Training versus Education - Part 1

 Training Versus Education - Part 1

If you do a quick internet search on the difference between education and training you will find newspaper articles, blog entries, and journal pieces, both scholarly and popular, that go back to the mid 90’s. I’d wager that a more extensive research effort might easily come up with articles and other pieces that go back even further. It seems that the topic of training and education predates the technological revolution of the past twenty plus years. Why then, a person might ask, does the discussion seem to linger. Or, to put it another way, how can a discussion that seems to contain at least twenty plus years worth of history not lead to a general agreement or consensus on the topic and a plan of action? The fact that the discussion seems once again to fill the minds of more and more people suggests that whatever underlying issues drive the debate on still go unresolved. I would argue that as we explore the topic together, we will see that the issue seems even more unresolved now with the explosion in technology that occurred in the past twenty years.

        While we may discover that the issue involves more semantics and opinions than real substantive material, the broad and deep impact that the issue makes on both academic and business settings will not let the issue go to rest easily. Above all, I’d like to introduce certain ideas and concepts that can lead to more action and make the decision making process in any setting a bit easier.

I used to teach high school and on subjects including history, religion, and English. So, as part of my training in the humanities I firmly believe that any sort of examination or study of a particular topics needs to start with identification of the primary driver(s) behind the issue at hand. In terms of the ongoing debate between training and education the following principles lie at the heart of the question. Keep these in mind as we explore

•The strategies used and the results that occur. In either setting – academic or business, responsibility for success of a program and the existence of a particular course, school, or company, depends upon the success of the instructors and the learners. As such, the strategies employed to reach goals and transfer knowledge and skills will be debated, scrutinized, and used as a tool to either validate or repudiate a program or instructor as a program gets reviewed.

•Personal opinions (preferences) and ideas shape and influence both training and education. We’ll talk more about these later on when we discuss the general history of the two “fields” and we’ll note how certain assumptions live long past their natural life-cycle because of human intervention.

•Cost. The cost to train and the cost of education cannot get ruled out. In any setting the cost of a program gets factored into the decision making process especially when weighed against any known, expected, or unknown benefits. Sometimes the cost-benefit ratio is just that – a numeric/accounting decision. Other times, even in spite of overwhelming evidence (proven or not) the decision does not involve numbers or those numbers get manipulated.

    As we examine the issue of training versus education we should also keep in mind 3 pivotal questions. These three questions provide the basic outline for how our examination will proceed. The three questions are:

•What is the definition of education or training – that is, is there a real difference between the two?

•What is the impact of the difference if there is one?

•When is it important to know the difference?

        These questions came up as a result of recent panel I sat on to discuss this very topic. From listening to the other panelists and from listening to the questions and thoughts of the audience, it seemed clear to me that if we spent more time examining the issue these themes which kept recurring would provide a great basis from which to explore.

        Before we begin our examination, let’s review one more thing. Any decent study of a subject needs a framework. The three questions provide the outline, but to really come up with useful results, especially ones that can be applied, we need another layer. This layer provides the context in each section. It provides the litmus against which the results can be measured. So, having reviewed the information from the panel discussion as well as other sources this examination will used the following three concepts as the measure.

        First, we’ll need to keep in mind tradition(s). Tradition can represent the ties that bind as well as the practical experience from which new ideas or strategies can get evaluated. But, tradition can also limit or misshape. For that reason as we talk about training versus education whatever we discover needs to put into the context of tradition, especially when we look at any specific strategies or assumption.

        Second, we need to keep in mind goals, or as they’re called in both academic and business settings, objectives. Goals give a program or course of study a target to aim for. And, they are used to help make choices as to the strategies to employ, the media to use, and the evaluation criteria to select. Without goals you do not know if a specific course or moment of instruction really achieved something – or what it specifically achieved.

        Third, keep in mind the word learning. We’ll dive very deep into the weeds with this word. Underpinning both education and training is…learning. That may already give you clues as to the outcome of our examination, but try to keep an open mind. Above all, the issue of learning is the critical factor for both academic and business professionals. Neither can afford to choose any option that does not ultimately lead to improvement in the learners.

To begin our exploration of the topic, let’s start with trying to define what both words mean. Then, we’ll see if those definitions provide any insights, and if so, what those insights tell us about the debate.

