Is the “Third-Generation Model” New and Is It the Holy Grail of Adaptive Learning?

L&D professionals in organisations: much ambition, unfilled promise

Purpose

This monograph reports on the strategic and operational roles of learning and development (L&D) professionals in Irish, UK European and US organisations including multinational corporations, small to medium enterprises, the public sector and not for profit organisations. This paper aims to investigate the contextual factors influencing L&D roles in organisations, the strategic and operational roles that L&D professionals play in organisations, the competencies and career trajectories of L&D professionals, the perceptions of multiple internal stakeholders of the effectiveness of L&D roles and the relationships between context, L&D roles, competencies/expertise and perceived organisational effectiveness.

Design/methodology/approach

The study findings are based on the use of multiple methods. The authors gathered data from executives, senior managers, line managers, employee and L&D professionals using multiple methods: a survey (n = 440), Delphi study (n = 125) and semi-structured interviews (n = 30).

Findings

The analysis revealed that L&D professionals increasingly respond to a multiplicity of external and internal contextual influences and internal stakeholders perceived the effectiveness of L&D professionals differently with significant gaps in perceptions of what L&D contributes to organisational effectiveness. L&D professionals perform both strategic and operational roles in organisations and they progress through four career levels. Each L&D role and career level requires a distinct and unique set of foundational competencies and L&D expertise. The authors found that different contextual predictors were important in explaining the perceived effectiveness of L&D roles and the importance attached to different foundational competencies and areas of L&D expertise.

Originality/value

This is one of the few studies to have investigated the L&D professional role in organisations from the perspective of multiple stakeholders using multiple research methods.

Third-Generation Instructional Models: More About Guiding Development and Design Than Selecting Training Methods

In this article, I summarize and respond to key comments and criticisms offered in commentaries on Kraiger (2008). At issue is whether the proposed third-generation instructional model is fundamentally sound, represents a new or better approach, overemphasizes the importance of learner–learner interaction, and underemphasizes the role of the instructor. Responses to these concerns are offered, along with clarification that the major contribution of the third-generation model is at the point of training design.