VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 112
TRAINING NEED ANALYSIS IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY Mansi Panwar, Anshuman Dubey, Dr. Manish Dubey
Abstract - Training is important for the survival, growth and sustainability of any business in order to make their workforce competent with changing environment. Education Technology (edutech) is the booming sector with immense growth potential and dynamic opportunities .The current dimensions of training the edutech employee caters few aspects which are key for survival but it misses few strategically important one which actually would decide the acceptance of virtual learning in Indian market. Technological literacy of employee, class diversity of online classroom , regular student monitoring , soft skills development are key challenging areas where the edutech companies need to invest a lot and make themselves competitive .This paper discusses the existing training practices and investigates new areas where training need is required for robust growth in edutech sector.
1 INTRODUCTION
India’s edtech industry has seen a major boom since covid 19 pandemic with learning shifting to online mode. Despite having various advantage over traditional teaching and learning, edtech was still working hard to built habit, but covid 19 provided the much needed acceleration. As per the report of “Decoding The $10 Bn Edtech Market Opportunity in India”, India’s present edtech market ($2.8 Bn in 2020) is expected to grow rapidly 3.7 times by 2025 amounting $10.4 Bn market. Alone k-12 education startups are projected the market size of $4.3 Bn, nearly 41% of entire edtech market share by 2025. We have witnessed the rapid expansion of edtech startups like Byjus, Unacademy, Vedantu, in past two years. With Byjus acquiring Akash in a recent deal, reflects the growing dominance of online education startups over traditional education institute. Edtech industry has several advantages over traditional education system. It offers 24*7 access across globe, with cheap cost. Time efficiency, cost efficiency, ease to handling, creative learning module are key for the success of edtech industry.
1.1 Working Definition
Training: Training is process of up-skilling and building the employee competency by providing him suitable resources, instruction and task so that the employee can develop his/her own capabilities and provide better output at workplace. Training is used by firms across globe in order to bring professional development in their employees and attain desired result. Organizations learn, develop, adopt change and sustain in the market, when their employees are trained regularly and effectively.
Generally there are two broad categories of training 1) On the job training
2) Off the job training
On the job training is provided to the employee while performing their routine job task and this is done by coaching, mentoring, apprenticeship where as of the job training is done in non job environment by methods such as lecture, game play, case study, basket training.
Training need analysis: Training need analysis is the first step in the entire training process. Managers have to identify the need for the training on the basis of current employee performance, their capabilities, external environment and future industry demand and firms growth target. While analyzing the training need, managers have to be very prudent in order to estimate the requirements of the firm. At this stage, firms make objective of training and estimate its implication. In order to have an effective training, it is very important to identify the right training requirements.
Training impact evaluation: It is the final step in the training process during which the trainer or the firm tries to get the output of training program. This is done in order to access the execution of training and benefits attained by the organization for conducting training activity. It is done by collecting data from the learners and their performance is evaluated pre and post training in order to get the real worth of the training. Some firm use
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 113
total growth of the firm as a sole parameter to evaluate the training, which may not be correct because output is summation of so many factors like work culture, external environment, leadership and many more. So evaluating training program in isolation is the biggest challenge for any firm.
1.2 Education Technology Industry
This rapid expansion of edtech industry in general and k-12 education startups in specific demands for regular employee skilling and professional development in order to provide competitive advantage in the immense competitive market. Companies need to provide their employee regular training and development in order to transform their rapid growth into sustainable one. By giving suitable training and transferring learning into work, companies can build long term sustainable competitive advantage. But Indian business ecosystem lacks the culture of regular and effective training program. As per (first) India’s training and development spending is less than $1Bn whereas US has around $100 Bn. Also employee expenditure on employee training is roughly 2% of employee cost whereas global companies have around 10-15%. Data clearly shows the urgent need for better emphasis on identifying suitable training program so that companies can prepare themselves for the tighter competition and future challenges and establish themselves as a global institution. There is also need for building a culture of training evaluation using suitable technique in order to enhance the training program accountability and assess its impact on organizational effectiveness. But currently what we observe is poor efforts while evaluation of training program. Reasons for not evaluating training program includes complexity of evaluating the output, fear for negative result, trainer’s commitment for evaluation and suitable simplified model for evaluation. Despite presence of various model for evaluation of training, there is need to build customized model for each organization and each training program which requires high amount of skills and complexity. Thus evaluation turns out to be costly, tedious and challenging task due to which firms avoid any form of holistic evaluation and judge the training in pure monetary terms.