         When you were in middle school or high school did your English teachers use those dreaded vocabulary workbooks. There were untold volumes of them. It seems every time we completed one and felt triumphant – “hey – we learned all these words. Look how extensive and impressive our vocabularies are now!” – there was another volume waiting for us. Come on’! Did some rich old guys sit around paying people to come with this stuff as a torment to kids? Well, despite a certain level of protest over them, I will say that using them over and over again, and they all followed the same format, did give us the time and opportunity to really practice. Furthermore, if a teacher paired them with a particular project or assignment outside of the exercises found in the book, the retention rate went up and the understanding deepened.

        Definitions may seem a bit out of place today given our ability to quickly search a word on the internet and find its meaning without resorting to a dictionary or relying simply on our own memory. However, I would argue that if you can’t define a word you don’t know it well enough and in any advanced setting – be it graduate school or a boardroom, you will not go very far if your familiarity with the concepts and ideas they use don’t readily come to mind. For that reason alone, as we look at this discussion between education and training our examination will prove far more effective if we take a moment to provide a definition for both of these terms. If the definitions seems too much alike – i.e. leading to the discovery that the difference lies somewhere outside of their meaning, all the more better.

        Here’s the dictionary definition of education: “The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, esp. at a school or university” or  “a new system of public education". “The theory and practice of teaching”. That seems pretty straightforward doesn’t it? Education means a person gives instruction and a person receives it and it concerns the art of teaching. What? Didn’t we just mention that the both words had to do with learning? We didn’t say anything about teaching! Does education have to do with the teachers or with students? That would make the debate easy – education is about the teachers and training is about the learners! Well, not quite so fast… Education “generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts.” That’s the Wikipedia entry. So maybe it does have to do with learning after all. Here we should introduce another word and define it – instruction. Instruction really concerns the teachers. “Education” really does concern the learners, but it’s also a systematic way of explaining the entire process. Of course, that doesn’t help much either. So what should we do? To make things clearer let’s ask a few people. So combing through the notes from the panel discussion and from other sources four word appeared when the word “education” was discussed: personal, why, thinking, and competency. Education is personal, it’s focused on the question of “why”, it involves getting the learner to “think” – better, faster, etc. and it’s about competency – the ability to use knowledge in a given situation. Let’s take a look at each of these in turn.

        Education – It’s personal. When you read the literature and participate in the discussion people often mention how education is personal. Education in any form is meant to give to each learner what they need to succeed. Education, which makes it more expensive, focuses more on the learner and the topic than the particular outcome. Education is personal – in any college you get to elect a certain number of courses on your own, both as part of the “core” curriculum and as part of the major. You can select topics that interest you and/or that pertain more to what you envision yourself doing once you complete the program. That makes sense. That must mean that training isn’t personal – it’s completely programmed. So there’s our first difference – education is personal while training is programmed.

Education – it’s focused on the question of “why?”. Again, if you talk to experts in the field and comb through the abundant literature on the issue you will very often find people saying that one of the hallmarks of education concerns getting people to understand “why”? Isn’t that why universities often have large research components to them? And isn’t that what we want from education anyway? I mean, as a history teacher I always taught that the use of history or any of the social sciences for that matter, where useful only insofar as they assisted people in understanding how the world, society, culture, etc. came to be the way it is today. Education helps us understand cause and effect, the impact of competing interests, and the consequences of the choices that we make either collectively or individually. So, if education is about “why?” then what’s training concerned about? Well, “when” and “where” don’t make sense – they’re really part of the “why”. I had a political science professor (I had him for 9 courses!) say time and time again – dates don’t matter unless you don’t know them, meaning if you have a broad understanding of the when you know the correct sequencing of events and can’t make bad assumptions. Following that logic “who” would seem really part of the “why” as does “what” since the action and the person are also unimportant if you know the general principles. What’s left then? How! So, education, if it’s all about “why”, must mean training is all about “how”? So there’s our second distinction! Let’s keep going.

