review of literature of training and development

Subject List
Take a Tour
For Authors
Subscriber Services
Publications
African American Studies
African Studies
American Literature
Anthropology
Architecture Planning and Preservation
Art History
Atlantic History
Biblical Studies
British and Irish Literature
Childhood Studies
Chinese Studies
Cinema and Media Studies
Communication
Criminology
Environmental Science
Evolutionary Biology
International Law
International Relations
Islamic Studies
Jewish Studies
Latin American Studies
Latino Studies
Linguistics
Literary and Critical Theory
Medieval Studies
Military History
Political Science
Public Health
Renaissance and Reformation
Social Work
Urban Studies
Victorian Literature
Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Training and Development

Introduction, general overviews.

Reference Works
Instructional Systems Design
Needs Assessment
Training Methods
Pre-training Interventions
Training Media
Training Teams
Training Evaluation
Learner Characteristics
Learning Context
Employee Development
Macroperspectives

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

Diversity and Firm Performance
Executive Succession
Organization Design
Find more forthcoming articles...
Export Citations
Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Training and Development by Kenneth G. Brown LAST REVIEWED: 26 October 2015 LAST MODIFIED: 26 October 2015 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0013

Training and development is the study of how structured experiences help employees gain work-related knowledge, skill, and attitudes. It is like many other topics in management in that it is inherently multidisciplinary in nature. At its core is the psychological study of learning and transfer. A variety of disciplines offer insights into this topic, including, but not limited to, industrial and organizational psychology, educational psychology, human resource development, organizational development, industrial and labor relations, strategic management, and labor economics. The focus of this bibliography is primarily psychological with an emphasis on theory and practice that examines training processes and the learning outcomes they seek to influence. Nevertheless, literature from other perspectives will be introduced on a variety of topics within this area of study.

These articles and chapters provide background for the study of training and development, particularly as studied by management scholars with backgrounds in human resource management, organizational behavior, human resource development, and industrial and organizational psychology. Kraiger 2003 examines training from three different perspectives. Aguinis and Kraiger 2009 provides a narrative review of ten years of research on training and employee development, focusing on the many benefits of providing structured learning experiences to employees. Brown and Sitzmann 2011 also reviews the literature and emphasizes research on the processes that are required to ensure that training benefits emerge. Arthur, et al. 2003 meta-analyzes the literature on training effectiveness. Russ-Eft 2002 proposes a typology of training designs. Salas, et al. 2012 offers recommendations for evidence-based training practice. Noe, et al 2014 examines training in a broader context, relative to the roles of informal learning and knowledge transfer.

Aguinis, Herman, and Kurt Kraiger. “Benefits of Training and Development for Individuals and Teams, Organizations, and Society.” Annual Review of Psychology 60.1 (January 2009): 451–474.

DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163505

A comprehensive review of training and development literature from 1999 to 2009 with an emphasis on the benefits that training offers across multiple levels of analysis.

Arthur, Winfred A., Jr., Winston Bennett Jr., Pamela S. Edens, and Suzanne T. Bell. “Effectiveness of Training in Organizations: A Meta-analysis of Design and Evaluation Features.” Journal of Applied Psychology 88.2 (April 2003): 234–245.

DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234

Offers a comprehensive meta-analysis of the relationships among training design and evaluation features and various training effectiveness outcomes (reaction, learning, behavior, and results).

Brown, Kenneth G., and Traci Sitzmann. “Training and Employee Development for Improved Performance.” In APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology . Vol. 2, Selecting and Developing Members for the Organization . Edited by Sheldon Zedeck, 469–503. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2011.

DOI: 10.1037/12170-000

A comprehensive review of training and development in work organizations with an emphasis on the processes necessary for training to be effective for improving individual and team performance.

Kraiger, Kurt. “Perspectives on Training and Development.” In Handbook of Psychology . Vol. 12. Edited by Irving B. Weiner and Walter C. Borman, Daniel R. Ilgen, and Richard J. KIlimoski, 171–192. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2003.

DOI: 10.1002/0471264385

Reviews training literature from three perspectives: instruction, learning, and organizational change.

Noe, Raymond A., Alena D. M. Clarke, and Howard J. Klein. “Learning in the Twenty-first-century Workplace.” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 1 (2014): 245–275.

DOI: 10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091321

A review that places training and development in a broader context with other learning-related interventions and practices such as informal learning and knowledge sharing. The chapter explains factors that facilitate learning in organizations.

Russ-Eft, Darlene. “A Typology of Training Design and Work Environment Factors Affecting Workplace Learning and Transfer.” Human Resource Development Review 1 (March 2002): 45–65.

DOI: 10.1177/1534484302011003

Presents a typology summarizing elements of training and work environments that foster transfer of training.

Salas, Eduardo, Scott I. Tannenbaum, Kurt Kraiger, and Kimberly A. Smith-Jentsch. “The Science of Training and Development in Organizations: What Matters in Practice.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13.2 (2012): 74–101.

DOI: 10.1177/1529100612436661

Reviews meta-analytic evidence and offers evidence-based recommendations for maximizing training effectiveness.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

About Management »
Meet the Editorial Board »
Abusive Supervision
Adverse Impact and Equal Employment Opportunity Analytics
Alliance Portfolios
Applied Political Risk Analysis
Approaches to Social Responsibility
Assessment Centers: Theory, Practice and Research
Attributions
Authentic Leadership
Bayesian Statistics
Behavior, Organizational
Behavioral Approach to Leadership
Behavioral Theory of the Firm
Between Organizations, Social Networks in and
Brokerage in Networks
Business and Human Rights
Certified B Corporations and Benefit Corporations
Charismatic and Innovative Team Leadership By and For Mill...
Charismatic and Transformational Leadership
Compensation, Rewards, Remuneration
Competitive Dynamics
Competitive Heterogeneity
Competitive Intensity
Computational Modeling
Conditional Reasoning
Conflict Management
Considerate Leadership
Cooperation-Competition (Coopetition)
Corporate Philanthropy
Corporate Social Performance
Corporate Venture Capital
Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)
Cross-Cultural Communication
Cross-Cultural Management
Cultural Intelligence
Culture, Organization
Data Analytic Methods
Decision Making
Dynamic Capabilities
Emotional Labor
Employee Aging
Employee Engagement
Employee Ownership
Employee Voice
Empowerment, Psychological
Entrepreneurial Firms
Entrepreneurial Orientation
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship, Corporate
Entrepreneurship, Women’s
Equal Employment Opportunity
Faking in Personnel Selection
Family Business, Managing
Financial Markets in Organization Theory and Economic Soci...
Findings, Reporting Research
Firm Bribery
First-Mover Advantage
Fit, Person-Environment
Forecasting
Founding Teams
Global Leadership
Global Talent Management
Grounded Theory
Hofstedes Cultural Dimensions
Human Capital Resource Pipelines
Human Resource Management, Strategic
Human Resources, Global
Human Rights
Humanitarian Work Psychology
Humility in Management
Impression Management at Work
Influence Strategies/Tactics in the Workplace
Information Economics
Innovative Behavior
Intelligence, Emotional
International Economic Development and SMEs
International Economic Systems
International Strategic Alliances
Job Analysis and Competency Modeling
Job Crafting
Job Satisfaction
Judgment and Decision Making in Teams
Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration within and across Firm...
Leader-Member Exchange
Leadership Development
Leadership Development and Organizational Change, Coaching...
Leadership, Ethical
Leadership, Global and Comparative
Leadership, Strategic
Learning by Doing in Organizational Activities
Management History
Management In Antiquity
Managerial and Organizational Cognition
Managerial Discretion
Meaningful Work
Multinational Corporations and Emerging Markets
Neo-institutional Theory
Neuroscience, Organizational
New Ventures
Organization Design, Global
Organization Development and Change
Organization Research, Ethnography in
Organization Theory
Organizational Adaptation
Organizational Ambidexterity
Organizational Behavior, Emotions in
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)
Organizational Climate
Organizational Control
Organizational Corruption
Organizational Hybridity
Organizational Identity
Organizational Justice
Organizational Legitimacy
Organizational Networks
Organizational Paradox
Organizational Performance, Personality Theory and
Organizational Responsibility
Organizational Surveys, Driving Change Through
Organizations, Big Data in
Organizations, Gender in
Organizations, Identity Work in
Organizations, Political Ideology in
Organizations, Social Identity Processes in
Overqualification
Paternalistic Leadership
Pay for Skills, Knowledge, and Competencies
People Analytics
Performance Appraisal
Performance Feedback Theory
Planning And Goal Setting
Proactive Work Behavior
Psychological Contracts
Psychological Safety
Real Options Theory
Recruitment
Regional Entrepreneurship
Reputation, Organizational Image and
Research, Ethics in
Research, Longitudinal
Research Methods
Research Methods, Qualitative
Resource Redeployment
Resource-Dependence Theory
Response Surface Analysis, Polynomial Regression and
Role of Time in Organizational Studies
Safety, Work Place
Selection, Applicant Reactions to
Self-Determination Theory for Work Motivation
Self-Efficacy
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy In Management
Self-Management and Personal Agency
Sensemaking in and around Organizations
Service Management
Shared Team Leadership
Social Cognitive Theory
Social Evaluation: Status and Reputation
Social Movement Theory
Social Ties and Network Structure
Socialization
Sports Settings in Management Research
Stakeholders
Status in Organizations
Strategic Alliances
Strategic Human Capital
Strategy and Cognition
Strategy Implementation
Structural Contingency Theory/Information Processing Theor...
Team Composition
Team Conflict
Team Design Characteristics
Team Learning
Team Mental Models
Team Newcomers
Team Performance
Team Processes
Teams, Global
Technology and Innovation Management
Technology, Organizational Assessment and
the Workplace, Millennials in
Theory X and Theory Y
Time and Motion Studies
Training and Development
Trust in Organizational Contexts
Unobtrusive Measures
Virtual Teams
Whistle-Blowing
Work and Family: An Organizational Science Overview
Work Contexts, Nonverbal Communication in
Work, Mindfulness at
Workplace Aggression and Violence
Workplace Coaching
Workplace Commitment
Workplace Gossip
Workplace Meetings
Workplace, Spiritual Leadership in the
World War II, Management Research during
Privacy Policy
Cookie Policy
Legal Notice
Accessibility

[66.249.64.20|109.248.223.228]
109.248.223.228

Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society

Affiliation.

1 The Business School, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado 80217-3364, USA. [email protected]
PMID: 18976113
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.60.110707.163505

This article provides a review of the training and development literature since the year 2000. We review the literature focusing on the benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. We adopt a multidisciplinary, multilevel, and global perspective to demonstrate that training and development activities in work organizations can produce important benefits for each of these stakeholders. We also review the literature on needs assessment and pretraining states, training design and delivery, training evaluation, and transfer of training to identify the conditions under which the benefits of training and development are maximized. Finally, we identify research gaps and offer directions for future research.

Publication types

Health Services Needs and Demand
Inservice Training*
Organizational Objectives
Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care
Social Values
Staff Development*
Transfer, Psychology

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

We're Hiring!
Help Center

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

In this competitive world, training plays an important role in the competent and challenging format of business. Training is the nerve that suffices the need of fluent and smooth functioning of work which helps in enhancing the quality of work life of employees and organizational development too. Development is a process that leads to qualitative as well as quantitative advancements in the organization, especially at the managerial level, it is less considered with physical skills and is more concerned with knowledge, values, attitudes and behaviour in addition to specific skills. Hence, development can be said as a continuous process whereas training has specific areas and objectives. So, every organization needs to study the role, importance and advantages of training and its positive impact on development for the growth of the organization. Quality of work life is a process in which the organization recognizes their responsibility for excellence of organizational performance as well as employee skills. Training implies constructive development in such organizational motives for optimum enhancement of quality of work life of the employees. These types of training and development programs help in improving the employee behaviour and attitude towards the job and also uplift their morale. Thus, employee training and development programs are important aspects which are needed to be studied and focused on. This paper focuses and analyses the literature findings on importance of training and development and its relation with the employees' quality of work life.

Related Papers

IAEME Publication

Quality of Work Life (QWL) of employees in any organization plays a very vital role in shaping of both the employees and the organization. The objective of this research is to highlight the prominence of training and development programmes adopted in manufacturing industries encompassing the private and public sectors and the impact that it exerts on the quality of work life of employees in these sectors. It is assumed that employees who undergo T & D programme either in private or public sectors enjoy better QWL. Here a comparative study among the employees of private and public manufacturing industries is carried out to measure the QWL of employees in these respective sectors. Hence the research concludes that the QWL enjoyed by the employees of private industries is superior to the QWL of employees of public industries.

