Quality of in-company training projects: the power is in the preparation

There is only little empirical research on the quality of incompany training projects provided by external training companies. In the late 1990s a group of training companies commissioned research into this. A standardized questionnaire was developed and completed by internal training project commissioners. Based on a large-scale review and a subsequent Lisrel-analysis on the data, it appeared that quality of incompany training is associated with the preparation of the project and with the implementation of the project. The relationships differ for different project outcome levels: learning, job performance and organizations effects. More research is needed to study the observed relationships in-depth and in a longitudinal way, including experimenting with researcher-led training project designs and more objective data. See: M Mulder (2001). Customer satisfaction with training programs. Journal of European Industrial Training, 25, (6), 321-331.