        Education – it’s all about building up a learners ability to think. Some might even add “critical” to the thinking. That seems to make a lot of sense. Isn’t that one of the huge assumptions we make about getting a college degree? Don’t they advertise, and in today’s world the for-profit colleges really do advertise, that completing a degree is about improving you ability to think. And, don’t colleges and universities, as well as graduate programs admit students based off of test scores and other similar criteria? That also seems to make sense since education is “personal”. If you are free to select what you study and how you study it, it would make sense that education involves (depends on) your ability to think and to think (better?) as you go through the program. So if education involves thinking, what does training involve? It must depend on doing? Or put another way, if education involves thinking, and therefore knowledge, must training involved skills? That makes sense – you think something and then you act upon those thoughts. So, there’s our third distinction between training and education.

Education – it’s about competency. We hear that word a lot in the field of education and in this particular discussion. Realistic – that’s what employers assume – that when you graduate from any level of “education” you possess the competency that you should to either learn or do a job. But it may be useful to define the word here. Competency, or competence, is “The state or quality of being adequately or well qualified; ability”. I always think about it as involving one’s capacity to transfer knowledge from one situation to another. Let’s put it this way. Assume that you or I graduated with a degree in computer science. Let’s say that during that course of study we learned how to program a computer or software application in Java, C++, HTML, XML, SQL, and Basic. Now imagine after graduating from school you landed an interview with a great software firm that was producing the kind of technology you love and that the starting salary was awesome. But, let’s say they use PHP – another very popular programming language, for the particular job you applied for. What can you do? Well, wouldn’t it be fair on both your part and the emlpoyer’s that if you managed to learn all those other languages first that you would be “competent” enough to learn another? One of the panelists on the webinar I’ve been mentioning noted how when she graduated from college in the early 90’s she got “snatched” up by a software firm even though she was an English major. Well, she was smart enough not to say anything despite her hesitation until after she had gone through a couple weeks of onboarding with the company. When she did share her thoughts with someone, the person said, well yeah, - we realized you didn’t have a computer background – but we can teach you specific things – what we can’t do or can’t afford to do – is to teach you how to….fill in the blanks here folks. So if education is about competency in some shape or form, what’s training all about? Well – you can be compete at something – like speaking Spanish, but not very proficient at it. I mean, what’s the point of hiring an interpreter to do real time translating if they take an hour to translate a few sentences. So if education is about competency, training must center on proficiency. There’s our fourth and final distinction.

Here’s the dictionary definition of training: “The action of teaching a person or animal a particular skill or type of behavior” or “the action of undertaking a course of exercise and diet in preparation for a sporting event”. That fits right in with what we’ve been learning about education thus far. Remember we said education is about “thinking” and about “competency”. It seems that training is about just isolated skills or behaviors. Right? Wait you say. Didn’t we also say that the definition of education also mean “the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction”. That seems a lot like the first definition of training! You might be right. To really understand what people mean by training we should take a look at those four distinctions again in some detail.

        Earlier we mentioned that education is personalized, meaning training must be programmed. That seems to make sense. Training programs involve a lot of repetition and the curriculum is set on the needs of the person/group providing the training and only includes the information relevant to the particular skill that needs to be learned. For example, if you wanted to become a sales representative for a large pharmaceutical company there’s a lot of companies out there that would put you through an extensive, if somewhat exhausting, training program designed specifically for their sales reps. You wouldn’t go through the same program to become a store manager for a leading national retailer. So, education seems to concern an individual’s development without regard for the particular result, whereas training matters regardless of the individual in order to reach a specific goal.

We learned a little earlier that many folks believe that education concerns the question of “why?” So as you go through middle school and high school, as an example, we learn a lot about history and culture and other social sciences to help explain the world around us. No, everyone will not be a politician, but educating folks, the argument goes, as to the basic workings of the government and law will make for better citizens and a better society. That seems logical. Training, on the other hand, we said had to do with the question “how?”. So going back to the political/law idea – if you become fascinated and interested enough in those types of topics you can “train” to be a lawyer. Likewise, if you find your passion in biology or physiology you can “train” to become a nurse, or a doctor. Or, perhaps you love engines and cars, or motorcycles, and you “train to be a mechanic”. Mechanic training programs involve a lot about “how” a car works –don’t they? And don’t they care little about the “why”? I mean did a mechanic ever charge you less for a repair because of “why” the accident happened? Not unless they or a family member were involved! So check this off of the list – education focuses on the question of “why” and training on the question of “how”.

