Individual, Organizational, and Training Design Influences on Supervision Staff’s Knowledge and Use of Evidence-Based Practices
Date
2017
Authors
Maass, Stephanie Ainsworth
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Abstract
Staff training is an important aspect of ensuring that community corrections officers remain up-to-date on the most effective evidence-based practices (EBPs). Officers are required to complete roughly 20-40 hours of training annually. Research has identified a number of factors that influence the effectiveness of such trainings, including organizational factors (e.g., climate, culture), individual factors (e.g. motivation, prior knowledge), and characteristics of the training design (e.g. classroom, online, boosters). While these factors have been studied extensively in other disciplines, and in part within the field of community corrections, they have not been examined together to determine the relative influence of each on training outcomes for community corrections agencies. The current research fills this gap and presents outcomes of the effects of organizational, individual, and training design factors on probation officers’ knowledge and self-reported use of EBPs post-training. Individuals’ motivation to learn exerted the strongest influence on officers’ knowledge of skills post training. However, the district variable was also statistically significant, indicating a potential organizational influence that was not otherwise accounted for by the included organizational-level variables. Officer’s self-reported use of skills was significantly associated with pre-training use of skills and perceived functionality of the web-based training platform.
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Criminology, Community Corrections, Culture, Motivation, Organizational Change, Technology Transfer