A New Look at Training Motivation: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Differential and Incremental Validity

The extant training and educational research has not been consistent in the way motivation is measured in the context of training. Prior research has examined different types of motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation, motivation to leam, motivation to transfer, expectancy motivation, and task value) and different timings of measurement (i.e., pretraining, during, and post-training). Accordingly, the present meta-analysis sought to elucidate the relationships between training motivation and training outcomes via three contributions: (I) examining differential relationships with four training outcomes; (2) assessing incremental validity over and above each other to the prediction of these training outcomes; and (3) investigating whether the timing of measurement affects the magnitude of the relationships. Data gathered from 23,386 trainees across 117 studies suggest that the observed relationships vary more across training outcomes within a given motivation type than across motivation type for a given outcome. Overall, the types of motivation had stronger relationships with trainee reactions and self-efficacy than with declarative knowledge or initial skill acquisition. However, the evidence suggests that some motivation types, particularly motivation to learn, are better predictors for declarative knowledge and initial skill acquisition. Incremental validity was not tested, as meta-analytic estimates of the intercorrelations among motivation types could not be derived due to a dearth of research. Timing of measurement was inconsequential for predicting declarative knowledge and initial skill acquisition. However, pre-training measurement of motivation will help alleviate the observed inflated relationships due to common method bias for post-training self-efficacy and trainee reactions. Researchers and practitioners are advised to use pre-training measures of motivation to learn when multiple training outcomes are of interest. Additional practical implications and future research directions are discussed.