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Volume 16, Number 1
January 2010

Pinballs and planners

Deborah Compeau’s research shows that people learn technology in different ways. Organizations need to do more to help them.

People tend to know a little bit about a lot of things when it comes to technology.

That’s one of the conclusions of Ivey professor Deborah Compeau from a recent study that focused on how people in organizations develop their technology skills. “We found that people have a fairly high breadth of knowledge,” she says, “but they’re lacking in their depth of knowledge of particular technologies and in their ability to creatively apply what they know.”

Compeau’s research focuses on how people in organizations embrace and use technology. In her recent study, co-authored by Ivey PhD grad Barbara Marcolin and Athabasca University professor Alain Ross, Compeau looked at a wide range of employees in a large petrochemical company to better understand how they learned.

She identified a mix of learning going on in the organization: formal, informal, and incidental. Formal learning, the traditional training model, consists of classroom and e-learning programs. Informal learning is unstructured and self-motivated, usually to complete a task or just find out something new. Incidental learning often takes place by happenstance, by hitting the wrong key or watching a co-worker do something new. “Informal and incidental learning actually dominated the amount of learning going on,” says Compeau. “This was not a surprise, but it goes against the formal training mindset that exists around IT.”

Compeau grouped learners into six categories. The first group, “purposive planners,” are very structured and self-disciplined in their approach. They plan carefully and with a lot of attention to detail, and once they’ve made their plan they act on it.

“Explorers” find time to learn on their own because they find it fun or useful. They might for example, stop in the middle of a task and spend some time looking at menu choices or drilling down into new areas.

“Visionaries” are people who find out about new technologies and think about what these could do for them personally and in their organizations. Visionaries are sometimes explorers. They tend to be lateral thinkers, and look at technology from a very strategic perspective.

“Problem solvers” are not necessarily interested in technology, but are very interested in mastering their workplace tasks. They tend to have a strong task-oriented mindset.

Every organization has some “reluctant learners.” These are people who don’t really see the value of technology in their jobs. They simply focus on what they have to learn to survive in the organization.

“Pinballs” are people who don’t think about learning, but simply bounce around between technologies, picking up knowledge while they’re being buffeted about. They tend to do a lot of incidental learning, and some actually become quite capable users of technology.

The grouping of learners into different categories is important because it helps organizations think about the kinds of supports their employees need. For example, classroom training and e-learning is a great training method for purposive planners. Compeau suggests that firms should offer a menu of options, including external programs. “Firms tend to do a good job of basic training when new technology is rolled out,” she says, “but don’t do as well on advanced learning and the training of new recruits.”

Reluctant learners and pinballs, on the other hand, will benefit more from coaching support and peer-to-peer learning. “Most of the training literature assumes that learning is a relatively individual activity,” says Compeau. “We found much more evidence of a social dimension.”

Compeau found a number of barriers to technology learning. For example, visionaries and explorers see the organization itself as a barrier to learning. They often are frustrated that they’re not allowed to install interesting new software on their office computers, because of security risks. They need a “sandbox,” says Compeau, a safe environment where they can test out new software and experiment with data without fear of losing anything.

Organizations often make technology learning a secondary focus. “Managers tend to view IT as being ubiquitous – a tool that we use in much the same way as the telephone,” says Compeau. Every day she sees glaring examples of the underuse of basic technologies. “Office technologies are complex, and organizations don’t understand that technology learning enhances performance as much as other kinds of learning.”

For all types of learners, the most important thing an organization can do is to encourage the development of these skills. “Managers need to better understand and foster the value of technology learning,” says Compeau. “The payoff is there.”
 

Professor Compeau's Homepage