Trainee v. Trainee Subordinates Evaluation of Experiential Learning

Abstract

"Student evaluations. They are “objective”. The professor’s mean response on “how useful the material covered is for career preparation” is 3.21 on a numerical scale of 4.00 which is, significantly different than the colleges mean of 3.11 at the .01 level of significance. Is this really significant? In our experiential courses, we are probably evaluating our courses by this same method - the student evaluation. The purpose of this paper is several fold. Primarily it is to address the questions of evaluating training and secondly to describe a training model which seemingly is appropriate within an organizational behavior context. The research design illustrates the weakness of student/trainee evaluations and the evaluations of others. It also shows the necessity of pre and post measurements of change with control groups. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a three-day session using an integrated didactic and experiential approach for training in interpersonal skills for supervisors. The integrated didactic and experiential training model is outlined in Toward Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy: Training and Practice by Charles B. Truax and Robert R. Carkhuff and also in Truax’s “The Training of Non-Professional Personnel in Therapeutic Interpersonal Relationships,” American Journal of Public Health, October, 1967. The objective of this training is to increase the trainees’ communication of accurate empathy, non-possessive warmth, and genuineness. The three central elements in this training approach have been summarized by Truax as (1) a therapeutic context in which the trainer communicates high levels of accurate empathy, non-possessive warmth, and genuineness to the trainees themselves; (2) a highly specific didactic training using research scales for “shaping” the trainees’ responses toward high level of empathy, warmth, and genuineness; and (3) a quasi- group therapy experience which allows the emergence of the trainee’s own idiosyncratic therapeutic self through self-exploration and the consequent integration of the didactic training with personal values, goals, and life styles. The two trainers who conducted the session had considerable experience with the training model. Both trainers also had experience in rehabilitation services and counseling. A questionnaire administered at the end of the training to the trainees indicated that the trainers satisfied the requirement of communicating high levels of the therapeutic triad. In order to evaluate the training, the Barrett-Lennard “Relationship Inventory"" was administered to the subordinates of “trained’ and “untrained’ supervisors before and thirty and ninety days after the training. The “Relationship Inventory” is designed to gather data and provide measuring scales for four variables: empathic understanding, level of regard, unconditionality of regard, and congruence. The trainees also evaluated the training in terms of its ability to increase the three behavioral objectives. "