Use and cost effectiveness of computer based training in the insurance industry

Training is essential to the growth and economic well-being of a nation. This need for training pervades all levels of industry, from a national level where a country’s well being is enhanced by training, to each company where productivity is improved, down to the individual whose skills are enhanced and as a result improve their position in the employment marketplace. The Australian Bureau of Statistics report ‘Training and Education Experience –Australia’ (ABS 1993) indicates that training in Australia is undertaken at a significant level with some 86% of employers undertaking some form of training. This is slightly higher in the Finance industry at a little over 89%. On the job training is undertaken by 82% of employers and off the job training is used by 47% of employers. In 80% of the off the job cases these courses were conducted in a conventional manner using an instructor. The remaining 20% of cases were either self paced (14%) or instructor based (6%). These latter cases could involve Computer Based Training (CBT). The report, referred to in the last paragraph, also indicates that a significant aspect of business in Australia is that 95% of businesses have less than 20 staff. This poses significant problems in that the ability to deliver effective training is limited. With businesses as small as these their size does not permit them to carry specialist training personnel so this role falls to the senior staff. These people already have a full workload and their ability to be able to take on training duties is limited. In addition these people were employed for their technical skills, not training. It may be that their ability to fill the role of a trainer is not good and as a result the training may not be very effective. In addition, small business has difficulty in releasing staff for training, The difficulties faced by small business were recognised by the Australian National Training Authority in their 1995 report which indicated that there was a need to develop a ‘training culture’ among small business employers. The authority made a commitment to provide flexible delivery strategies. This includes Computer Based Training (CBT). CBT has existed since the 1970’s. It came on to the scene with a flourish and tended to provide ‘page turning’ programs or ‘drill and practice programs’. In limited areas this form of training became popular but its popularity waned in the 80’s. With the advent of better graphical displays, larger and faster memory, and improved programs in the 1990’s the quality of CBT today is superior to those offered in the 70’s and has greater appeal. Today, still photographs and video clips can be displayed and made interactive. Because of this CBT is making a comeback and starting to have a greater impact. The insurance industry covers a wide range of companies in Australia, these companies vary in size from companies with employees in the thousands to companies with less than five staff. While the needs of the employees of each are similar the ability of these companies to deliver the training varies significantly. Any training can be divided into two parts. Internal or on the job training and external. External training deals with those aspects that concern the industry as a whole whereas internal training affects the individual company. Internal training would deal with matters like company procedures, company products and the like. External training deals with matters such as legislation, products generally, and the like. In the insurance industry the major problem arises with the small companies. Insurance companies would tend to be large in size and able to cover their training costs but the insurance brokers who would make up, numerically, the major number of companies would have a significant number of companies that fall into the 20 staffer less category. In fact many would have a staff of less than 5. While CBT can benefit all companies it is these small companies that could benefit from it the most. This thesis examines: • The place of CBT in training, its cost and effectiveness. • The incidence of CBT in the insurance industry and how the industry determines its effectiveness. • If a program that meets an industry need is able to be produced at a realistic price?

Optimising e-mail communication : the impact of seminar-and computer-based training

Employees continue to report multifarious e-mail concerns ('e-mail defects') including ambiguous unclear messages, e-mail overload, security and privacy issues, and e-mail interruptions. These defects have an effect on employee efficiency and effectiveness. This paper explores the importance of identifying e-mail defects and the effectiveness of training employees in efficient use of e-mail at four UK organisations, using Seminar-Based Training (SBT) and Computer-Based Training (CBT) delivery modes. The findings suggest that SBT has a diminishing impact over a very short period of time, but a combined approach of SBT and CBT is more effective and provides better results.

Improved processing speed: online computer-based cognitive training in older adults

In an increasingly aging population, a number of adults are concerned about declines in their cognitive abilities. Online computer-based cognitive training programs have been proposed as an accessible means by which the elderly may improve their cognitive abilities; yet, more research is needed in order to assess the efficacy of these programs. In the current study, a commercially available 21-day online computer-based cognitive training intervention was administered to 34 individuals aged between 53 and 75 years. The intervention consisted of computerized training in reaction time, inspection time, short-term memory for words, executive function, visual spatial acuity, arithmetic, visual spatial memory, visual scanning/discrimination, and n-back working memory. An active solitaire control group was also included. Participants were tested at baseline, posttraining and at three-weeks follow-up using a battery of neuropsychological outcome measures. These consisted of simple reaction time, complex reaction time, digit forwards and backwards, spatial working memory, digit symbol substitution, RAVLT, and trail making. Significant improvement in simple reaction time and choice reaction time task was found in the cognitive training group both posttraining and at three-weeks follow-up. However, no significant improvements on the other cognitive tasks were found. The training program was found to be successful in achieving transfer of trained cognitive abilities in speed of processing to similar untrained tasks. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Enhancing flexible business training through computer-mediated communication

A previous article in this journal, by the same author, reported on research that indicated that flexible training for business learners in the workplace needed to take account of their need for instructor guidance and direction, and of their preference for learning in affiliative environments with fellow learners and trainers. In this article the use of computer-mediated  communication (CMC) is explored as one training method that can assist with flexible training of this clientele. Some specific strategies for the successful use of CMC are suggested.

