Clearing up the confusion

It was quite interesting reading the “Current Status, Future Trends, and Issues in Human Performance Technology Part 1: Influential Domains, Current Status, and Recognition of HPT”. To hear from experts in the field that they believe the major issues with confusion of HPT are that the HPT experts and practitioners don’t know what it is, how to explain it, how to market it, therefore, it’s getting no traction. I kept hearing these things as a theme throughout, from comments by Monique Mueller “Just look at the many abbreviations we use for the same thing: HPT, PT, PI…We can’t even agree on a label” to Roger Kaufman’s comment, “Others don’t know what HPT is because we don’t know what it is” (Pershing, et.al. 2008). So, I guess I don’t feel so bad that I didn’t know what it was nor had I ever heard about HPT prior to taking this course.

The article even mentioned that the ISPI doesn’t even “do a very good job in describing HPT in easy terms” (Pershing, et.al. 2008). That’s too bad because my understanding of what we’ve been learning is that HPT can be so beneficial in most businesses if leveraged correctly. The article reinforces something I got from Dr. Rossett’s session this week, that we could achieve more understanding of HPT and more recognition “through clarifying in simple ways what the field of HPT is and explicitly demonstrating the unique contributions of HPT to organizations” (Pershing, et.al. 2008). Dr. Rossett used the word “stories” several times in her talk with us. Sharing stories makes me think that we could explain HPT’s use and usefulness in a variety of businesses by sharing examples. In order to relate to something, it needs to be relatable. People and businesses need to see themselves and their organization in the narrative and how it would explicitly apply to them.

I enjoyed reading Stolovitch’s article (2015) which talks about the “marriage” between theory and practice in HPT. Figure 1 below shows the comparison between research/theory vs. practice:

This article concludes that both will have a lot to learn from each other, and that makes total sense. It’s very important for the HPT practitioner to be grounded in theories and research, but it’s also equally important for the researcher and theorist to understand how HPT is being applied in the real world and the constraints placed upon the practitioner by their business, organization, or client. This article closed with 10 guiding principles for HPT practitioners and researchers to live by, showing further the need for both, with the “golden rule” stated:

“If you are a practitioner, think of yourself every day as a researcher. If you are a researcher, think of yourself every day as a practitioner. Through respect and adherence to our scientific roots, we can ensure that HPT will maintain its right to endure” (Stolovitch, 2015).

I still have a lot to learn about HPT, but through our conversation with Dr. Allison Rossett and reading the articles this week, some of the fog is starting to clear up.

References:

Pershing, J. A., Lee, J., & Cheng, J. (2008). Current status, future trends, and issues in human performance technology, part 1: Influential domains, current status, and recognition of HPT. Performance Improvement, 47(1), 9-17.

Stolovitch, H. D. (2015). Human performance technology: Research and theory to practice. Performance Improvement, 54(3).