Point: Education and Training have Different Intents
By Chuck Hunter, Project Manager and Instructional Designer, Visual Purple, LLC
Welcome to Visual Purple’s first point, counterpoint debate. We often have differences of opinion as we poke around at the leading edge of technology. So, it was not unusual the other day when we off-roaded into a lively discussion about education verses training. I took the position that education and training are different while my boss is hard pressed to see real differences. This discussion certainly is not new nor is it earth shattering, but understanding the distinction is important when designing instruction suitable to the intent.
The intent of education is to develop a student’s knowledge and theoretical understanding in a field of study where the intent of training is to improve a learner’s specific performance of a task. In other words education is the arena of “why,” where training is the arena of “how to.” For instance there are numerous examples where following a learned procedure will lead to perfect performance each and every time without understanding why the procedure works. Thus, there is training without education. It is also possible to understand the theoretical without being able to perform specific related tasks. Thus, there is education without training.
The conceptual importance of the education verses training distinction in instructional design bears directly on the learner’s need for the information, the nature of the course content and the learning assessment tools employed in the instructional delivery. Educational course development might focus on the philosophy of a topic with readings and open discussions to deliver the course content while exposition might be used to assess understanding of the content. Training course development would certainly focus on procedures and facts in the content while assessment of understanding would include a means of performing the procedures contained within the course content. For example an understanding of accounts receivable and its impact on financial statements would be considered educational while the specific procedures for creating invoices and receiving payments in JDEdwards is clearly specific performance of tasks. The former could be contained within management education totally without procedural reference while the latter could be contained within training for accounts receivable staff totally without any reference to accounts receivables impact on organizational goals.
At a minimum there is a difference in concept and approach when designing instruction for theoretical and philosophical knowledge verses procedural facts. The terms education and training serve as long held and effective terms to differentiate between the types of content and the intent associated with each.
I’ll leave you to consider these common examples and the affect of interchanging the terms education and training:
– “Higher education” verses “Higher training”
– “Corporate Training” verses “Corporate Education”
– “American Society for Training and Development” verses “American Society for Education and Development”
– “Liberal Arts Education” verses “Liberal Arts training”
– “Dog Training” verses “Dog Education”
Excellent article Mr. Hunter. I have been working at a university for the past 8 years, yet my primary duty is to “train” first year students in using specific software packages. We do however try to always impress upon them the idea of transferable skills, so there is some education blended in with our training. Thank you for putting the difference so succinctly as it has been something I have been struggling with over the years as knowing how to approach your material has a definite impact on improving the quality of the material you produce or teach.
Now, what’s the different between “teaching” and “instructing”? Do educators teach and trainers instruct or train?
Question: “Now, what’s the different between “teaching” and “instructing”?”
If education concerns itself with the arena of the “why” to increase a learner’s knowledge and theoretical understanding and training concerns itself with the arena of the “how to” to produce specific performance of a task, then teaching’s primary focus is the subjective while training’s primary focus is on the objective.
There are numerous examples of teaching and instructing in software training. For years I taught classes in Publisher, Illustrator and other design software packages. I was very proficient in the location of tools on menus and the technical functioning of the applications. However, I am not an artist. I could not teach how best to apply the tools contained within the software but only their location and function. An understanding of composition, light and color as well as other subjective education is necessary to produce art with the tools. An artist friend of mine use to say that we both know how to use a pencil but look what will be produce by a pencil in his hand and look at what will be produced by a pencil in my hand. Instruction is how to use the pencil. Education is drawing a feeling that inspires.
Question: “Do educators teach and trainers instruct or train?”
The answer to this question is driven by a combination of the audience and the learning objectives. While there is a difference between teaching and instructing the audience and the learning objectives drive the appropriate blend of each to address the audience at the appropriate level and where to guide them. To this end, teaching and instructing are not mutually exclusive paths but tools to be mixed and matched toward the desired outcome.