Noble Academic Publisher

josiah emmanuel

International Journal of Latest Technology in Engineering, Management & Applied Science -IJLTEMAS (www.ijltemas.in)

In this era where competition is increasing day by day in the corporate world training and development has become one of the important key to achieve success. Training is an important subsystem of Human Resource Development. It is a specialized function and is one of the fundamental operative functions for known resource management. Development is a long-term educational process utilizing a systematic and organized procedure by which managerial personnel get conceptual and theoretical knowledge. Basically, it is an attempt to improve the current or future employee performance of the employee by increasing his or her ability to perform through learning, usually by changing the employee’s attitude or increasing his or her skills and knowledge. These types of training and development programs help in improving the employee behavior and attitude towards the job and also uplift their morale. Thus, employee training and development programs are important aspects which are needed to be studied and focused on. This paper focusses on the advantages of the training and development for the employee’s.

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology IJSRST

The purpose of this paper is to present a conceptual study established on the employee training and development program and its benefits. This paper will inspect the structure and elements of employee training and development program and later the study present what are the positive outcomes for employees and organizations. Training and development play an important role in the effectiveness of organizations and to the experiences of people in work. Training has implications for productivity, health and safety at work and personal development. Modern organizations therefore use their resources (money, time, energy, information, etc.) for permanent training and advancement of their employees. Training and development is an instrument that aid human capital in exploring their dexterity. Therefore training and development is vital to the productivity of organization " s workforce. The study described here is a vigilant assessment of literature on fundamental of employee development program and its benefits to organizations and employees.

Dr Yashpal D Netragaonkar

“ To Study the Effectiveness of Employees Training & Development Program ”. The prime objective of research is to study the changes in skill , attitude, knowledge, behavior of Employees after Training program. It also studies the effectiveness of Training on both Individual and Organizational levels. Due to this research we are able to absorb current trends related to whole academic knowledge a nd its practical use. Such research is exposed us to set familiar with professional environment, working culture, behavior, oral communication & manners. Since the training is a result oriented process and a lot of time and expenditure, it is necessary tha t the training program should be designed with a great care. For evaluating effectiveness if training a questionnaire has to be carefully prepared for participants in order to receive feedback.

Venkata Sandeep

Tolulope J Ogunleye

Overtime, study had shown that to be relevant in any field of work there is need for continuous learning through training and development. The study is aimed at finding out the need for employees training and development in an organization. The need for improvement to change the phenomenon of low productivity and poor service delivery attributed to the employee’s in-adequate experience, calls for investigation on how effective training and development of employee can facilitate improved corporate performance using the banking industry as a field of discuss.. The study concluded that training and development brings about career growth for the employees and bankers thus the study recommended that all organization must do induction training at entry point into the banking sector.

International Journal of Research Publication (IJRP)

IAEME PUBLICATION

Training and development enables to develop skills and competencies necessary to enhance bottom-line results for their organization. It is a key ingredient for organizational performance improvement. It ensures that randomness is reduced and learning or behavioural change takes place in structured format. Training and Development helps in increasing the job knowledge and skills of employees at each level and helps to expand the horizons of human intellect and an overall personality of the employees. This paper analyses the link between various Training and Development programs organized in Larsen &Toubro Group of Companies and their impacts on employee satisfaction and performance. Data for the paper have been collected through primary source that are from questionnaire, surveys. There were two variables: Training and Development (independent) and Employees satisfaction and performance (dependent). The goal was to see whether Training and development has an impact on employee’s satisfaction and performance

Outcomes and Impact of Training and Development in Health Management and Leadership in Relation to Competence in Role: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Protocol

Reuben olugbenga ayeleke.

1 Health Systems Section, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

Nicola North

Katharine ann wallis.

2 Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

Zhanming Liang

3 Department of Public Health, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Annette Dunham

Background: The need for competence training and development in health management and leadership workforces has been emphasised. However, evidence of the outcomes and impact of such training and development has not been systematically assessed. The aim of this review is to synthesise the available evidence of the outcomes and impact of training and development in relation to the competence of health management and leadership workforces. This is with a view to enhancing the development of evidence-informed programmes to improve competence.

Methods and Analysis: A systematic review will be undertaken using a mixed-methods research synthesis to identify, assess and synthesise relevant empirical studies. We will search relevant electronic databases and other sources for eligible studies. The eligibility of studies for inclusion will be assessed independently by two review authors. Similarly, the methodological quality of the included studies will be assessed independently by two review authors using appropriate validated instruments. Data from qualitative studies will be synthesised using thematic analysis. For quantitative studies, appropriate effect size estimate will be calculated for each of the interventions. Where studies are sufficiently similar, their findings will be combined in meta-analyses or meta-syntheses. Findings from quantitative syntheses will be converted into textual descriptions (qualitative themes) using Bayesian method. Textual descriptions and results of the initial qualitative syntheses that are mutually compatible will be combined in mixed-methods syntheses.

Discussion: The outcome of data collection and analysis will lead, first, to a descriptive account of training and development programmes used to improve the competence of health management and leadership workforces and the acceptability of such programmes to participants. Secondly, the outcomes and impact of such programmes in relation to participants’ competence as well as individual and organisational performance will be identified. If possible, the relationship between health contexts and the interventions required to improve management and leadership competence will be examined

The healthcare system is complex, dynamic, constantly evolving, and a target of repeated reforms. These reforms have brought about changes to roles of those in health management and leadership and to the associated competence required to perform these roles. 1

The importance of developing and improving the competence of health management and leadership workforces through training and development programmes have been emphasised. 2 , 3 However, the effects of such programmes on competence and individual or organisational performance have not been assessed and synthesised systematically. Thus, questions arise as to whether or not the various interventions aimed at addressing the gaps in health management and leadership competence actually lead to improvement in individual and organisational performance. 4

Health management and leadership workforces play a crucial role in effective healthcare delivery, and in maximising the gains of the various reforms in the sector. 3 It is, therefore, pertinent to review available evidence of the overall effects of interventions to improve management and leadership competence. This, in turn, will inform appropriate policy formulation to enable competence improvement, and the development of evidence-informed and sustainable training and development programmes. With the recent upsurge in research in health management and leadership competence, this review is timely and necessary to ascertain where further research is required.

This review will make use of a mixed-methods research synthesis which could provide answers to a wide range of research questions which a single method approach might not address comprehensively.

Aim and Objectives

This review aims to critically appraise and synthesise empirical evidence of the outcomes and impact of training and development programmes in relation to the competence of health management and leadership workforces.

Review Questions

This review aims to answer the following questions:

What training and development programmes are used to improve the competence of health management and leadership workforces, and are acceptable to participants?
Do training and development programmes improve the competence of health management and leadership workforces?
What are the characteristics of training and development programmes that are effective and appropriate for improving the competence of health management and leadership workforces?

This review will make use of the segregated approach to mixed-methods research synthesis. 5 Thus, qualitative and quantitative studies as well as the respective components of primary level mixed-methods studies will be analysed into two separate sets of syntheses. Where appropriate, quantitative and qualitative data will then be integrated into a single synthesis using Bayesian method. 6

The review will, therefore, involve:

A synthesis of studies on the views, perspectives, or experiences of health management and leadership workforces on the outcomes and impact of the various training and development initiatives in relation to their competence and performance in roles;
A synthesis of evidence of the effectiveness of training and development initiatives for improving the competence of health management and leadership workforces.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Types of study.

Only empirical studies with qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods designs will be eligible for inclusion. Studies reporting the findings of empirical research without giving details of the primary studies will be excluded. Reviews and commentaries will also not be eligible for inclusion;
Qualitative research of any design which focused on the perspectives, experiences, or narratives of participants will be considered for inclusion. This will include designs such as general inductive design, grounded theory, action research, ethnography, among others;
Quantitative design will include experimental, quasi-experimental and non-experimental, or epidemiological study designs;
Mixed-methods design will be studies that employed mixed primary level qualitative and quantitative research approaches;
Only studies published in English language from 2000 to date will be eligible for inclusion as we consider the most recent publications to be more relevant to the current research efforts. However, seminal or germinal studies published prior to 2000 will be considered for inclusion.

Contexts or Settings

This review will examine the managerial and leadership competence of health managers and clinical leaders of health services and health organisations from different countries in relation to the health context in which the identified competence is required. Health context will be considered from the angle of the types of work and setting, which could include any of the following organisational settings:

Public sector;
Private sector;
Non-governmental organisations, charitable or voluntary organisations.

Studies that selected participants from the following work settings will be included in this review:

Hospital, including secondary and tertiary level care;
Primary healthcare services;
Community health services;
Residential care services;
Government ministries, departments and agencies responsible for policy formulation, funding, regulation, and administration;
Other work settings considered by the reviewers to be health sector or related to health sector.

Participants

Participants of the primary studies will be individuals with existing roles as managers or leaders in the health sector;
Generalist managers, professional health service managers, and individuals trained in other professions (eg, clinicians, IT personnel) but were involved in management and/or leadership development activities by virtue of their roles or positions as managers and/or leaders (eg, project managers, team leaders) will be eligible for inclusion;
All levels of management or leadership positions will be included: frontline, middle, senior, and executive levels;
Studies examining the competence of health professionals who perform dual roles eg, clinical and management/leadership roles, will be eligible for inclusion, providing separate data are available for management and/or leadership roles;
Studies investigating the competence of both management and non-management staff will be included, providing separate data are provided for participants in management and/or leadership roles;
Studies examining the competence of prospective or newly employed health managers and/or leaders with no prior management and/or leadership experience will be excluded; studies investigating the competence of individuals previously engaged in management and/or leadership positions will also be excluded.

Interventions or Exposures

This review will consider ‘interventions’ as any specific initiatives (both formal and informal) intended to improve the competence of personnel responsible for management and leadership roles in healthcare organisations;
Such initiatives may include coaching, mentoring, supervision, continuing professional development, training, formal education, contextualised learning, or other specific initiatives which are considered by this review to be appropriate for improving the competence of health managers and leaders;
Studies on measures or incentives to improve the performance of health workers, including management and leadership workforces, but which did not address management or leadership competence, will be excluded.

Comparators or Control

Where applicable, comparators or control will be non-exposure to the intervention of interest or exposure to an intervention which is considered by this review not to be related to improving the competence of health management and leadership workforces.

Outcome and Impact Measures

In this review, the terms ‘outcomes and impact’ will be defined, using the operational definitions of the Centre for Non-profit Management (CNM), the United States 7 as guides. Thus, outcomes refer to the measurable and specific effects of interventions (in the short and medium terms) such as the number of participants demonstrating changes in competence at the end of interventions. Impact, on the other hand, refer to the broad and long-term effects of interventions, either negative or positive, intended or un-intended; for example, changes in individual and organisational performance following completion of interventions.

Outcome and impact measures that will be considered in this review are those that will assist in addressing the research questions. Studies will not be excluded solely on the basis of not reporting any relevant outcome or impact measures, providing their designs, settings, participants and interventions meet the eligibility criteria for inclusion. Authors of such studies will be contacted for information on outcome and/or impact measures that could be relevant to the review. Final assessment of the outcomes and impact of training and development programmes will be based on studies that reported those data and on studies whose authors provided relevant information on outcome and/or impact measures following contact.

For the purpose of data synthesis and because of the possibility of studies reporting their findings at different end points, studies assessing the effects of interventions within each of the following time intervals will be regarded as similar in relation to timing of effect measures (such studies may be combined in meta-analysis or meta-synthesis, providing they are similar with respect to other characteristics ie, settings, participants, interventions and outcome or impact measures):

Immediately at the end of intervention and up to three months after completion of intervention (short-term measures);
More than three months and up to six months after completion of interventions (medium-term measures);
More than six months and up to 12 months after completion of interventions (long-term measures).

The following primary and secondary outcome and impact measures will be considered:

Primary Outcome and Impact Measures

These will be assessed as the direct effects of interventions related to participants’ managerial and/or leadership competence and performance in roles.

Primary outcome measures will consist of the following:

Objective assessment of competence or proficiency by participants, using standardised instruments;
Objective assessment of competence or proficiency by stakeholders eg, participants’ superior officers and professional colleagues, using validated instruments;
Subjective assessment of competence or proficiency from participants’ perspectives;
Subjective assessment of competence or proficiency from stakeholders’ perspectives eg, participants’ superior officers and professional colleagues.

Primary impact measures will be:

Participants’ performance in the related area following specific training or professional development inputs eg, financial performance, managerial and/or leadership performance.

Secondary Outcome and Impact Measures

These will be considered as the indirect effects of interventions related to individuals (participants) and/or organisations.

Secondary outcome measures will consist of:

Costs associated with the intervention;
Participants’ evaluation of the intervention in terms of their level of satisfaction with and acceptability of the interventions.

