, as the lowest level, through increasingly more complex and abstract mental levels,
to the highest order which is classified as evaluation. Verb examples that represent intellectual activity
on each level are listed here.
1. Knowledge: arrange, define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall,
repeat, reproduce state.
2. Comprehension: classify, describe, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize,
report, restate, review, select, translate
3. Application: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice,
schedule, sketch, solve, use, write.
4. Analysis: analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate,
discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test.
5. Synthesis: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, manage,
organize, plan, prepare,
propose, set up, write.
6. Evaluation: appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose compare, defend estimate, judge, predict, rate,
core, select, support, value, evaluate.
5> Classical conditioning Theory was proposed by a Russian Physiologist Ivan Pavlov. According to
this theory, behavior is learnt by a repetitive association between the response and the stimulus.

The classical conditioning theory assumes that learning is developed through the interactions with the
environment. Also, the environment shapes the behavior and internal mental state such as thoughts,
feelings, emotions do not explain the human behavior.
Here, an organism learns to transfer response from one stimulus to a previously neutral stimulus.
Classical conditioning is comprised of four elements:
Unconditioned Stimulus (US): Which invariably causes to react in a way.
Unconditioned Response (UR): Takes place when the US is presented.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): The object that does not bring about the desired response
Conditioned Response (CR): a particular behavior that an organism learns to produce, when the CS is
presented.
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for
behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence
for that behavior. Operant conditioning was coined by behaviorist Burrhus Frederic Skinner, who
believed that the organism, while going about it's everyday activities, is in the process of “operating” on
the environment. In the course of its activities, the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus,
called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing
the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active
behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences"
6> Factors influencing Operant Conditioning
1.reinforcers
-A reinforcer is defined as any stimulus or event which increases the probability of the occurrence of a
desired response
-The type-positive or negative, frequency, quality and schedule are determinants of operant
conditioning
1.Type of reinforcement:
-positive reinforcement involves stimuli that have pleasant consequences
They strengthen and maintain the responses that have caused them to occur.
-Negative reinforcer involve unpleasant and painful stimuli. Responses that lead organisms to get
rid of painful stimuli or avoid and escape from them provide negative reinforcement.
2. Frequency/number of reinforcement and other feature:
-Frequency of trial on which an organism has been reinforced
-Amount of reinforcement
-Quality of reinfircement.
3. Schedule of reinforcement:
-This refers to the arrangement of the delivery of reinforcement during trails
-when a desired response is reinforcement every time it occurs we call it continuous reinforcement
4. Delayed reinforcement:
-It is found that delay in the delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of performance.