The output of the training evaluation would help the instructor to develop more inclusive and futuristic training program relevant to industry requirement. It helps company to determine the loopholes and improve on learner as well as instructor part .It very beneficial in identifying the each and every steps from designing of training program to execution and then transferring the learning in work environment .Firms in the present era need to motivate employees for training and provide suitable training opportunity and evaluate each training program in order to build a comprehensive culture of learning and development.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Effect of Training on Employee Performance
This paper discusses how training helps in building competency of new as well as old employee to perform at job in effective way. It also helps employee to develop in order to hold key position in future in effective way by eliminating the deficiencies at workplace.
Training is considered as investment which brings not only return on investment but also competitive advantage to the firm. Effective training helps in improved employee performance and firm competency. It helps to bridge the gap between what performance is actual and desired performance. Training is important for enhancing employee performance and overall organizational growth.
2.2 Important Component of Effective Training
In this paper author talks about the strong relationship between three important components effective training program: affective commitment, the perceived availability of training, supervisor and co worker support for training. Author identifies these as very key aspect behind success of any interview. It also shows that relation between learner’s mindset and turnover rate. Employee who are positive for the training program have better chances of continuing with the firm. It was also observed that voluntary training have better training outcome compared forced training program.
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 114 2.3 Identifying Needs: A Missing Part in Teacher Training Programs
This paper talks about the importance of professional development of the teacher in order to provide him/her relevant content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, better understanding of the learner’s skills, new trends in education sector. The professional development helps teacher to grow holistically. Paper highlights the importance of training need analysis so that important and relevant training needs could be provided to the teachers. It also lays stress on the use of information and communication technology in order to enhance the learner’s involvement during training and better understanding of the training module.
2.4 ICT-Pedagogy Integration in Teacher Training: Application Cases Worldwide
This research paper talks about the need for teacher training to use technology due to rapid expansion of knowledge in the society. Information and communication technology provides the opportunity to train teachers effectively. ICT can be used as a) main content focus b) as core delivery technology c) as a part of content or methods d) facilitating or networking technology.
Training evaluation: Knowing More Than is Practiced (Greg G. Wang, Diane Wilcox)
This paper talks about the formative and summative evaluation of the training program.
Formative evaluation is done throughout the training program in order to improve the design, analysis and implementation of the training program whereas summative evaluation is done after the completion of training program. Summative evaluation is key in order to know the effectiveness of the training program .It includes evaluation of short term outcomes and long term outcomes from the training program.
Training Satisfaction and Training Impact: Issues in Training Evaluation (Sue R., Carolyn Ban)
This paper highlights the issues in measurement of behavioral changes while measuring the training impact evaluation. The paper talks about the complexity and cost associated with the evaluation of behavioral changes and how by using right statistical tool researcher can get more reliable results. It also provide us correlation between trainee reaction and trainee attempt to transform classroom learning to work environment .It suggest that Oft-maligned trainee survey of his reaction can be useful component of training program evaluation.
2.5 Importance of Training in Organization Success
This paper investigates importance of training as key for person and organization success.
Training helps to change people’s rigid mindset and change organization’s overall perspective. Author has also made an attempt to evaluate training program by using Kirkpatrick model. Kirkpatrick model consist of four level: Reaction, learning, behavior, result. Reaction refers to the initial emotions and feeling of the learner regarding the research. Learning refers to the new skills, knowledge, concept the learner gets from the training. Behavior refers to attitudinal pattern after the training. Result refers to the outcome in terms of financial and non financial term to the person and the organization after training. Author observed that the people who completed the training where successful in getting some promotion.
Evaluation of training in organizations: a proposal for an integrated model (Pilar Pineda) In this paper author has developed a new training evaluation model which could be used globally by the managers. The developed model was used for training evaluation of healthcare industry and gave concrete results .The main pillars on which evaluation has to be done are –
1. Participants satisfaction: which talks about the participants opinion on the entire training program
2. Learning achieved by the participants: this is done at three stage, at beginning of the training, during training and after training.
3. Pedagogical Appropriateness: It investigates about the objectives, methodology, resources used in the training.
4. Transfer: It is about execution of learning at workplace.
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 115
5. Impact: it is done in quantitative as well as qualitative way in order to evaluate the impact of training
6. Profitability: return on the training and overall growth of the firm Approaches to Evaluation of Training: Theory and Practice (Deniz Eseryel)
This paper talks about the various approaches for evaluation of training program. Two main approaches discussed in the paper are systematic approach and goal oriented approach. It also highlights the use of technology and building a cost effective evaluation system which will provide continuous evaluation and scope for new development in the training program.