Secondary impact measures will consist of:

Organisational performance in the related area following specific training or professional development inputs eg, quality of service, customer satisfaction, change in infection rates, morbidity and mortality rates, staff turnover.

Search Strategy

A comprehensive search for relevant studies will be undertaken. The main concepts addressed in the review (ie, impact, health leadership or management, competence, training or development and performance or outcome) will be searched using strings of subject headings (from either the controlled vocabulary or thesaurus as appropriate) and free-text. The search strategy will be designed by combining search strings for each of the key concepts so as to identify studies that focus on, for example, health AND (management or leadership) AND (training or development) AND competence. A number of search strategies will be combined and utilised, depending on the database, to locate studies,

Only studies published in English language from 2000 to date will be included in this review. However, seminal studies published prior to 2000 will be considered for inclusion. Subject-specific electronic databases will be searched to identify studies relevant to the review. Other electronic sources will be databases dedicated to review of research, dissertations and theses. For the full list of electronic databases and catalogue to be searched, see Appendix 1 .

Other potential sources will be searched to identify relevant studies. These will include hand searching of reference lists of included studies, conference proceedings, grey literature and websites of relevant health professional bodies, World Health Organization (WHO), and appropriate government agencies.

Data Extraction and Analysis

Selection of studies.

Search results will be uploaded into RefWorks or EndNote so as to identify and remove any duplicates. The list of titles and abstracts generated by the search will be screened independently by two reviewers to identify potentially relevant articles. Full-text articles of potentially relevant articles will be retrieved and assessed independently for eligibility by two reviewers in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria described above. Any difference in opinion between the two reviewers will be resolved through discussion or consultation with a third reviewer.

Data Extraction and Management

Two reviewers will extract data independently from the included studies using data extraction forms specifically developed for each study design. Disagreement, if any, between the reviewers will be resolved through discussion or by seeking the opinion of a third reviewer. Data will be extracted from each of the included studies with respect to study designs, settings, participants, interventions, and outcome and impact measures considered relevant to the review questions. For qualitative studies, key themes will be coded according to the content of the findings of each study, using NVIVO software. For quantitative research, descriptive and outcome data will be checked and double entered into RevMan data management software. Where data are missing, unclear or presented in a form that cannot easily be extracted, study authors will be contacted for clarification or assistance with the process of data extraction.

Assessment of Methodological Quality/Risk of Bias of Studies

This review will make use of methodologically appropriate tools to critically appraise the methodological quality of included studies. These are the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) tool for quantitative studies, 8 the Critical Appraisal Skill Programme (CASP) tool for qualitative studies, 9 and a combination of these tools for mixed-methods designs.

The methodological quality of quantitative studies (ie, the risk of bias) will be assessed with respect to appropriateness of study design, process used in selecting participants, control for confounding factors, blinding of participants and/or personnel, including outcome assessors (researcher’s role and influence), follow up length, withdrawals/losses to follow up and reasons for withdrawals, data collection and analysis methods.

Qualitative studies will be assessed in relation to the appropriateness of qualitative design for the research question, appropriateness of the recruitment process, adequate description of data collection process and data analysis (rigor), researcher’s role and influence (bias) as well as the process to ensure credibility of the findings through, for example, triangulation and respondent validation.

Mixed-methods studies will be separated into their respective quantitative and qualitative components and assessed using the respective assessment tool for each study design. The outcomes of the assessment of the two separate components will be incorporated into the respective findings of the methodological assessment of the primary level quantitative and qualitative studies.

The overall quality of each study will be graded as ‘very good’ (high quality), ‘moderate’ or ‘weak’ (low quality) based on the average score for the domains assessed. No studies will be excluded on the basis of being of low quality; rather, the effect of inclusion of such low quality studies will be explored by using sensitivity analysis where appropriate. This will be done by considering the effect of removal of studies rated as low quality on the findings of both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Two reviewers will assess independently the methodological quality of studies. Any disagreement will be resolved through discussion or by consulting with a third reviewer.

Data Synthesis

Quantitative studies.

The effectiveness or otherwise of each intervention in improving the competence of participants will be determined by calculating, where appropriate, the effect size estimate for each intervention. Effect sizes will be expressed as odds ratio (OR) or risk ratio (RR) for categorical data and weighted mean difference (MD) for continuous data and 95% CIs will be calculated.

Studies that are sufficiently similar with respect to settings, participants, interventions and outcome or impact measures will be combined in meta-analysis. Where it is not possible to conduct meta-analysis due to substantial heterogeneity among studies, findings from individual studies will be presented in narrative analysis, using tables and figures as appropriate.

Qualitative Studies

Data from studies that examined the views, perspectives or experiences of participants will be synthesised thematically by two reviewers in accordance with the existing methods for thematic synthesis of qualitative research. 10 Findings of the included studies will be assembled and rated according to their quality and then categorised into themes and sub-themes based on their similarity in meaning. The emerging themes and sub-themes will be examined to see how they are related to the research questions.

Where studies are sufficiently similar with respect to settings, participants, interventions and outcome or impact measures, a single set of synthesised findings will be produced by pooling the emerging themes in a meta-synthesis. Otherwise, the findings from each study will be presented in narrative form in an evidence table, taking into consideration the quality and consistency of the findings as well as their applicability to the research questions.

Mixed-Methods Studies

Findings of mixed-methods studies will be separated into their respective quantitative and qualitative components. Where possible, the quantitative component will be included in the quantitative synthesis while the qualitative component will be incorporated into the qualitative synthesis.

Aggregation of Data/Mixed-Methods Synthesis

Findings from quantitative and qualitative studies will be analysed separately (as previously described) using the segregated approach 5 and integrated into two separate sets of data. Results from the initial quantitative syntheses will then be converted into textual descriptions (qualitative themes) using Bayesian method as described by Crandell and colleagues. 6 Textual descriptions and the initial synthesised findings from qualitative studies that are mutually compatible or sufficiently similar will then be combined to generate mixed-methods syntheses using appropriate mixed-methods research analytical/assessment instrument. However, where it is not possible to conduct meta-analysis or meta-synthesis due to insufficient studies or substantial heterogeneity (differences) among studies, findings from individual quantitative studies will be converted into textual forms and then combine with compatible themes from individual or synthesised qualitative findings.

Subgroup Analysis

Subject to the availability of sufficient studies, subgroup analysis will be conducted to examine the influence of health system contexts on training and development needs of health management and leadership workforces. Studies will be subgrouped by:

Type of health sector (public, private; hospital, community health services);
Location of health facility (urban, rural);
Management and leadership level (front-line/middle, senior).

Descriptive statistics will be used to summarise information on training and development programmes which are used to improve the competence of health management and leadership workforces and the acceptability of such programmes to participants. The review will identify common characteristics of: (1) interventions found to have improved the competence of participants, and (2) those interventions considered to be ineffective. Success of interventions or otherwise will be determined by examining outcomes and impact at the individual level only. If possible, the effects of such interventions on organisational performance, mediated through improved competence, will be identified.

The contextual effects of health settings on the interventions, ie, the relationship between health contexts and the interventions required to improve management and leadership competence, will be examined. This will help guide the applicability of the findings of the review to other health settings not identified by the included studies. If possible, any relationship between management levels and effectiveness of interventions will also be investigated. The outcome of this systematic review will be an understanding of the evidence for the relationship between training and professional development interventions and improved health management and leadership competence.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Vanessa Jordan of the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand for reviewing the methods section of the protocol.

Ethical issues

Not applicable.

Competing interests

Authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

The protocol was conceived by ROA and NN. Both authors contributed to the development of the protocol. ROA wrote the draft copy and final version of the manuscript. NN, KAW, ZL, and AD commented on the draft copy and revised the final version of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Authors’ affiliations

1 Health Systems Section, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. 2 Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. 3 Department of Public Health, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Search Sources

The following electronic databases and catalogues will be searched:

Cochrane databases of Systematic Reviews (CDSR)
Current contents
Database of Abstracts of Review of Effects (DARE)
Database of Public Health Effectiveness Reviews (DOPHER)
Health Promis (Database of the Health Development Agency)
Health Management Information Consortium (HMIC)
Health Services Technology Assessment Texts (HSTAT)
Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS)
ScienceDirect
System for Information on Grey Literature in Europe Archive (SIGLE)
Trials Register of Public Health Interventions (TROPHI)

Citation: Ayeleke RO, North N, Wallis KA, Liang Z, Dunham A. Outcomes and impact of training and development in health management and leadership in relation to competence in role: a mixed-methods systematic review protocol. Int J Health Policy Manag. 2016;5(12):715–720. doi:10.15171/ijhpm.2016.138

Systematic Literature Review of E-Learning Capabilities to Enhance Organizational Learning

Open access
Published: 01 February 2021
Volume 24 , pages 619–635, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

review of literature of training and development

Michail N. Giannakos 1 ,
Patrick Mikalef 1 &
Ilias O. Pappas ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7528-3488 1 , 2

21k Accesses

32 Citations

Explore all metrics

E-learning systems are receiving ever increasing attention in academia, business and public administration. Major crises, like the pandemic, highlight the tremendous importance of the appropriate development of e-learning systems and its adoption and processes in organizations. Managers and employees who need efficient forms of training and learning flow within organizations do not have to gather in one place at the same time or to travel far away to attend courses. Contemporary affordances of e-learning systems allow users to perform different jobs or tasks for training courses according to their own scheduling, as well as to collaborate and share knowledge and experiences that result in rich learning flows within organizations. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of empirical studies at the intersection of e-learning and organizational learning in order to summarize the current findings and guide future research. Forty-seven peer-reviewed articles were collected from a systematic literature search and analyzed based on a categorization of their main elements. This survey identifies five major directions of the research on the confluence of e-learning and organizational learning during the last decade. Future research should leverage big data produced from the platforms and investigate how the incorporation of advanced learning technologies (e.g., learning analytics, personalized learning) can help increase organizational value.

A Systematic Review of Research on Personalized Learning: Personalized by Whom, to What, How, and for What Purpose(s)?

Exploring Human Resource Management Digital Transformation in the Digital Age

Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

E-learning covers the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in environments with the main goal of fostering learning (Rosenberg and Foshay 2002 ). The term “e-learning” is often used as an umbrella term to portray several modes of digital learning environments (e.g., online, virtual learning environments, social learning technologies). Digitalization seems to challenge numerous business models in organizations and raises important questions about the meaning and practice of learning and development (Dignen and Burmeister 2020 ). Among other things, the digitalization of resources and processes enables flexible ways to foster learning across an organization’s different sections and personnel.

Learning has long been associated with formal or informal education and training. However organizational learning is much more than that. It can be defined as “a learning process within organizations that involves the interaction of individual and collective (group, organizational, and inter-organizational) levels of analysis and leads to achieving organizations’ goals” (Popova-Nowak and Cseh 2015 ) with a focus on the flow of knowledge across the different organizational levels (Oh 2019 ). Flow of knowledge or learning flow is the way in which new knowledge flows from the individual to the organizational level (i.e., feed forward) and vice versa (i.e., feedback) (Crossan et al. 1999 ; March 1991 ). Learning flow and the respective processes constitute the cornerstone of an organization’s learning activities (e.g., from physical training meetings to digital learning resources), they are directly connected to the psycho-social experiences of an organization’s members, and they eventually lead to organizational change (Crossan et al. 2011 ). The overall organizational learning is extremely important in an organization because it is associated with the process of creating value from an organizations’ intangible assets. Moreover, it combines notions from several different domains, such as organizational behavior, human resource management, artificial intelligence, and information technology (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ).

A growing body of literature lies at the intersection of e-learning and organizational learning. However, there is limited work on the qualities of e-learning and the potential of its qualities to enhance organizational learning (Popova-Nowak and Cseh 2015 ). Blockages and disruptions in the internal flow of knowledge is a major reason why organizational change initiatives often fail to produce their intended results (Dee and Leisyte 2017 ). In recent years, several models of organizational learning have been published (Berends and Lammers 2010 ; Oh 2019 ). However, detailed empirical studies indicate that learning does not always proceed smoothly in organizations; rather, the learning meets interruptions and breakdowns (Engeström et al. 2007 ).

Discontinuities and disruptions are common phenomena in organizational learning (Berends and Lammers 2010 ), and they stem from various causes. For example, organizational members’ low self-esteem, unsupportive technology and instructors (Garavan et al. 2019 ), and even crises like the Covid-19 pandemic can result in demotivated learners and overall unwanted consequences for their learning (Broadbent 2017 ). In a recent conceptual article, Popova-Nowak and Cseh ( 2015 ) emphasized that there is a limited use of multidisciplinary perspectives to investigate and explain the processes and importance of utilizing the available capabilities and resources and of creating contexts where learning is “attractive to individual agents so that they can be more engaged in exploring ways in which they can contribute through their learning to the ongoing renewal of organizational routines and practices” (Antonacopoulou and Chiva 2007 , p. 289).

