Understanding Older Workers' Decisions to Participate in Voluntary Training Opportunities

1 online resource (98 pages) : PDF

2015

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

The current study integrated theories of adult development with theories of training motivation to address two overarching research questions: 1) Does the likelihood of participating in training differ between younger and older workers? and, 2) Are the decision policies (i.e., the utilization of information in the decision-making process) for participation in training and development age-dependent? Adult development research suggests that generativity, goal orientation, and cognitive abilities change over the lifespan. In the current study, the topic, goal, and structure of a training opportunity were manipulated to correspond to these age-related factors. It was hypothesized that older workers would be less likely to participate in training overall. In addition, age was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between features of training (topic, goal, and structure) and the decision to participate in training. Eighty one participants recruited from a university faculty population completed a policy-capturing study and a self-report survey. In the policy-capturing study, participants were presented with a series of training descriptions and asked to make a decision about their likelihood of attending the training. Each training description contained the same features (topic, goal, and structure); however, the features were manipulated to reflect theoretically derived age-relevant factors. In the self-report survey, participants completed measures of individual differences. The data were analyzed using multilevel analyses. Older workers were found to be less likely to participate in training overall. Age group moderated the relationship between the training topic and the training decision; however, the pattern of the relationship was in the opposite direction of the hypothesis. Age group did not moderate the relationship between the other training features (goal and structure) and the training decision. The age-related factors appeared to be more strongly related to general training decisions, rather than the utilization of specific information about training characteristics. Interpretations, implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

doctoral dissertations

Organizational behavior

Ph.D.

Older Workers
Policy Capturing
Training

Organizational Science

Rogelberg, Steven

Shanock, Linda
Walker, Lisa
Kello, John

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2015.

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Lopina_uncc_0694D_10898

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:25