The Curmudgeonly Trainer

This is a free manual designed to cover off coaching skills for trainers and managers who do on the job training. It’s produced by the CDS, Workplace Safety and Health Division.
You can get it in pdf format free of charge by clicking here.
It’s in the form of a workbook with exercises. Watch out for common [...]

The recent exchange with Gary Lear about reliability and validity really highlights one of the major problems with these instruments and their usage. THIS IS IN NO WAY MEANT TO COMMENT ON GARY, BUT ON THE GENERAL SITUATION.
Even the companies that train and certify people to administer these tests are turning out people with a [...]

Ok, I guess it’s time to really wrap this up, this MBTI question. I realize that there are those that believe and those that don’t. I have to offer the observation that this is like discussing religion or politics. No amount of facts, research is going to change the minds of those that hold the [...]

Below is part of a discussion on MBTI, learning instruments, assessments and so on.
Someone wrote:
> I’m not sure what was “proved” or “disproved” here other than a personal
> disapproval of learning instruments. It seems that a debate over the
> meaning of the terms “validity” and “reliability” was suddenly turned into
> a conclusion that instruments [...]

Another oft quoted set of statistics often stated by trainers has to do with differing retention rates for different learning activities. Here’s a message on trainer posted, and my response.
Rita wrote:
> Thank you all for your feedback on training retention rate statistics. My
> apologies for this long message.
>
> I have the information now, although slightly [...]

The point I was trying to make is that even in situations where self-directed teams are desired, leadership MUST exist somewhere in the organization to make them work.
Think of it like a garden. For my garden to flourish in a way that pleases me, I can’t simply let it do what it likes, in the [...]

(Part of a conversation of emotional abuse, at home and at work, and why people stay…
Chris, these are obviously sensitive topics, so I’m going to comment (and also disagree with you on something), and I’m trying to do it without causing emotional or intellectual offense.
I’d appreciate it if people read my WHOLE message before replying.
I [...]

“eLearning” is probably the largest growth sector in training and development. While its adoption has been somewhat faddish, with a lot of bandwagon jumping, there’s no question that there is great promise. There are now over two decades of empirical data to look at to discover what works and what doesn’t with the use of [...]

Subtitled A Guide to Evaluating, Implementing and Deploying Content Management System, this pocket guide will help you go through the process of choosing, purchasing and implementing a content management system. And, it’s free.
For those who don’t know a CMS (content management system) is the term used to describe software that is used to manage web, [...]

Upon being chastized for spelling errors for allegedly incorrect spelling of Dewey Duck, Mr. Bacal responds:
> You ain’t that great a speller yourself. Among other things, in the same
> comment you misspelled the name of Dewey Duck.
I think you are making some possibly faulty inferences here. First I was not talking about “that” family [...]