Despite the importance of e-learning, the lack of systematic reviews in this area significantly hinders research on the highly promising value of e-learning capabilities for efficiently supporting organizational learning. This gap leaves practitioners and researchers in uncharted territories when faced with the task of implementing e-learning designs or deciding on their digital learning strategies to enhance the learning flow of their organizations. Hence, in order to derive meaningful theoretical and practical implications, as well as to identify important areas for future research, it is critical to understand how the core capabilities pertinent to e-learning possess the capacity to enhance organizational learning.

In this paper, we define e-learning enhanced organizational learning (eOL) as the utilization of digital technologies to enhance the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding in an organization. In recent years, a significant body of research has focused on the intersection of e-learning and organizational learning (e.g., Khandakar and Pangil 2019 ; Lin et al. 2019 ; Menolli et al. 2020 ; Turi et al. 2019 ; Xiang et al. 2020 ). However, there is a lack of systematic work that summarizes and conceptualizes the results in order to support organizations that want to move from being information-based enterprises to being knowledge-based ones (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ). In particular, recent technological advances have led to an increase in research that leverages e-learning capacities to support organizational learning, from virtual reality (VR) environments (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ; Muller Queiroz et al. 2018 ) to mobile computing applications (Renner et al. 2020 ) to adaptive learning and learning analytics (Zhang et al. 2019 ). These studies support different skills, consider different industries and organizations, and utilize various capacities while focusing on various learning objectives (Garavan et al. 2019 ). Our literature review aims to tease apart these particularities and to investigate how these elements have been utilized over the past decade in eOL research. Therefore, in this review we aim to answer the following research questions (RQs):

RQ1: What is the status of research at the intersection of e-learning and organizational learning, seen through the lens of areas of implementation (e.g., industries, public sector), technologies used, and methodologies (e.g., types of data and data analysis techniques employed)?

RQ2: How can e-learning be leveraged to enhance the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding in an organization?

Our motivation for this work is based on the emerging developments in the area of learning technologies that have created momentum for their adoption by organizations. This paper provides a review of research on e-learning capabilities to enhance organizational learning with the purpose of summarizing the findings and guiding future studies. This study can provide a springboard for other scholars and practitioners, especially in the area of knowledge-based enterprises, to examine e-learning approaches by taking into consideration the prior and ongoing research efforts. Therefore, in this paper we present a systematic literature review (SLR) (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ) on the confluence of e-learning and organizational learning that uncovers initial findings on the value of e-learning to support organizational learning while also delineating several promising research streams.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we present the related background work. The third section describes the methodology used for the literature review and how the studies were selected and analyzed. The fourth section presents the research findings derived from the data analysis based on the specific areas of focus. In the fifth section, we discuss the findings, the implications for practice and research, and the limitations of the selected methodological approach. In the final section, we summarize the conclusions from the study and make suggestions for future work.

2 Background and Related Work

2.1 e-learning systems.

E-learning systems provide solutions that deliver knowledge and information, facilitate learning, and increase performance by developing appropriate knowledge flow inside organizations (Menolli et al. 2020 ). Putting into practice and appropriately managing technological solutions, processes, and resources are necessary for the efficient utilization of e-learning in an organization (Alharthi et al. 2019 ). Examples of e-learning systems that have been widely adopted by various organizations are Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. Such systems provide innovative services for students, employees, managers, instructors, institutions, and other actors to support and enhance the learning processes and facilitate efficient knowledge flow (Garavan et al. 2019 ). Functionalities, such as creating modules to organize mini course information and learning materials or communication channels such as chat, forums, and video exchange, allow instructors and managers to develop appropriate training and knowledge exchange (Wang et al. 2011 ). Nowadays, the utilization of various e-learning capabilities is a commodity for supporting organizational and workplace learning. Such learning refers to training or knowledge development (also known in the literature as learning and development, HR development, and corporate training: Smith and Sadler-Smith 2006 ; Garavan et al. 2019 ) that takes place in the context of work.

Previous studies have focused on evaluating e-learning systems that utilize various models and frameworks. In particular, the development of maturity models, such as the e-learning capability maturity model (eLCMM), addresses technology-oriented concerns (Hammad et al. 2017 ) by overcoming the limitations of the domain-specific models (e.g., game-based learning: Serrano et al. 2012 ) or more generic lenses such as the e-learning maturity model (Marshall 2006 ). The aforementioned models are very relevant since they focus on assessing the organizational capabilities for sustainably developing, deploying, and maintaining e-learning. In particular, the eLCMM focuses on assessing the maturity of adopting e-learning systems and adds a feedback building block for improving learners’ experiences (Hammad et al. 2017 ). Our proposed literature review builds on the previously discussed models, lenses, and empirical studies, and it provides a review of research on e-learning capabilities with the aim of enhancing organizational learning in order to complement the findings of the established models and guide future studies.

E-learning systems can be categorized into different types, depending on their functionalities and affordances. One very popular e-learning type is the learning management system (LMS), which includes a virtual classroom and collaboration capabilities and allows the instructor to design and orchestrate a course or a module. An LMS can be either proprietary (e.g., Blackboard) or open source (e.g., Moodle). These two types differ in their features, costs, and the services they provide; for example, proprietary systems prioritize assessment tools for instructors, whereas open-source systems focus more on community development and engagement tools (Alharthi et al. 2019 ). In addition to LMS, e-learning systems can be categorized based on who controls the pace of learning; for example, an institutional learning environment (ILE) is provided by the organization and is usually used for instructor-led courses, while a personal learning environment (PLE) is proposed by the organization and is managed personally (i.e., learner-led courses). Many e-learning systems use a hybrid version of ILE and PLE that allows organizations to have either instructor-led or self-paced courses.

Besides the controlled e-learning systems, organizations have been using environments such as social media (Qi and Chau 2016 ), massive open online courses (MOOCs) (Weinhardt and Sitzmann 2018 ) and other web-based environments (Wang et al. 2011 ) to reinforce their organizational learning potential. These systems have been utilized through different types of technology (e.g., desktop applications, mobile) that leverage the various capabilities offered (e.g., social learning, VR, collaborative systems, smart and intelligent support) to reinforce the learning and knowledge flow potential of the organization. Although there is a growing body of research on e-learning systems for organizational learning due to the increasingly significant role of skills and expertise development in organizations, the role and alignment of the capabilities of the various e-learning systems with the expected competency development remains underexplored.

2.2 Organizational Learning

There is a large body of research on the utilization of technologies to improve the process and outcome dimensions of organizational learning (Crossan et al. 1999 ). Most studies have focused on the learning process and on the added value that new technologies can offer by replacing some of the face-to-face processes with virtual processes or by offering new, technology-mediated phases to the process (Menolli et al. 2020 ; Lau 2015 ) highlighted how VR capabilities can enhance organizational learning, describing the new challenges and frameworks needed in order to effectively utilize this potential. In the same vein, Zhang et al. ( 2017 ) described how VR influences reflective thinking and considered its indirect value to overall learning effectiveness. In general, contemporary research has investigated how novel technologies and approaches have been utilized to enhance organizational learning, and it has highlighted both the promises and the limitations of the use of different technologies within organizations.

In many organizations, alignment with the established infrastructure and routines, and adoption by employees are core elements for effective organizational learning (Wang et al. 2011 ). Strict policies, low digital competence, and operational challenges are some of the elements that hinder e-learning adoption by organizations (Garavan et al. 2019 ; Wang 2018 ) demonstrated the importance of organizational, managerial, and job support for utilizing individual and social learning in order to increase the adoption of organizational learning. Other studies have focused on the importance of communication through different social channels to develop understanding of new technology, to overcome the challenges employees face when engaging with new technology, and, thereby, to support organizational learning (Menolli et al. 2020 ). By considering the related work in the area of organizational learning, we identified a gap in aligning an organization’s learning needs with the capabilities offered by the various technologies. Thus, systematic work is needed to review e-learning capabilities and how these capabilities can efficiently support organizational learning.

2.3 E-learning Systems to Enhance Organizational Learning

When considering the interplay between e-learning systems and organizational learning, we observed that a major challenge for today’s organizations is to switch from being information-based enterprises to become knowledge-based enterprises (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ). Unidirectional learning flows, such as formal and informal training, are important but not sufficient to cover the needs that enterprises face (Manuti et al. 2015 ). To maintain enterprises’ competitiveness, enterprise staff have to operate in highly intense information and knowledge-oriented environments. Traditional learning approaches fail to substantiate learning flow on the basis of daily evidence and experience. Thus, novel, ubiquitous, and flexible learning mechanisms are needed, placing humans (e.g., employees, managers, civil servants) at the center of the information and learning flow and bridging traditional learning with experiential, social, and smart learning.

Organizations consider lack of skills and competences as being the major knowledge-related factors hampering innovation (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ). Thus, solutions need to be implemented that support informal, day-to-day, and work training (e.g., social learning, collaborative learning, VR/AR solutions) in order to develop individual staff competences and to upgrade the competence affordances at the organizational level. E-learning-enhanced organizational learning has been delivered primarily in the form of web-based learning (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ). More recently, the TEL tools portfolio has rapidly expanded to make more efficient joint use of novel learning concepts, methodologies, and technological enablers to achieve more direct, effective, and lasting learning impacts. Virtual learning environments, mobile-learning solutions, and AR/VR technologies and head-mounted displays have been employed so that trainees are empowered to follow their own training pace, learning topics, and assessment tests that fit their needs (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ; Mueller et al. 2011 ; Muller Queiroz et al. 2018 ). The expanding use of social networking tools has also brought attention to the contribution of social and collaborative learning (Hester et al. 2016 ; Wei and Ram 2016 ).

Contemporary learning systems supporting adaptive, personalized, and collaborative learning expand the tools available in eOL and contribute to the adoption, efficiency, and general prospects of the introduction of TEL in organizations (Cheng et al. 2011 ). In recent years, eOL has emphasized how enterprises share knowledge internally and externally, with particular attention being paid to systems that leverage collaborative learning and social learning functionalities (Qi and Chau 2016 ; Wang 2011 ). This is the essence of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The CSCL literature has developed a framework that combines individual learning, organizational learning, and collaborative learning, facilitated by establishing adequate learning flows and emerges effective learning in an enterprise learning (Goggins et al. 2013 ), in Fig. 1 .

Representation of the combination of enterprise learning and knowledge flows. (adapted from Goggins et al. 2013 )

Establishing efficient knowledge and learning flows is a primary target for future data-driven enterprises (El Kadiri et al. 2016 ). Given the involved knowledge, the human resources, and the skills required by enterprises, there is a clear need for continuous, flexible, and efficient learning. This can be met by contemporary learning systems and practices that provide high adoption, smooth usage, high satisfaction, and close alignment with the current practices of an enterprise. Because the required competences of an enterprise evolve, the development of competence models needs to be agile and to leverage state-of-the art technologies that align with the organization’s processes and models. Therefore, in this paper we provide a review of the eOL research in order to summarize the findings, identify the various capabilities of eOL, and guide the development of organizational learning in future enterprises as well as in future studies.

3 Methodology

To answer our research questions, we conducted an SLR, which is a means of evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to a particular research question, topic area, or phenomenon of interest. A SLR has the capacity to present a fair evaluation of a research topic by using a trustworthy, rigorous, and auditable methodology (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ). The guidelines used (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ) were derived from three existing guides adopted by medical researchers. Therefore, we adopted SLR guidelines that follow transparent and widely accepted procedures (especially in the area of software engineering and information systems, as well as in e-learning), minimize potential bias (researchers), and support reproducibility (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ). Besides the minimization of bias and support for reproducibility, an SLR allows us to provide information about the impact of some phenomenon across a wide range of settings, contexts, and empirical methods. Another important advantage is that, if the selected studies give consistent results, SLRs can provide evidence that the phenomenon is robust and transferable (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ).

3.1 Article Collection

Several procedures were followed to ensure a high-quality review of the literature of eOL. A comprehensive search of peer-reviewed articles was conducted in February 2019 (short papers, posters, dissertations, and reports were excluded), based on a relatively inclusive range of key terms: “organizational learning” & “elearning”, “organizational learning” & “e-learning”, “organisational learning” & “elearning”, and “organisational learning” & “e-learning”. Publications were selected from 2010 onwards, because we identified significant advances since 2010 (e.g., MOOCs, learning analytics, personalized learning) in the area of learning technologies. A wide variety of databases were searched, including SpringerLink, Wiley, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Science Direct, SAGE, ERIC, AIS eLibrary, and Taylor & Francis. The selected databases were aligned with the SLR guidelines (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ) and covered the major venues in IS and educational technology (e.g., a basket of eight IS journals, the top 20 journals in the Google Scholar IS subdiscipline, and the top 20 journals in the Google Scholar Educational Technology subdiscipline). The search process uncovered 2,347 peer-reviewed articles.