Improving child investigative interviewer performance through computer-based learning activities

The current study adopted a pre- versus post-training design and a standardised measure of performance to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of online computerbased learning activities designed to encourage open-ended question usage among investigative interviewers of children. Participants included 61 social workers, police and psychologists. The learning activities, organised into 12 modules of approximately 3 hours duration each, focused purely on the skill of eliciting a disclosure of sexual abuse and a narrative account of the offence from a young child. Results revealed a significant improvement in interview performance from pre-training to immediate post-training. For the 25 participants who also completed a follow-up assessment three to six months after completing the learning activities, performance was found to be maintained. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Assessment of a six-week computer-based remediation program for social cognition in chronic schizophrenia

Background: Programs to remediate cognitive deficits have shown promising results in schizophrenia, but remediation of social cognition deficits is less well understood. Social cognitive deficits may cause more disability than the widely recognized neurocognitive deficits, suggesting that this is an area worthy of further investigation. Aim: Implement and evaluate a brief computerized cognitive remediation program designed to improve memory, attention, and facial affect recognition (FAR) in outpatients with chronic schizophrenia.

Methods: Baseline assessments of FAR and of clinical, cognitive, and psychosocial functioning were completed on 20 males with schizophrenia enrolled in an outpatient rehabilitation program at the Shanghai Mental Health Center (the intervention group) and on 20 males with schizophrenia recruited from among regular outpatients at the Center (the control group). Both groups received treatment as usual, but the intervention group also completed an average of 12.7 sessions of a computer-based remediation program for neurocognitive, social, and FAR functioning over a 6-week period. The baseline measures were repeated in both groups at the end of the 6-week trial.

Results: There were no statistically significant differences in the changes in clinical symptoms (assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, PANSS) or cognitive measures (assessed using the Hong Kong List Learning Test and the Letter-Number Sequencing Task) between the intervention and control groups over the 6-week trial, but there were modest improvements on the PANSS for the intervention group between baseline and after the intervention. There was a significantly greater improvement in the social functioning measure (the Personal and Social Performance scale, PSP) in the intervention group than in the control group. The pre-post change in the total facial recognition score in the intervention group was statistically significant (paired t-test=-2.60, p=0.018), and there was a statistical trend of a greater improvement in facial recognition in the intervention group than in the control group (F(1,37)=2.93; p=0.092).

Conclusions: Integration of FAR training with a short, computer-administrated cognitive remediation program may improve recognition of facial emotions by individuals with schizophrenia, and, thus, improve their social functioning. But more work on developing the FAR training modules and on testing them in larger, more diverse samples will be needed before this can be recommended as a standard part of cognitive remediation programs.

Dispositional and maturational development through a competency based training intervention : getting to the heart of the matter

Presents a formative perspective on vocational learning that proposes that vocational competence is dependent upon dispositional development, which in turn results in moves towards maturation. Further, that dispositional and maturational outcomes occur as a result of a lifetime goal-setting intervention employed prior to training Reports qualitative and quantitative research with unemployed adults engaging in vocational education that resulted in four findings. Firstly, that while Training Packages describe assessable outcomes in competency-referenced terms, trainees describe learning outcomes in non-competency referenced terms. Secondly, that vocational trainees describe their learning in terms of dispositional outcomes, that is, in terms of values, interests and attitudes. Thirdly, that dispositions can be categorised in terms of maturational concepts. Fourthly, in support of incremental theory, that trainees made moves towards maturation as a result of a lifetime goal-setting intervention employed prior to training.

Dispositional and maturational development through competency-based training

Presents a perspective on vocational learning that proposes that vocational competence is dependent upon dispositional development, which in turn, results in moves towards maturation. Reports research with unemployed adults engaging in vocational training and resulting in four findings. First, while training packages describe assessable outcomes in competency-referenced terms, trainees describe learning outcomes in non-competency referenced terms. Second, vocational trainees describe their learning in terms of dispositional outcomes; that is, in terms of values, interests and attitudes. Third, dispositions can be categorised in terms of maturational concepts. Fourth, trainees made moves towards maturation as a result of CBT/NEIS training over the six-week period of the course. The findings have important ramifications for all future VET/CBT trainees since it is the researcher's formative theory that maturation is a subset of competence in every vocational skill domain.

The origins of competency-based training

This article attempts to trace the origins of competency-based training (CBT), the theory of vocational education that underpins the National Training Framework in Australia. A distinction is made between societal and theoretical origins. This paper argues that CBT has its societal origins in the United States of America during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Public debate and government initiatives centred on the widely held view that there was a problem with the quality of education in the United States. One of the responses to this crisis was the Performance-Based Teacher Education movement which synthesised the theory of education that became CBT.The theoretical origins of CBT derive principally from behaviourism and systems theory - two broad theoretical orientations that influenced educational debate in the United States during the fomative period of CBT. Most of the component parts of CBT were contributed by specialists with a background in one or both of these theoretical orientations.