CITATION: Dickson, D. & Bamford, D. (1995). Improving the Interpersonal Skills of Social

CITATION: Dickson, D. & Bamford, D. (1995). Improving the interpersonal skills of social work students: The problem of transfer of training and what to do about it. British Journal of Social Work, 25, 85-105.

 Factors promoting transfer of training  Trainee characteristics o Learning style - Some trainees approach material in an inclusive way, looking for broad relationships within it and identifying underlying principles and generalities while others tend to get caught up in the narrow detail of specific aspects of the material rather than forming quick impressions of the complete picture. Their formation of abstractions and generalizations from the regularities derived from particular experiences may be inhibited - Trainers should be sensitive to the preferred approaches of individuals in their processing information and present information making special efforts to adjust their training style when necessary, to further the appreciation of the wider relationships and applications of what is taught - Trainer should encourage students to deliberate the broader relevance of learning points so that information on a specific performance be such that its wider relevance to future encounters is recognized and that there is an awareness of the application, to the job, of what takes place in training’ o Intelligence o Feelings of self-efficacy or belief in one’s ability to satisfy acceptable standards of achievement in the prosecution of some course of action - Lack of confidence amongst trainees in their ability to replicate training outcomes outside of the specialized training environment may reduce or prevent transfer - Training must be structured so as to maximize the likelihood of success minimizing the chances of failure o Expectancy o Locus of control  Design features influencing transfer  Inclusion of relevant skills  Maximize commonality between the training and work environments o in interpersonal skill acquisition it is more important to recreate the sort of social and emotional atmosphere which typically pervades the enactment of the interactive episode in the actual setting than it is to use extensive props to produce a veridical recreation of the physical situation within which it normally takes place o properly conducted roleplay can be highly successful  Train “loosely’- there is danger that structured approaches may involve each session of the training following exactly the same pattern with exactly the same personnel in exactly the same location using exactly the same exercises and materials o It is important to introduce variety by exploring alternative strategies and tactics for accomplishing the goals, presenting a variety of relevant scenarios for skill practice and having participants work with different group members rather than stick to just one “partner” o A variety of stimulus and response exemplars should be incorporated in the training  Promote mediation o Mediating stimuli facilitate the transfer of responding from one setting to another and can take different forms from a knot in a handkerchief to the creation of a mental schema enabling commonalities between otherwise diverse sets of circumstances to be appreciated. different types of mediators, including imagery to aid transfer o The development of a supporting cognitive model of interpersonal activity according to which meaning can be attached to happenings and corresponding decisions taken to inform actions is of great importance  Reduce the distinctiveness of training o It is essential that the trainer, as training progresses, encourages a greater reliance upon more natural sources of information for organizing action  Allow for overlearning o Continued practice beyond the point of initial acquisition, has been found to increase resistance to subsequent skill atrophy o Without skill maintenance there can be little prospect of transfer  Graded instructional sequence o Progressively and systematically approximating the realities of the interpersonal task as typically encountered in the workplace may lead to greater levels of skill retention and generalization o A sequenced practice program of graded task demands, in conjunction with accompanying cognitive instructional procedures and low-variability model films, may lead to effective generalized skill acquisition and consolidation  Features of the work environment

Based on author’s review of research investigating the effects of structured training on interviewing performance