3.2 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The selection phase determines the overall validity of the literature review, and thus it is important to define specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. As Dybå and Dingsøyr ( 2008 ) specified, the quality criteria should cover three main issues – namely, rigor, credibility, and relevance – that need to be considered when evaluating the quality of the selected studies. We applied eight quality criteria informed by the proposed Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) and related works (Dybå and Dingsøyr 2008 ). Table 1 presents these criteria.

Therefore, studies were eligible for inclusion if they were focused on eOL. The aforementioned criteria were applied in stages 2 and 3 of the selection process (see Fig. 2 ), when we assessed the papers based on their titles and abstracts, and read the full papers. From March 2020, we performed an additional search (stage 4) following the same process for papers published after the initial search period (i.e., 2010–February 2019). The additional search returned seven papers. Figure 2 summarizes the stages of the selection process.

Stages of the selection process

3.3 Analysis

Each collected study was analyzed based on the following elements: study design (e.g., experiment, case study), area (e.g., IT, healthcare), technology (e.g., wiki, social media), population (e.g., managers, employees), sample size, unit of analysis (individual, firm), data collections (e.g., surveys, interviews), research method, data analysis, and the main research objective of the study. It is important to highlight that the articles were coded based on the reported information, that different authors reported information at different levels of granularity (e.g., an online system vs. the name of the system), and that in some cases the information was missing from the paper. Overall, we endeavored to code the articles as accurately and completely as possible.

The coding process was iterative with regular consensus meetings between the two researchers involved. The primary coder prepared the initial coding for a number of articles and both coders reviewed and agreed on the coding in order to reach the final codes presented in the Appendix . Disagreements between the coders and inexplicit aspects of the reviewed papers were discussed and resolved in regular consensus meetings. Although this process did not provide reliability indices (e.g., Cohen’s kappa), it did provide certain reliability in terms of consistency of the coding and what Krippendorff ( 2018 ) stated as the reliability of “the degree to which members of a designated community concur on the readings, interpretations, responses to, or uses of given texts or data”, which is considered acceptable research practice (McDonald et al. 2019 ).

In this section, we present the detailed results of the analysis of the 47 papers. Analysis of the studies was performed using non-statistical methods that considered the variables reported in the Appendix . This section is followed by an analysis and discussion of the categories.

4.1 Sample Size and Population Involved

The categories related to the sample of the articles and included the number of participants in each study (size), their position (e.g., managers, employees), and the area/topic covered by the study. The majority of the studies involved employees (29), with few studies involving managers (6), civil servants (2), learning specialists (2), clients, and researchers. Regarding the sample size, approximately half of the studies (20) were conducted with fewer than 100 participants; some (12) can be considered large-scale studies (more than 300 participants); and only a few (9) can be considered small scale (fewer than 20 participants). In relation to the area/topic of the study, most studies (11) were conducted in the context of the IT industry, but there was also good coverage of other important areas (i.e., healthcare, telecommunications, business, public sector). Interestingly, several studies either did not define the area or were implemented in a generic context (sector-agnostic studies, n = 10), and some studies were implemented in a multi-sector context (e.g., participants from different sections or companies, n = 4).

4.2 Research Methods

When assessing the status of research for an area, one of the most important aspects is the methodology used. By “method” in the Appendix , we refer to the distinction between quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. In addition to the method, in our categorization protocol we also included “study design” to refer to the distinction between survey studies (i.e., those that gathered data by asking a group of participants), experiments (i.e., those that created situations to record beneficial data), and case studies (i.e., those that closely studied a group of individuals).

Based on this categorization, the Appendix shows that the majority of the papers were quantitative (34) and qualitative (7), with few studies (6) utilizing mixed methods. Regarding the study design, most of the studies were survey studies (26), 13 were case studies, and fewer were experiments (8). For most studies, the individual participant (40) was the unit of analysis, with few studies having the firm as the unit of analysis, and only one study using the training session as a unit of analysis. Regarding the measures used in the studies, most utilized surveys (39), with 11 using interviews, and only a few studies using field notes from focus groups (2) and log files from the systems (2). Only eight studies involved researchers using different measures to triangulate or extend their findings. Most articles used structural equation modeling (SEM) (17) to analyze their data, with 13 studies employing descriptive statistics, seven using content analysis, nine using regression analysis or analyses of variances/covariance, and one study using social network analysis (SNA).

4.3 Technologies

Concerning the technology used, most of the studies (17) did not study a specific system, referring instead in their investigation to a generic e-learning or technological solution. Several studies (9) named web-based learning environments, without describing the functionalities of the identified system. Other studies focused on online learning environments (4), collaborative learning systems (3), social learning systems (3), smart learning systems (2), podcasting (2), with the rest of the studies using a specific system (e.g., a wiki, mobile learning, e-portfolios, Second Life, web application).

4.4 Research Objectives

The research objectives of the studies could be separated into six main categories. The first category focuses on the intention of the employees to use the technology (9); the second focuses on the performance of the employees (8); the third focuses on the value/outcome for the organization (4); the fourth focuses on the actual usage of the system (7); the fifth focuses on employees’ satisfaction (4); and the sixth focuses on the ability of the proposed system to foster learning (9). In addition to these six categories, we also identified studies that focused on potential barriers for eOL in organizations (Stoffregen et al. 2016 ), the various benefits associated with the successful implementation of eOL (Liu et al. 2012 ), the feasibility of eOL (Kim et al. 2014 ; Mueller et al. 2011 ), and the alignment of the proposed innovation with the other processes and systems in the organization (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ).

4.5 E-learning Capabilities in Various Organizations and for Various Objectives

The technology used has an inherent role for both the organization and the expected eOL objective. E-learning systems are categorized based on their functionalities and affordances. Based on the information reported in the selected papers, we ranked them based on the different technologies and functionalities (e.g., collaborative, online, smart). To do so, we focused on the main elements described in the selected paper; for instance, a paper that described the system as wiki-based or indicated that the system was Second Life was ranked as such, rather than being added to collaborative systems or social learning respectively. We did this because we wanted to capture all the available information since it gave us additional insights (e.g., Second Life is both a social and a VR system).

To investigate the connection between the various technologies used to enhance organizational learning and their application in the various organizations, we utilized the coding (see Appendix ) and mapped the various e-learning technologies (or their affordances) with the research industries to which they applied (Fig. 3 ). There was occasionally a lack of detailed information about the capabilities of the e-learning systems applied (e.g., generic, or a web application, or an online system), which limited the insights. Figure 3 provides a useful mapping of the confluence of e-learning technologies and their application in the various industries.

Association of the different e-learning technologies with the industries to which they are applied in the various studies. Note: The size of the circles depicts the frequency of studies, with the smallest circle representing one study and the largest representing six studies. The mapping is extracted from the data in the Appendix , which outlines the papers that belong in each of the circles

To investigate the connection between the various technologies used to enhance organizational learning and their intended objectives, we utilized the coding of the articles (see Appendix ) and mapped the various e-learning technologies (or their affordances) with the intended objectives, as reported in the various studies (Fig. 4 ). The results in Fig. 4 show the objectives that are central in eOL research (e.g., performance, fostering learning, adoption, and usage) as well as those objectives on which few studies have focused (e.g., alignment, feasibility, behavioral change). In addition, the results also indicate the limited utilization of the various e-learning capabilities (e.g., social, collaborative, smart) to achieve objectives connected with those capabilities (e.g., social learning and behavioral change, collaborative learning, and barriers).

Association of the different e-learning technologies with the objectives investigated in the various studies. Note: The size of the circles depicts the frequency of studies, with the smallest circle representing one study and the largest representing five studies. The mapping is extracted from the data in the Appendix , which outlines the papers that belong in each of the circles

5 5. Discussion

After reviewing the 47 identified articles in the area of eOL, we can observe that all the works acknowledge the importance of the affordances offered by different e-learning technologies (e.g., remote collaboration, anytime anywhere), the importance of the relationship between eOL and employees’ satisfaction and performance, and the benefits associated with organizational value and outcome. Most of the studies agree that eOL provides employees, managers, and even clients with opportunities to learn in a more differentiated manner, compared to formal and face-to-face learning. However, how the organization adopts and puts into practice these capabilities to leverage them and achieve its goals are complex and challenging procedures that seem to be underexplored.

Several studies (Lee et al. 2015a ; Muller Queiroz et al. 2018 ; Tsai et al. 2010 ) focused on the positive effect of perceived managerial support, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and other technology acceptance model (TAM) constructs of the e-learning system in supporting all three levels of learning (i.e., individual, collaborative, and organizational). Another interesting dimension highlighted by many studies (Choi and Ko 2012 ; Khalili et al. 2012 ; Yanson and Johnson 2016 ) is the role of socialization in the adoption and usage of the e-learning systems that offer these capabilities. Building connections and creating a shared learning space in the e-learning system is challenging but also critical for the learners (Yanson and Johnson 2016 ). This is consistent with the expectancy-theoretical explanation of how social context impacts on employees’ motivation to participate in learning (Lee et al. 2015a ; Muller Queiroz et al. 2018 ).

The organizational learning literature suggests that e-learning may be more appropriate for the acquisition of certain types of knowledge than others (e.g., procedural vs. declarative, or hard-skills vs. soft-skills); however, there is no empirical evidence for this (Yanson and Johnson 2016 ). To advance eOL research, there is a need for a significant move to address complex, strategic skills by including learning and development professionals (Garavan et al. 2019 ) and by developing strategic relationships. Another important element is to utilize e-learning technology that addresses and integrates organizational, individual, and social perspectives in eOL (Wang 2011 ). This is also identified in our literature review since we found only limited specialized e-learning systems in domain areas that have traditionally benefited from such technology. For instance, although there were studies that utilized VR environments (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ; Muller Queiroz et al. 2018 ) and video-based learning systems (Wei et al. 2013 ; Wei and Ram 2016 ), there was limited focus in contemporary eOL research on how specific affordances of the various environments that are used in organizations (e.g., Carnetsoft, Outotec HSC, and Simscale for simulations of working environments; or Raptivity, YouTube, and FStoppers to gain specific skills and how-to knowledge) can benefit the intended goals or be integrated with the unique qualities of the organization (e.g., IT, healthcare).

For the design and the development of the eOL approach, the organization needs to consider the alignment of individual learning needs, organizational objectives, and the necessary resources (Wang 2011 ). To achieve this, it is advisable for organizations to define the expected objectives, catalogue the individual needs, and select technologies that have the capacity to support and enrich learners with self-directed and socially constructed learning practices in the organization (Wang 2011 ). This needs to be done by taking into consideration that on-demand eOL is gradually replacing the classic static eOL curricula and processes (Dignen and Burmeister 2020 ).

Another important dimension of eOL research is the lenses used to approach effectiveness. The selected papers approached effectiveness with various objectives, such as fostering learning, usage of the e-learning system, employees’ performance, and the added organizational value (see Appendix ). To measure these indices, various metrics (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed) have been applied. The qualitative dimensions emphasize employees’ satisfaction and system usage (e.g., Menolli et al. 2020 ; Turi et al. 2019 ), as well as managers’ perceived gained value and benefits (e.g., Lee et al. 2015b ; Xiang et al. 2020 ) and firms’ perceived effective utilization of eOL resources (López-Nicolás and Meroño-Cerdán 2011 ). The quantitative dimensions focus on usage, feasibility, and experience at different levels within an organization, based on interviews, focus groups, and observations (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ; Michalski 2014 ; Stoffregen et al. 2016 ). However, it is not always clear the how eOL effectiveness has been measured, nor the extent to which eOL is well aligned with and is strategically impactful on delivering the strategic agenda of the organization (Garavan et al. 2019 ).

Research on digital technologies is developing rapidly, and big data and business analytics have the potential to pave the way for organizations’ digital transformation and sustainable development (Mikalef et al. 2018 ; Pappas et al. 2018 ); however, our review finds surprisingly limited use of big data and analytics in eOL. Despite contemporary e-learning systems adopting data-driven mechanisms, as well as advances in learning analytics (Siemens and Long 2011 ), the results of our analysis indicate that learner-generated data in the context of eOL are used in only a few studies to extract very limited insights with respect to the effectiveness of eOL and the intended objectives of the respective study (Hung et al. 2015 ; Renner et al. 2020 ; Rober and Cooper 2011 ). Therefore, eOL research needs to focus on data-driven qualities that will allow future researchers to gain deeper insights into which capabilities need to be developed to monitor the effectiveness of the various practices and technologies, their alignment with other functions of the organization, and how eOL can be a strategic and impactful vehicle for materializing the strategic agenda of the organization.