Previously, we mentioned how education was all about “thinking”. You gain entrance to college based off of standardized test scores amongst other factors. And, as we mentioned previously, educational programs are concerned about improving your knowledge and understanding of a topic or particular area of study. We said that implied that training was about “doing”. Well – isn’t that the case? If you go to medical school the program includes rotations, internships, residencies, etc. Just the other day I interviewed with a growing company that produce training simulation software for hospital and other healthcare providers that simulated real world clinical settings. Imagine being a surgeon and getting the ability the practice a risky operation as many times as needed on a virtual patient before touching a real one. And I mean a really realistic virtual patient. Or back to our mechanic for a second. If you go to an auto-body school or other technical school they will make you spend countless hours rebuilding, repairing, and diagnosing various car parts. So in the ongoing debate of education versus training we can say that education concerns “thinking” whereas training involves “doing”.

Training is all about “proficiency”. From a med school viewpoint, if you completed an undergraduate degree in biology or another science and want to apply to medical school, they’ll make sure you are competent enough in various areas as needed and then they’ll train you till the cows come home on how to do everything medically related from giving needles, to applying stitches, to treating burns, et al. Stories go that medical residencies in particular are exhausting as the residents work 90 to 120 hours a week, without fail. So, the question thus becomes what does all that “training mean” – it’ means becoming proficient. Anyone can learn to stitch up a wound. Doctors, nurses, EMTs, and other healthcare workers learn to do it “with their eyes closed” in any sort of circumstance, with as much speed as possible, and with precision that means they only need to apply each stitch once because they do so correctly. Or, for our mechanic, a technical school will make sure they can take off a wheel, check the brakes, realign the wheel, etc. with enough proficiency that the tires stay on the car and that you can get out of the auto-body shop in a reasonable amount of time.

So with all that information is training the same thing as education, or is it different? The answer is…learning! What? Yes, the answer to whether or not there’s a difference between education and training depends upon the word learning! Well, that’s not fair is it? No it isn’t precious, not it isn’t. Remember we said that we’d define both terms and see what happens. If the terms were too much alike there would be something wrong with the words and therefore the idea that they’re different would not hold up. Well, that’s where the word “learning” comes into play. If you think back even further, we also said that underneath both concepts was the idea of learning. A medical school experience will help you both learn to think and learn to act. It will make sure you have the knowledge and the ability to apply it to actual living things in a safe and effective manner. Don’t believe me yet – let’s put it another way – if you went back through each of the eight comments we made about how education and training were different with a fine tooth comb, you’d find that everything we said isn’t true. In fact, sometimes the exact opposite is true in particular case? Here, let’s take a look

        Here’s a nice little chart that we can use to look at our comparisons again. If what I just said is true, we should be able to find very concrete evidence that what we said about one of the terms can just as accurately describe the other. Additionally, we should be able to discover that if there is no real difference between the two – there should be something that explains what the discussion or debate is all about. 

                If education were truly personal it would be designed by you, it would fit your needs, you’d be happy because you had control, you’d be successful only because of yourself and because of all that – you’d be poor! If training was complete programmed, training courses would be entirely inflexible, they’d be generic, you’d be bored as tears, your success would hinged entirely on others, but you’d be very rich. What? Yes – think about it for a second. If you went to college think back to what you were like when you were 18 or 19. Would you really know what to pick in terms of courses, let alone what to do after the course of study was over if the program wasn’t somewhat programmed. Just look at the proliferation of internships and coop program in colleges over the past few decades. As more and more people have realized, there’s no substitute for on-the-job experience, particularly in complex fields or in cases where a casual fan may not find the day to day reality of a particular industry that fascinating or that suited to their real skills. Likewise, if training programs where completely programmed there wouldn’t be any flexibility in them. Well, first off if you want to be a sales rep that’s a choice you are making. And as any instructional designer or corporate training professional will tell you, training programs are constantly updated.

        Also, if education was personal all the time, it would always fit your needs and you would be happy. Not interesting in becoming a gynecologist, then don’t worry – you wouldn’t need to take any courses on the human reproductive system. On the flip side, if training programs were that – programmed, they’d be the same regardless of the company and the brand. Guess what – the training program for one major hotel chain may look very different from that of another major chain. Therefore, if you switched companies you’d be bored to tears. Don’t want to be a manager of the kitchen, tough the hotel’ general manager needs to supervise the kitchen manager so it’s probably a good idea to learn a little, even if you hate food.

