Introduction:
A recurring, if often contentious, theme in the literature on diffusion of innovations,
and more specifically on how best to time (or synchronize) the spread of innovation-
linked skills and 'habits', is that three key factors (or variables) -- Knowledge, Attitude
and Practice (KAP) -- are implicated in such an exercise, as part of broader HR
management and training processes. Johnson (1976: 2.2), for example, points out
that one of the purposes of training is to develop "new skills, knowledge,
understanding, and attitudes"(see also Clelland, 1973:42-47; Gersovitz et al, 1998:
875-883; Sudsawad, 2007; Webb, Falko, Sniehotta and Michie, 2010; USAID, 2011;
WHO, 2012; Chien-Yun et al, 2012; and Strauss, Tetroe, and Graham, Eds, 2013;
Legare and Zhang, 2013). The theme recurs, indeed, but in a more assertoric than
theory-driven or empirical evidence-adducing fashion in the texts typically published
for certain courses in academia. Still, the 'KAP approach' has a powerful intuitive and
intriguing appeal.
Pattanayak and Verma (1997: 94) have briefly weighed in here, too, and define
training as a process "designed to improve and bring about measurable change in
knowledge, skills, attitude and social behavior..." So 'measurable change' is a useful
metric for them. Cole (2002: 380-397; see also 1995: 138-137), on his part, notes
that learning implies observable change, which "usually manifests itself through
behavior". Measurable and observable change mean the same important thing, of
course. As already indicated above, there are even more recent contributors to this
discourse. All in all, KAP is a clearly converging meme in the behavior-change
management conversation.
II. The KAP Approach:
The 'KAP approach' is a kind of holy grail, and not just for training facilitators.
Educators and learners of all strands as well are energized, in one way or another,
by the value they see in it. That is to say, the value that it represents for clarifying the
causality of practice and spotlighting the reinforcement processes likewise
associated with practice. It is worth noting here that, as Cole (1997: 254) has keenly
observed, a fundamental characteristic of learning "is that is acquired." It is acquired
through training of one or another kind.
Training has a long history, as Miller (1996: 3-18) has suggested. And, Dessler
(2000: 253) asserts, "Training is essentially a learning process..." We can say in
general that we educate and train people in order to make them more predictably
productive in their behavior; and more proactive in whatever ways they apply such
'learning'. Such predictability and proactivity of the 'parts' create in society itself, or
'the whole', the capacity to function more organically, as well as more purposefully.
However, the realities of learning, and of how society organizes itself -- or how
individuals and groups within it do -- in order to optimally leverage the learning, are
more complicated and less straightforward than first appears. Still, leveraging is
innovating.
Since the +4th century, one understands, the Chinese have debated, reversed and
reversed the converse of the saying: "Action is easy but knowledge is difficult", which
was Sun Yat Sen's version in the early 20th century. A +17th century Chinese
thinker, Wang Chhuan-Shan, used to say: "Knowledge is the beginning of practice,
and practice is the completion of knowledge" (see Needham, 1959: 165-6).
The 'KAP approach' is indeed not immune to this ebb and flow of a puzzle. However,
its focus of attention is not directly on the easier path to the knowledge-action space.
Rather, the focus is on the (taken-for-granted) flow of effects that one should
typically see, empirically if not so readily theoretically, from imparted knowledge, as
the starting point, to attitude (a concept which subsumes/presumes values) and on to
behavior or practice. Clearly, however, K is not always the starting point of the great
variety of human ventures that we can bring to mind. The explorer's mind-set, for
example, does rearrange the KAP sequence into another: APK.
Other permutations can easily be imagined as well. Here's the totality of the
nuances:
KAP KPA
APK AKP
PKA PAK
READ: The Explorer's APK.