5.1 Status of eOL Research

The current review suggests that, while the efficient implementation of eOL entails certain challenges, there is also a great potential for improving employees’ performance as well as overall organizational outcome and value. There are also opportunities for improving organizations’ learning flow, which might not be feasible with formal learning and training. In order to construct the main research dimensions of eOL research and to look more deeply at the research objectives of the studies (the information we coded as objectives in the Appendix ), we performed a content analysis and grouped the research objectives. This enabled us to summarize the contemporary research on eOL according to five major categories, each of which is describes further below. As the research objectives of the published work shows, the research on eOL conducted during the last decade has particularly focused on the following five directions.

Investigating the capabilities of different technologies in different organizations.

Research has particularly focused on how easy the technology is to use, on how useful it is, or on how well aligned/integrated it is with other systems and processes within the organization. In addition, studies have used different learning technologies (e.g., smart, social, personalized) to enhance organizational learning in different contexts and according to different needs. However, most works have focused on affordances such as remote training and the development of static courses or modules to share information with learners. Although a few studies have utilized contemporary e-learning systems (see Appendix ), even in these studies there is a lack of alignment between the capabilities of those systems (e.g., open online course, adaptive support, social and collaborative learning) and the objectives and strategy of the organization (e.g., organizational value, fostering learning).

Enriching the learning flow and learning potential in different levels within an organization.

The reviewed work has emphasized how different factors contribute to different levels of organizational learning, and it has focused on practices that address individual, collaborative, and organizational learning within the structure of the organization. In particular, most of the reviewed studies recognize that organizational learning occurs at multiple levels: individual, team (or group), and organization. In other words, although each of the studies carried out an investigation within a given level (except for Garavan et al. 2019 ), there is a recognition and discussion of the different levels. Therefore, the results align with the 4I framework of organizational learning that recognizes how learning across the different levels is linked by social and psychological processes: intuiting, interpreting, integrating, and institutionalizing (the 4Is) (Crossan et al. 1999 ). However, most of the studies focused on the institutionalizing-intuiting link (i.e., top-down feedback); moreover, no studies focused on contemporary learning technologies and processes that strengthen the learning flow (e.g., self-regulated learning).

Identifying critical aspects for effective eOL.

There is a considerable amount of predominantly qualitative studies that focus on potential barriers to eOL implementation as well as on the risks and requirements associated with the feasibility and successful implementation of eOL. In the same vein, research has emphasized the importance of alignment of eOL (both in processes and in technologies) within the organization. These critical aspects for effective eOL are sometimes the main objectives of the studies (see Appendix ). However, most of the elements relating to the effectiveness of eOL were measured with questionnaires and interviews with employees and managers, and very little work was conducted on how to leverage the digital technologies employed in eOL, big data, and analytics in order to monitor the effectiveness of eOL.

Implementing employee-centric eOL.

In most of the studies, the main objective was to increase employees’ adoption, satisfaction, and usage of the e-learning system. In addition, several studies focused on the e-learning system’s ability to improve employees’ performance, increase the knowledge flow in the organization, and foster learning. Most of the approaches were employee-centric, with a small amount of studies focusing on managers and the firm in general. However, employees were seen as static entities within the organization, with limited work investigating how eOL-based training exposes employees to new knowledge, broadens their skills repertoire, and has tremendous potential for fostering innovation (Lin and Sanders 2017 ).

Achieving goals associated with the value creation of the organization.

A considerable number of studies utilized the firm (rather than the individual employee) as the unit of analysis. Such studies focused on how the implementation of eOL can increase employee performance, organizational value, and customer value. Although this is extremely helpful in furthering knowledge about eOL technologies and practices, a more granular investigation of the different e-learning systems and processes to address the various goals and strategies of the organization would enable researchers to extract practical insights on the design and implementation of eOL.

5.2 Research Agenda

By conducting an SLR and documenting the eOL research of the last decade, we have identified promising themes of research that have the potential to further eOL research and practice. To do so, we define a research agenda consisting of five thematic areas of research, as depicted in the research framework in Fig. 5 , and we provide some suggestions on how researchers could approach these challenges. In this visualization of the framework, on the left side we present the organizations as they were identified from our review (i.e., area/topic category in the Appendix ) and the multiple levels where organizational learning occurs (Costello and McNaughton 2018 ). On the right side, we summarize the objectives as they were identified from our review (i.e., the objectives category in the Appendix ). In the middle, we depict the orchestration that was conducted and how potential future research on eOL can improve the orchestration of the various elements and accelerate the achievement of the intended objectives. In particular, our proposed research agenda includes five research themes discussed in the following subsections.

E-learning capabilities to enhance organizational research agenda

5.2.1 Theme 1: Couple E-learning Capabilities With the Intended Goals

The majority of the eOL studies either investigated a generic e-learning system using the umbrella term “e-learning” or did not provide enough details about the functionalities of the system (in most cases, it was simply defined as an online or web system). This indicates the very limited focus of the eOL research on the various capabilities of e-learning systems. In other words, the literature has been very detailed on the organizational value and employees’ acceptance of the technology, but less detailed on the capabilities of this technology that needs to be put into place to achieve the intended goals and strategic agenda. However, the capabilities of the e-learning systems and their use are not one-size-fits-all, and the intended goals (to obtain certain skills and competences) and employees’ needs and backgrounds play a determining role in the selection of the e-learning system (Al-Fraihat et al. 2020 ).

Only in a very few studies (Mueller et al. 2011 ; Renner et al. 2020 ) were the capabilities of the e-learning solutions (e.g., mobile learning, VR) utilized, and the results were found to significantly contribute to the intended goals. The intended knowledge can be procedural, declarative, general competence (e.g., presentation, communication, or leadership skills) or else, and its particularities and the pedagogical needs of the intended knowledge (e.g., a need for summative/formative feedback or for social learning support) should guide the selection of the e-learning system and the respective capabilities. Therefore, future research needs to investigate how the various capabilities offered by contemporary learning systems (e.g., assessment mechanisms, social learning, collaborative learning, personalized learning) can be utilized to adequately reinforce the intended goals (e.g., to train personnel to use a new tool, to improve presentation skills).

5.2.2 Theme 2: Embrace the Particularities of the Various Industries

Organizational learning entails sharing knowledge and enabling opportunities for growth at the individual, group, team, and organizational levels. Contemporary e-learning systems provide the medium to substantiate the necessary knowledge flow within organizations and to support employees’ overall learning. From the selected studies, we can infer that eOL research is either conducted in an industry-agnostic context (either generic or it was not properly reported) or there is a focus on the IT industry (see Appendix ). However, when looking at the few studies that provide results from different industries (Garavan et al. 2019 ; Lee et al. 2014 ), companies indicate that there are different practices, processes, and expectations, and that employees have different needs and perceptions with regards to e-learning systems and eOL in general. Such particularities influence the perceived dimensions of a learning organization. Some industries noted that eOL promoted the development of their learning organizations, whereas others reported that eOL did not seem to contribute to their development as a learning organization (Yoo and Huang 2016 ). Therefore, it is important that the implementation of organizational learning embraces the particularities of the various industries and future research needs to identify how the industry-specific characteristics can inform the design and development of organizational learning in promoting an organization’s goals and agenda.

5.2.3 Theme 3: Utilize E-learning Capabilities to Implement Employee-centric Approaches

For efficient organizational learning to be implemented, the processes and technologies need to recognize that learning is linked by social and psychological processes (Crossan et al. 1999 ). This allows employees to develop learning in various forms (e.g., social, emotional, personalized) and to develop elements such as self-awareness, self-control, and interpersonal skills that are vital for the organization. Looking at the contemporary eOL research, we notice that the exploration of e-learning capabilities to nurture the aforementioned elements and support employee-centric approaches is very limited (e.g., personalized technologies, adaptive assessment). Therefore, future research needs to collect data to understand how e-learning capabilities can be utilized in relation to employees’ needs and perceptions in order to provide solutions (e.g., collaborative, social, adaptive) that are employee-centric and focused on development, and that have the potential to move away from standard one-size-fits-all e-learning solutions to personalized and customized systems and processes.

5.2.4 Theme 4: Employ Analytics-enabled eOL

There is a lot of emphasis on measuring, via various qualitative and quantitative metrics, the effectiveness of eOL implemented at different levels in organizations. However, most of these metrics come from surveys and interviews that capture employees’ and managers’ perceptions of various aspects of eOL (e.g., fostering of learning, organizational value, employees’ performance), and very few studies utilize analytics (Hung et al. 2015 ; Renner et al. 2020 ; Rober and Cooper 2011 ). Given how digital technologies, big data, and business analytics pave the way towards organizations’ digital transformation and sustainable development (Mikalef et al. 2018 ; Pappas et al. 2018 ), and considering the learning analytics affordances of contemporary e-learning systems (Siemens and Long 2011 ), future work needs to investigate how learner/employee-generated data can be employed to inform practice and devise more accurate and temporal effectiveness metrics when measuring the importance and impact of eOL.

5.2.5 Theme 5: Orchestrate the Employees’ Needs, Resources, and Objectives in eOL Implementation

While considerable effort has been directed towards the various building blocks of eOL implementation, such as resources (intangible, tangible, and human skills) and employees’ needs (e.g., vision, growth, skills development), little is known so far about the processes and structures necessary for orchestrating those elements in order to achieve an organization’s intended goals and to materialize its overall agenda. In other words, eOL research has been very detailed on some of the elements that constitute efficient eOL, but less so on the interplay of those elements and how they need to be put into place. Prior literature on strategic resource planning has shown that competence in orchestrating such elements is a prerequisite to successfully increasing business value (Wang et al. 2012 ). Therefore, future research should not only investigate each of these elements in silos, but also consider their interplay, since it is likely that organizations with similar resources will exert highly varied levels in each of these elements (e.g., analytics-enabled, e-learning capabilities) to successfully materialize their goals (e.g., increase value, improve the competence base of their employees, modernize their organization).

5.3 Implications

Several implications for eOL have been revealed in this literature review. First, most studies agree that employees’ or trainees’ experience is extremely important for the successful implementation of eOL. Thus, keeping them in the design and implementation cycle of eOL will increase eOL adoption and satisfaction as well as reduce the risks and barriers. Another important implication addressed by some studies relates to the capabilities of the e-learning technologies, with easy-to-use, useful, and social technologies resulting in more efficient eOL (e.g., higher adoption and performance). Thus, it is important for organizations to incorporate these functionalities in the platform and reinforce them with appropriate content and support. This should not only benefit learning outcomes, but also provide the networking opportunities for employees to broaden their personal networks, which are often lost when companies move from face-to-face formal training to e-learning-enabled organizational learning.

5.4 Limitations

This review has some limitations. First, we had to make some methodological decisions (e.g., selection of databases, the search query) that might lead to certain biases in the results. However, tried to avoid such biases by considering all the major databases and following the steps indicated by Kitchenham and Charters ( 2007 ). Second, the selection of empirical studies and coding of the papers might pose another possible bias. However, the focus was clearly on the empirical evidence, the terminology employed (“e-learning”) is an umbrella term that covers the majority of the work in the area, and the coding of papers was checked by two researchers. Third, some elements of the papers were not described accurately, leading to some missing information in the coding of the papers. However, the amount of missing information was very small and could not affect the results significantly. Finally, we acknowledge that the selected methodology (Kitchenham and Charters 2007 ) includes potential biases (e.g., false negatives and false positives), and that different, equally valid methods (e.g., Okoli and Schabram 2010 ) might have been used and have resulted in slightly different outcomes. Nevertheless, despite the limitations of the selected methodology, it is a well-accepted and widely used literature review method in both software engineering and information systems (Boell and Cecez-Kecmanovic 2014 ), providing certain assurance of the results.

6 Conclusions and Future Work

We have presented an SLR of 47 contributions in the field of eOL over the last decade. With respect to RQ1, we analyzed the papers from different perspectives, such as research methodology, technology, industries, employees, and intended outcomes in terms of organizational value, employees’ performance, usage, and behavioral change. The detailed landscape is depicted in the Appendix and Figs. 3 and 4 ; with the results indicating the limited utilization of the various e-learning capabilities (e.g., social, collaborative) to achieve objectives connected with those capabilities (e.g., social learning and behavioral change, collaborative learning and overcoming barriers).