2.6 Human Resource Training Evaluation (Vilmante Kumpikaite)
This paper talks about the evaluation of training in terms of cost benefit ratio and cost effectiveness ratio. Nine different models of evaluation are discussed in order to give brief idea of available methodology. Author has highlighted the difficulties associated with soft data compared to hard data .Research survey was conducted in 12 different companies in Lithuania over the size of the firm and expenditure on training program. The result shows weak correlation (0.17) between size of organization and training expenditure. The paper also tells the importance of those factors ( behavioral) which could not be feasible to convert in monetary terms but has importance in organizational growth.
3 METHODOLOGY
In this paper researcher have performed thematic analysis of structured interview.
Researchers interviewed industry experts who were at middle management level in top education technology firms. Series of question on various aspects training and development program, its implementation and impact on organizational performance. Researchers analyzed the interview and drew important conclusion on the basis of interview analysis.
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 116 3.1 Analysis
The researchers conducted structured interview with working professionals form edtech industry in order to know the industry practice regarding training and development. The researchers asked question regarding: their current working culture , difficulties arising at workplace, training provided to them and new training needs as per industry requirement.
The researcher got diverse view point from different organization but there were few common opinions observed in each interview. The researchers observed that the edtech industry has two main area for training and development: sales and educator. The general trend shows that companies focus more on training and developing of the sales team due to immense competition and increasing opportunity. Companies are trying new innovative techniques in order to capture new customers. Expenditure on training sales employees holds the majority of the training expenditure for the edtech firms in general. They are provided with on the job as well as off the job training on regular basis. On the other hand, educator are not provided with any rigorous training ,rather they are provided with basic module and some induction training in order to get information regarding task execution.
They are provided with the on the job training, mainly coaching and mentorship from time to time basis. Educators are trained to face and record lecture, voice modulation, content flow, presentation skills, usage of creative real life examples.
As far as training the sales workforce or business development associates is concerned, the training varies from two weeks to six weeks where they are trained to generate leads, provide presentation, follow up and acquisition techniques . As the edtech products contains some fixed part and some variable (in the name of added features) employees are trained to maximize the variable portion in order to increase the total cost of the product. Whereas for educators, the major chunk of the training is regarding adaptation to the technology. Training is majorly focused on increasing the comfort for use of technology enabled by the firm like answering the doubts efficiently while lives lectures, online doubts clearance one to one, lecture recording.
But the major concern is that these edtech firm are relying more on mechanizing education instead of using it as tool to educate, as a result teachers are trained to be compatible with the machines instead of addressing the key issues associated with the edtech. Teachers need to be trained for addressing the diversity of the classroom. The edtech classroom is global and for such cases the major challenge for the educator is to reach the last student and clear his problems. It’s not about clearing subject doubts the task is to solve fundamental problems which each and every teachers observes in classroom offline: hesitation to express, lack of concentration, problem associated with social bonding, lack of confidence, presentation skills, punctuality, disciplines and so on. One need to understand that education is not about providing facts in interesting way to attract attention, its beyond that and most importantly it is ever lasting. How you teach and what you teach is one aspect of that influences learning but how and students receives it and respond to it is other aspect. The later one cant be just left to machine based evaluation of the assignment. It needs more human intervention more interaction between teacher and student. The idea should be to make learning interactive not just mechanical. Edtech need to invest heavily on making their educator and subject matter expert into a holistic teacher rather than just an instructor.
4 CONCLUSION
Sustainability of edtech can be achieved only by making the classrooms sustainable which could accommodate diversity, address the students beyond subjects problems and create holistic learning environment. If the edtech giants keep on ignoring the importance of a teacher and keep on building instructor based learning for subject, they will soon bear the burst of edtech bubble. The buuble created by hype of online learning just needs the needle of unsustainable classroom to burst. Firms need to invest more on core activities like teaching, somewhere comparable to what they invest on sales training. We need to build a classroom that has technology to aid and ease learning not the classroom for technology to teach.
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023 117 REFERENCES
1. Elnaga, A. and Imran, A., 2013. The effect of training on employee performance. European journal of Business and Management, 5(4), pp.137-147.
2. Faerman, S.R. and Ban, C., 1993. Trainee satisfaction and training impact: Issues in training evaluation. Public productivity & management review, pp.299-314.
3. Tamkin, P., Yarnall, J. and Kerrin, M., 2002. Kirkpatrick and Beyond: A review of models of training evaluation. Brighton, England: Institute for Employment Studies.
4. Kumpikaitė, V., 2007. Human resource training evaluation. Engineering economics, (5 (55)), pp.29-36.
5. Eseryel, D., 2002. Approaches to evaluation of training: Theory & practice. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 5(2), pp.93-98.
6. Mansour, M., 2013. Evaluation of training in organizations: an empirical investigation from a developing country. International journal of education and research, 1(6), pp.1-12.