READ: The Apprentice's PKA
II.1. Knowledge
According to Talcott Parsons (1970: 304), knowledge (the essential content of the
sociology of knowledge) refers to: "cognitively ordered orientations to objects, with
reference both to empirical facts and to problems of meaning." According to him,
then, the sociology of knowledge has two primary foci, namely:
1. Empirical facts, and -- particularly with reference to "the social system" as the
'empirical' object -- the attendant problem of ideology
2. Problems of Meaning, and the Weberian preoccupation with religious ideas
(Parsons, 1970: 304)
Knowledge, as I understand it, refers to: the ability to DO, tell, describe, explain,
show, and/or say. Thus, to know is to be able to do, tell, describe, explain, show or
say. The extant literature acknowledges that knowledge has three
components: Subject (one who knows), Object (that which one knows),
and Cognition (the act of knowing). Conversely, Habermas (1972) suggests that
there are three categories or types of knowledge:
1. Scientific, Empirical-Analytic Knowledge
2. Hermeneutic-Historical Knowledge
3. Critical Knowledge
There are yet other ways of classifying or labelling knowledge, which we will not
dwell upon here, such as: Apodictic ('Scientific', 'Certified'), Assertoric (Empirical
'facts'), and Problematic (Critical, Speculative, Predictive-Deductive).
Winston Churchill is said to have remarked, with deep insight, that: "Attitude is a little
thing that makes a big difference"
But what about behavior that one is forced by other persons (significant others), or
economic circumstances, for example, to adopt?
2. Other writers argue that "overt behaviour" varies independently with attitudes. In
other words, one's attitude toward a particular behaviour or practise have no bearing
on one's actual behaviour, and vice versa. That is, you may disapprove of three-
piece suits, but still wear them for other, such as ceremonial or broadly pragmatic,
reasons.
3. Yet other writers argue that attitudes affect behavior, but that
the impact of attitude on behavior is mediated by contingent or
situational factors (Acock and DeFleur, 1972: 714-726).
Andrews and Kandel (1979: 298-310) generally equate situational factors with
"perceived group norms" held by "significant others and expressed either verbally or
in actions." In my view, situational factors can be represented not only by perceived
group norms but also by factors such as:
“An organized and coordinated pattern of mental and/or physical activity in relation to
an object or other display of information, usually involving both receptor and effector
processes [a receptor process provides the sensory input, while an effector process
performs the output or response function]. It is built up gradually in the course of
repeated training or other experience. It is serial, each part from second to second is
dependent on the last and influences the next. Skills may be described as
perceptual, motor, manual, intellectual, social, etc. according to the context or the
most important aspect of the skill pattern.” Definition from the UK’s Department of
Employment’s Glossary of Training Terms, as quoted in Graham and Bennett (1998:
296).
A skill is, additionally, “A practiced, expert way of perceiving a relevant stimulus and
then responding to it” (Graham and Bennett, 998: 296)
But a detailed interrogation of the training function suggests a rather different kind of
classification. In other words, we can identify not three but four main types of training for
which prospective trainees may apply, or to which they may be admitted. These four main
types, it turns out, are various permutations and combinations of K, A and/or P.
Naturally, such application and admission presuppose and reflect the identification of a
training need or gap, operationalized intotraining specifications -- that is, into the
broad content of the training required. For each training type listed, then, we show examples,
not an exhaustive list, of related training techniques. Many of these techniques naturally
feature in more than one type of training, given their plasticity -- that is, their broad
applicability:
3. Skill Training: This is realized through, inter alia: apprenticeship, demonstration, on-the-job
training and formal vocational/technical (or tertiary) level training, delegation, job rotation,
coaching, assignment, drills and other types of exercise, role playing, and projects (see, for
example, Graham and Bennett, 1998: 296-299; Armstrong, 2012)
4. Experiential Training: Examples here include: attachment, games, case work, simulations,
behavioral modelling, outward bound programmes and living-abroad programmes (see, for
example, Pattanayak and Verma, 1997: 95)
IV. Conclusion
It can be inferred from all the foregoing that, illuminating as it is, the KAP approach
rides roughshod over the attitude-behavior debate (or debacle), stating simply
that: KAP = Knowledge(changes/modifies) Attitude (which
changes/modifies) Practice.That is to say, knowledge changes (predicts) attitudes,
which change (predict) the learner's pattern of practice (or action or behavior).
Conversely, of course, one's practice reveals one's attitude, and one's attitude reveal
one's stock of knowledge or experiences. This knowledge-base can thus be
systematically exposed (subjected) to pre-selected 'influencers', and so changed --
with beneficial ripple effects on attitude clusters and subsequently sets of practices.
Key 'influencers' here are teachers, trainers, change-agents and media of all sorts.
As Legare clearly points out, however, the KAP process is far from straightforward
(see also Legare and Zhang, 2013).
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