With respect to RQ2, we categorized the main findings of the selected papers into five areas that reflect the status of eOL research, and we have discussed the challenges and opportunities emerging from the current review. In addition, we have synthesized the extracted challenges and opportunities and proposed a research agenda consisting of five elements that provide suggestions on how researchers could approach these challenges and exploit the opportunities. Such an agenda will strengthen how e-learning can be leveraged to enhance the process of improving actions through better knowledge and understanding in an organization.

A number of suggestions for further research have emerged from reviewing prior and ongoing work on eOL. One recommendation for future researchers is to clearly describe the eOL approach by providing detailed information about the technologies and materials used, as well as the organizations. This will allow meta-analyses to be conducted and it will also identify the potential effects of a firm’s size or area on the performance and other aspects relating to organizational value. Future work should also focus on collecting and triangulating different types of data from different sources (e.g., systems’ logs). The reviewed studies were conducted mainly by using survey data, and they made limited use of data coming from the platforms; thus, the interpretations and triangulation between the different types of collected data were limited.

Al-Fraihat, D., Joy, M., & Sinclair, J. (2020). Evaluating E-learning systems success: An empirical study. Computers in Human Behavior, 102 , 67–86.

Article Google Scholar

Alharthi, A. D., Spichkova, M., & Hamilton, M. (2019). Sustainability requirements for eLearning systems: A systematic literature review and analysis. Requirements Engineering, 24 (4), 523–543.

Alsabawy, A. Y., Cater-Steel, A., & Soar, J. (2013). IT infrastructure services as a requirement for e-learning system success. Computers & Education, 69 , 431–451.

Antonacopoulou, E., & Chiva, R. (2007). The social complexity of organizational learning: The dynamics of learning and organizing. Management Learning, 38 , 277–295.

Berends, H., & Lammers, I. (2010). Explaining discontinuity in organizational learning: A process analysis. Organization Studies, 31 (8), 1045–1068.

Boell, S. K., & Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. (2014). A hermeneutic approach for conducting literature reviews and literature searches. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 34 (1), 12.

Google Scholar

Bologa, R., & Lupu, A. R. (2014). Organizational learning networks that can increase the productivity of IT consulting companies. A case study for ERP consultants. Expert Systems with Applications, 41 (1), 126–136.

Broadbent, J. (2017). Comparing online and blended learner’s self-regulated learning strategies and academic performance. The Internet and Higher Education, 33 , 24–32.

Cheng, B., Wang, M., Moormann, J., Olaniran, B. A., & Chen, N. S. (2012). The effects of organizational learning environment factors on e-learning acceptance. Computers & Education, 58 (3), 885–899.

Cheng, B., Wang, M., Yang, S. J., & Peng, J. (2011). Acceptance of competency-based workplace e-learning systems: Effects of individual and peer learning support. Computers & Education, 57 (1), 1317–1333.

Choi, S., & Ko, I. (2012). Leveraging electronic collaboration to promote interorganizational learning. International Journal of Information Management, 32 (6), 550–559.

Costello, J. T., & McNaughton, R. B. (2018). Integrating a dynamic capabilities framework into workplace e-learning process evaluations. Knowledge and Process Management, 25 (2), 108–125.

Crossan, M. M., Lane, H. W., & White, R. E. (1999). An organizational learning framework: From intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24 , 522–537.

Crossan, M. M., Maurer, C. C., & White, R. E. (2011). Reflections on the 2009 AMR decade award: Do we have a theory of organizational learning? Academy of Management Review, 36 (3), 446–460.

Dee, J., & Leisyte, L. (2017). Knowledge sharing and organizational change in higher education. The Learning Organization, 24 (5), 355–365. https://doi.org/10.1108/TLO-04-2017-0034

Dignen, B., & Burmeister, T. (2020). Learning and development in the organizations of the future. Three pillars of organization and leadership in disruptive times (pp. 207–232). Cham: Springer.

Chapter Google Scholar

Dybå, T., & Dingsøyr, T. (2008). Empirical studies of agile software development: A systematic review. Information and Software Technology, 50 (9–10), 833–859.

El Kadiri, S., Grabot, B., Thoben, K. D., Hribernik, K., Emmanouilidis, C., Von Cieminski, G., & Kiritsis, D. (2016). Current trends on ICT technologies for enterprise information systems. Computers in Industry, 79 , 14–33.

Engeström, Y., Kerosuo, H., & Kajamaa, A. (2007). Beyond discontinuity: Expansive organizational learning remembered. Management Learning, 38 (3), 319–336.

Gal, E., & Nachmias, R. (2011). Online learning and performance support in organizational environments using performance support platforms. Performance Improvement, 50 (8), 25–32.

Garavan, T. N., Heneghan, S., O’Brien, F., Gubbins, C., Lai, Y., Carbery, R., & Grant, K. (2019). L&D professionals in organisations: much ambition, unfilled promise. European Journal of Training and Development, 44 (1), 1–86.

Goggins, S. P., Jahnke, I., & Wulf, V. (2013). Computer-supported collaborative learning at the workplace . New York: Springer.

Book Google Scholar

Hammad, R., Odeh, M., & Khan, Z. (2017). ELCMM: An e-learning capability maturity model. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference (e-Society 2017) (pp. 169–178).

Hester, A. J., Hutchins, H. M., & Burke-Smalley, L. A. (2016). Web 2.0 and transfer: Trainers’ use of technology to support employees’ learning transfer on the job. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 29 (3), 231–255.

Hung, Y. H., Lin, C. F., & Chang, R. I. (2015). Developing a dynamic inference expert system to support individual learning at work. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46 (6), 1378–1391.

Iris, R., & Vikas, A. (2011). E-Learning technologies: A key to dynamic capabilities. Computers in Human Behavior, 27 (5), 1868–1874.

Jia, H., Wang, M., Ran, W., Yang, S. J., Liao, J., & Chiu, D. K. (2011). Design of a performance-oriented workplace e-learning system using ontology. Expert Systems with Applications, 38 (4), 3372–3382.

Joo, Y. J., Lim, K. Y., & Park, S. Y. (2011). Investigating the structural relationships among organisational support, learning flow, learners’ satisfaction and learning transfer in corporate e-learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42 (6), 973–984.

Kaschig, A., Maier, R., Sandow, A., Lazoi, M., Barnes, S. A., Bimrose, J., … Schmidt, A. (2010). Knowledge maturing activities and practices fostering organisational learning: results of an empirical study. In European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (pp. 151–166). Berlin: Springer.

Khalili, A., Auer, S., Tarasowa, D., & Ermilov, I. (2012). SlideWiki: Elicitation and sharing of corporate knowledge using presentations. International Conference on Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (pp. 302–316). Berlin: Springer.

Khandakar, M. S. A., & Pangil, F. (2019). Relationship between human resource management practices and informal workplace learning. Journal of Workplace Learning, 31 (8), 551–576.

Kim, M. K., Kim, S. M., & Bilir, M. K. (2014). Investigation of the dimensions of workplace learning environments (WLEs): Development of the WLE measure. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 27 (2), 35–57.

Kitchenham, B., & Charters, S. (2007). Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering. Technical Report EBSE-2007-01, 2007 . https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=35909B1B280E2032BF116BDC9DCB71EA? .

Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

Lai, H. J. (2017). Examining civil servants’ decisions to use Web 2.0 tools for learning, based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior. Interactive Learning Environments, 25 (3), 295–305.

Lau, K. (2015). Organizational learning goes virtual? A study of employees’ learning achievement in stereoscopic 3D virtual reality. The Learning Organization, 22 (5), 289–303.

Lee, J., Choi, M., & Lee, H. (2015a). Factors affecting smart learning adoption in workplaces: Comparing large enterprises and SMEs. Information Technology and Management, 16 (4), 291–302.

Lee, J., Kim, D. W., & Zo, H. (2015b). Conjoint analysis on preferences of HRD managers and employees for effective implementation of m-learning: The case of South Korea. Telematics and Informatics, 32 (4), 940–948.

Lee, J., Zo, H., & Lee, H. (2014). Smart learning adoption in employees and HRD managers. British Journal of Educational Technology, 45 (6), 1082–1096.

Lin, C. H., & Sanders, K. (2017). HRM and innovation: A multi-level organizational learning perspective. Human Resource Management Journal, 27 (2), 300–317.

Lin, C. Y., Huang, C. K., & Zhang, H. (2019). Enhancing employee job satisfaction via e-learning: The mediating role of an organizational learning culture. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 35 (7), 584–595.

Liu, Y. C., Huang, Y. A., & Lin, C. (2012). Organizational factors’ effects on the success of e-learning systems and organizational benefits: An empirical study in Taiwan. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 13 (4), 130–151.

López-Nicolás, C., & Meroño-Cerdán, ÁL. (2011). Strategic knowledge management, innovation and performance. International Journal of Information Management, 31 (6), 502–509.

Manuti, A., Pastore, S., Scardigno, A. F., Giancaspro, M. L., & Morciano, D. (2015). Formal and informal learning in the workplace: A research review. International Journal of Training and Development, 19 (1), 1–17.

March, J. G. (1991). Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organization Science, 2 (1), 71–87.

Marshall, S. (2006). New Zealand Tertiary Institution E-learning Capability: Informing and Guiding eLearning Architectural Change and Development. Report to the ministry of education . NZ: Victoria University of Wellington.

McDonald, N., Schoenebeck, S., & Forte, A. (2019). Reliability and inter-rater reliability in qualitative research: Norms and guidelines for CSCW and HCI practice. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human–Computer Interaction, 3(CSCW) (pp. 1–23).

Menolli, A., Tirone, H., Reinehr, S., & Malucelli, A. (2020). Identifying organisational learning needs: An approach to the semi-automatic creation of course structures for software companies. Behaviour & Information Technology, 39 (11), 1140–1155.

Michalski, M. P. (2014). Symbolic meanings and e-learning in the workplace: The case of an intranet-based training tool. Management Learning, 45 (2), 145–166.

Mikalef, P., Pappas, I. O., Krogstie, J., & Giannakos, M. (2018). Big data analytics capabilities: A systematic literature review and research agenda. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 16 (3), 547–578.

Mitić, S., Nikolić, M., Jankov, J., Vukonjanski, J., & Terek, E. (2017). The impact of information technologies on communication satisfaction and organizational learning in companies in Serbia. Computers in Human Behavior, 76 , 87–101.

Mueller, J., Hutter, K., Fueller, J., & Matzler, K. (2011). Virtual worlds as knowledge management platform—A practice-perspective. Information Systems Journal, 21 (6), 479–501.

Muller Queiroz, A. C., Nascimento, M., Tori, A., Alejandro, R. Brashear, Veloso, T., de Melo, V., de Souza Meirelles, F., & da Silva Leme, M. I. (2018). Immersive virtual environments in corporate education and training. In AMCIS. https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/Education/Presentations/12/ .

Navimipour, N. J., & Zareie, B. (2015). A model for assessing the impact of e-learning systems on employees’ satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 53 , 475–485.

Oh, S. Y. (2019). Effects of organizational learning on performance: The moderating roles of trust in leaders and organizational justice. Journal of Knowledge Management, 23, 313–331.

Okoli, C., & Schabram, K. (2010). A guide to conducting a systematic literature review of information systems research. Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 10 (26), 1–46.

Pappas, I. O., Mikalef, P., Giannakos, M. N., Krogstie, J., & Lekakos, G. (2018). Big data and business analytics ecosystems: paving the way towards digital transformation and sustainable societies. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 16, 479–491.

Popova-Nowak, I. V., & Cseh, M. (2015). The meaning of organizational learning: A meta-paradigm perspective. Human Resource Development Review, 14 (3), 299–331.

Qi, C., & Chau, P. Y. (2016). An empirical study of the effect of enterprise social media usage on organizational learning. In Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS'16). Proceedings , Paper 330. http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2016/330 .

Renner, B., Wesiak, G., Pammer-Schindler, V., Prilla, M., Müller, L., Morosini, D., … Cress, U. (2020). Computer-supported reflective learning: How apps can foster reflection at work. Behaviour & Information Technology, 39 (2), 167–187.

Rober, M. B., & Cooper, L. P. (2011, January). Capturing knowledge via an” Intrapedia”: A case study. In 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 1–10). New York: IEEE.

Rosenberg, M. J., & Foshay, R. (2002). E-learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. Performance Improvement, 41 (5), 50–51.

Serrano, Á., Marchiori, E. J., del Blanco, Á., Torrente, J., & Fernández-Manjón, B. (2012). A framework to improve evaluation in educational games. The IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (pp. 1–8). Marrakesh, Morocco.

Siadaty, M., Jovanović, J., Gašević, D., Jeremić, Z., & Holocher-Ertl, T. (2010). Leveraging semantic technologies for harmonization of individual and organizational learning. In European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (pp. 340–356). Berlin: Springer.