        And, if both of our original propositions were true, success would hinge on two entirely different spokes. If educational programs were completely personal, your success would be dependent solely on yourself. Forgot that in order to be an effective psychologist or general practitioner should involve some training and understanding of reproduction and other sexual issues, tough. Oppositely, if you wanted to become a successful hotel manager and when through a company’s training program, you’re success would depend entirely on others – on the decisions they make about the program and their understanding of the industry, the company, etc. That said both of those propositions would mean that if something was entirely personal you’d always be poor – because no one could give you direction or make certain you didn’t skip that particular class or field of study whereas if it was designed right, a training program that was completely programmed would always lead to success.

        I won’t do into as much detail with the other points, but this evidence is suffice to say that the assumption that education and training differ in the level of choice a persona has over its design is irrelevant. Almost any educational or training program includes buffers to prevent foolish mistakes or oversights on the part of the individual learner as well as having activities or items that are mandated whereas others are suggested or only mandatory depending on the individual’s characteristics or desires. 

        Our second proposition, that education concerns the question of “why” whereas training concerns the question of “how” is a bit harder to disprove. In fact, in a way this one actually holds more water than the others. But if education was truly concerned only about “why” then we’d have lots of folks thinking great big thoughts sitting around straw huts and log fires because no one would have gone out into the world and done anything. Likewise, if training programs were really only concerned about the question of “how”, training programs wouldn’t include time for discussion, reflection, it certainly wouldn’t include and reading, unless of course it was a reading program or the reading only consisted of SOPs & job aids. I guarantee if you sign up to become a pharmaceutical rep, you’ll be doing a lot of reading. A lot. Period. We can even take it a step further and say that the argument doesn’t hold wait when you talk about the underpinning of both – learning. Learning involves both questions. If you want to “learn” to be a doctor, you’ll learn a lot about “why” diseases or illnesses happen. You’ll also learn about “how” to cure them. In the USA, the Federal Highway Administration would get pretty upset if automobile professionals couldn’t put the pieces together and realize that all the cars they are repairing for faulty brakes constitutes a need for a recall and the car manufacturers wouldn’t be in business if their designers and engineers with their college degrees couldn’t figure how to solve the issue once it was identified.
 

Our third proposition, that education involves “thinking” while training involves “doing” gets dismissed with the same evidence we just used to dispel the second proposition. If education focused solely on “thinking” it would mean that there would be no application of that knowledge or that the application of that knowledge would be considered very trivial. Again, just look at the growing number of internship programs out there as well as all the evidence that great careers and success in business start with great internships – heck even to increase your odds of getting a job, depends a lot on them nowadays. If training did not need to include any thinking then why would training programs include time for reflection, discussion groups, etc. You’d go into the training location learn the skill(s) for that particular timeframe and then be done, ready to come back for the next part of the program. One of the most important parts of a new hire orientation/onboarding experience (formal or informal) is the ability to learn what makes your new employer different and to learn how they run their business – and that doesn’t just involve training – it involves education.

We can dismiss our final proposition that education and training are different, one focused on competency, the other on proficiency, by simply returning to our handy mechanic.  If you bring you car in for basic service you want someone who can change your tires, replace your fluids, check your brakes, hoses, and lines, examine your engine, exhaust, muffler, etc. quickly and efficiently. If you bring the same car in because it’s making a noise that mechanics ability to change your tires in under 10 minutes proves worthless because you need a mechanic who is competent at discerning car problems. On the flip side, a garage owner would have a probably hiring someone out of a technical school who could diagnose problems well but didn’t know how to use any of the machines. And of course, common sense dictates that a person in any profession needs a mix of both competence and proficiency. 

With everything we just discovered, what did we learn? Well, we learned that education and training are not dissimilar and that by their definitions or commonly accepted definitions something seems wrong. They both involve the process of learning and both involve providing a learner with the knowledge and skills they need. So, what’s the difference? At this point I’ll intervene and save us from even more exploration by stating that there really isn’t any difference. It’s all a matter of semantics and viewpoint and tradition as well as assumptions. So, that having been said, where does that leave us? It leaves us at the need to get to the second question we asked earlier – if there is no difference, what are the implications? Even if there was a difference there’d be implications – you’d have to know which one was appropriate at any given time. If they really do represent the same thing – or as I’ll define them – two sides of the same coin, then what does that mean for us?