Siemens, G., & Long, P. (2011). Penetrating the fog: Analytics in learning and education. EDUCAUSE Review, 46 (5), 30.

Škerlavaj, M., Dimovski, V., Mrvar, A., & Pahor, M. (2010). Intra-organizational learning networks within knowledge-intensive learning environments. Interactive Learning Environments, 18 (1), 39–63.

Smith, P. J., & Sadler-Smith, E. (2006). Learning in organizations: Complexities and diversities . London: Routledge.

Stoffregen, J. D., Pawlowski, J. M., Ras, E., Tobias, E., Šćepanović, S., Fitzpatrick, D., … Friedrich, H. (2016). Barriers to open e-learning in public administrations: A comparative case study of the European countries Luxembourg, Germany, Montenegro and Ireland. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 111 , 198–208.

Subramaniam, R., & Nakkeeran, S. (2019). Impact of corporate e-learning systems in enhancing the team performance in virtual software teams. In Smart Technologies and Innovation for a Sustainable Future (pp. 195–204). Berlin: Springer.

Tsai, C. H., Zhu, D. S., Ho, B. C. T., & Wu, D. D. (2010). The effect of reducing risk and improving personal motivation on the adoption of knowledge repository system. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 77 (6), 840–856.

Turi, J. A., Sorooshian, S., & Javed, Y. (2019). Impact of the cognitive learning factors on sustainable organizational development. Heliyon, 5 (9), e02398.

Wang, M. (2011). Integrating organizational, social, and individual perspectives in Web 2.0-based workplace e-learning. Information Systems Frontiers, 13 (2), 191–205.

Wang, M. (2018). Effects of individual and social learning support on employees’ acceptance of performance-oriented e-learning. In E-Learning in the Workplace (pp. 141–159). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64532-2_13 .

Wang, M., Ran, W., Liao, J., & Yang, S. J. (2010). A performance-oriented approach to e-learning in the workplace. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 13 (4), 167–179.

Wang, M., Vogel, D., & Ran, W. (2011). Creating a performance-oriented e-learning environment: A design science approach. Information & Management, 48 (7), 260–269.

Wang, N., Liang, H., Zhong, W., Xue, Y., & Xiao, J. (2012). Resource structuring or capability building? An empirical study of the business value of information technology. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29 (2), 325–367.

Wang, S., & Wang, H. (2012). Organizational schemata of e-portfolios for fostering higher-order thinking. Information Systems Frontiers, 14 (2), 395–407.

Wei, K., & Ram, J. (2016). Perceived usefulness of podcasting in organizational learning: The role of information characteristics. Computers in Human Behavior, 64 , 859–870.

Wei, K., Sun, H., & Li, H. (2013). On the driving forces of diffusion of podcasting in organizational settings: A case study and propositions. In PACIS 2013. Proceedings , 217. http://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2013/217 .

Weinhardt, J. M., & Sitzmann, T. (2018). Revolutionizing training and education? Three questions regarding massive open online courses (MOOCs). Human Resource Management Review, 29 (2), 218–225.

Xiang, Q., Zhang, J., & Liu, H. (2020). Organisational improvisation as a path to new opportunity identification for incumbent firms: An organisational learning view. Innovation, 22 (4), 422–446. https://doi.org/10.1080/14479338.2020.1713001 .

Yanson, R., & Johnson, R. D. (2016). An empirical examination of e-learning design: The role of trainee socialization and complexity in short term training. Computers & Education, 101 , 43–54.

Yoo, S. J., & Huang, W. D. (2016). Can e-learning system enhance learning culture in the workplace? A comparison among companies in South Korea. British Journal of Educational Technology, 47 (4), 575–591.

Zhang, X., Jiang, S., Ordóñez de Pablos, P., Lytras, M. D., & Sun, Y. (2017). How virtual reality affects perceived learning effectiveness: A task–technology fit perspective. Behaviour & Information Technology, 36 (5), 548–556.

Zhang, X., Meng, Y., de Pablos, P. O., & Sun, Y. (2019). Learning analytics in collaborative learning supported by Slack: From the perspective of engagement. Computers in Human Behavior, 92 , 625–633.

Download references

Open Access funding provided by NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology (incl St. Olavs Hospital - Trondheim University Hospital).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

Michail N. Giannakos, Patrick Mikalef & Ilias O. Pappas

University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Ilias O. Pappas

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ilias O. Pappas .

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Giannakos, M.N., Mikalef, P. & Pappas, I.O. Systematic Literature Review of E-Learning Capabilities to Enhance Organizational Learning. Inf Syst Front 24 , 619–635 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10097-2

Download citation

Accepted : 09 December 2020

Published : 01 February 2021

Issue Date : April 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-020-10097-2

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Organizational learning
Literature review
Learning environments
Find a journal
Publish with us
Track your research

Open access
Published: 27 May 2024

Effect of capacity building interventions on classroom teacher and early childhood educator perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes relating to physical activity and fundamental movement skills: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Matthew Bourke 1 , 3 ,
Ameena Haddara 1 ,
Aidan Loh 1 ,
Kendall A Saravanamuttoo 1 ,
Brianne A Bruijns 1 &
Patricia Tucker 1 , 2

BMC Public Health volume 24 , Article number: 1409 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

150 Accesses

Metrics details

Capacity building may play an important role in improving classroom teachers’ and early childhood educators’ (ECE) capacity to implement physical activity and FMS interventions. Capacity building is the development of knowledge, skills, and structures to improve the capability of individuals and organisations to achieve effective health promotion. This review aimed to determine the efficacy of capacity building interventions on teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes relating to physical activity and fundamental movement skills.

An exhaustive literature search of six electronic databases was conducted. Controlled, single-group pre-post studies were included if they measured the effect of a capacity building intervention on in-service or pre-service classroom teachers’ (primary or secondary) or ECEs’ physical activity or fundamental skills related perceived capabilities, knowledge, or attitudes. The effects of interventions were synthesised using random effects meta-analysis. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression was conducted to determine if the effects differed based on study design, type of teacher (ECE vs. primary school), or teacher level (pre-service vs. in-service).

A total of 22 studies reporting on 25 unique samples were included in the meta-analyses. Only studies reporting on ECEs and primary school teachers were identified. Interventions most commonly included training/professional development, resources and toolkits, communities of practice, mentorships, and ongoing support. Results showed that capacity building interventions significantly improved teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities (g = 0.614, 95% CI = 0.442, 0.786), knowledge (g = 0.792 95% CI = 0.459, 1.125), and attitudes (g = 0.376 95% CI = 0.181, 0.571). The effects did not differ significantly as a function of any of the moderators examined.

Findings from this review provide strong support that capacity building interventions are efficacious at improving teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes related to promoting physical activity and teaching fundamental movement skills. Pre-service teachers and ECEs should be provided training in physical activity and fundamental movement skills as part of their degrees, and continual professional development and capacity building should be offered to in-service teachers and ECEs to promote physical activity and fundamental movement skills in children.

Peer Review reports

CRD42022330335.

There are a multitude of physical, mental, cognitive, and social health benefits associated with participation in physical activity for children and adolescents [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Additionally, being physically active during childhood and adolescence can promote physical literacy and contribute to lifelong engagement in physical activities [ 4 ]. Further, developing fundamental movement skills (FMS), a specific set of gross motor skills encompassing locomotor (e.g., running, jumping) and object control (e.g., throwing, catching) skills, in children may be the building blocks for children to engage in more complex movement behaviours and promote the engagement in multiple different types of physical activities [ 5 , 6 ]. There is initial but growing evidence showing that cultivating FMS and engaging in more physical activity can improve a range of outcomes relevant to the classroom including executive functioning and academic performance [ 7 , 8 ].

Children spend the majority of their waking time in educational settings (including preschools, childcare, elementary/middle schools, and secondary schools). Consequently, these settings have been identified as an ideal environment to promote engagement in physical activity and teach FMS [ 9 , 10 , 11 ]. Although secondary schools and some elementary schools have specialist Physical Education (PE) teachers, who have the skills and training to ensure children are physically active while at school and to teach children FMS, on average, schools do not provide children with at least 150 min of PE each week [ 12 ]. Additionally, most elementary schools do not have a specialised PE teacher [ 12 , 13 ] and for children in preschool/childcare centres, early childhood educators (ECEs) rarely receive specialised PE training [ 14 , 15 ]. Therefore, promoting engagement in physical activity and FMS development in educational settings cannot be considered solely in the context of formalised PE programs and only a priority for specialist PE teachers [ 16 ].

Outside of formalised PE programs, classroom teachers and ECEs play an important role in promoting physical activity and FMS in educational settings [ 17 , 18 ]. Classroom teachers and ECEs can incorporate opportunities for engagement in physical activity and the development of FMS into children’s day through active lessons [ 19 ], active breaks [ 20 ], and active play opportunities [ 21 ]. However, whether a classroom teacher or ECE is provided the support and training necessary to improve their capacity to implement physical activity and FMS opportunities may play a crucial role in determining the degree to which these opportunities are implemented in educational settings [ 22 , 23 ].

The capability motivation opportunity-behaviour (COM-B) model provides a framework to examine the barriers and facilitators to teachers engaging students in physical activity and improving FMS [ 24 , 25 ]. It positions the interactions between an individual’s capabilities, their motivation, and the opportunities afforded to them by the physical and social environments as key predictors of an individual’s behaviour and behaviour change [ 24 ] Capability is defined as an individual’s psychological and physical resources necessary to participate in a behaviour [ 24 ]. A commonly cited barrier in this domain is inadequate training, whereas common facilitators in this domain include positive perceptions of capabilities (e.g., self-efficacy) and physical activity knowledge [ 23 , 25 ] For example, in their review, Nathan et al. [ 26 ] found that 89% and 31%, of school teachers reported physical activity-related knowledge and beliefs about capabilities as facilitators for implementing physical activity policies and programs, respectively; the two most commonly referenced facilitators. Motivation is defined as the cognitive processes which encourage behaviour change [ 24 ]. Positive attitudes towards promoting physical activity and positive perceptions about the consequences of physical activity are both important facilitators to implement physical activity practices in these settings [ 23 , 25 ]. Lastly, opportunity encompasses all the factors outside of the individual which may facilitate or hinder behaviour change [ 24 ]. A commonly cited barrier among teachers is a lack of availability of resources and space to promote physical activity [ 23 , 25 ]. Barriers that hinder the promotion of physical activity by teachers and ECEs may also inhibit educators from teaching children FMS [ 27 ]. Therefore, interventions that increase teachers’ capability and motivation to facilitate physical activity and FMS and improve opportunities may be an effective strategy to promote more active educational settings for children.

One approach to improving an teachers’ capability and motivation and opportunity is through capacity building. Capacity building is defined by the WHO as “the development of knowledge, skills, commitment, structures, systems and leadership to enable effective health promotion” (p. 341) [ 28 ]. Capacity building may take place at the individual or organizational level and includes such things as training and workshops, provision of resources, communities of practice, ongoing technical assistance, and designing and implementing policies to institutionalize health promotion [ 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Capacity building can be general and focus on building an individual’s and organization’s capacity to implement any intervention, or capacity building may intervention specific where the focus is on building the motivation and skills necessary to implement a specific intervention [ 31 ]. The interactive systems framework for dissemination and implementation positions capacity building at the centre of successfully implementing evidence informed practices and interventions in practice [ 30 ]. Furthermore, models of teacher professional growth and development position capacity building at the beginning of a causal chain to improve student outcomes through increase in teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and skills [ 32 ], or as part of a complex integrative process or continual of learning and professional growth [ 33 ]. Altogether, capacity building is positioned as an important activity to support teacher, and ultimately, student outcomes. There has been some research which has demonstrated the effectiveness of capacity building interventions on improving public health practitioners’ knowledge, perceived capabilities, skills, and behaviours [ 29 ]. However, the effect of physical activity capacity building interventions in classroom teachers and ECEs is unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to synthesize the effect of capacity building interventions on teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities to promote physical activity and FMS, their physical activity and FMS related knowledge, and their attitudes towards promoting physical activity and FMS.

This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meat-Analyses (PRISMA; Appendix A) and was pre-registered in the International Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews database (PROSPERO; CRD42022330335).

Information sources and search

Primary literature searches were conducted in Medline (via OVID), SPORTDiscus, PsychInfo, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and Scopus, with the final search conducted on May 5th 2022 and included all records from the inception of each database. The search was limited to titles and abstracts written in English. Searches used keywords for capacity building interventions, physical activity, teachers and ECEs, and intervention studies, and were combined using Boolean operators. The full list of search terms can be found in Appendix B. Primary literature searches were supplemented by manual screening of the reference list of included studies, and reverse screening of studies that referenced included studies using Scopus.

Eligibility criteria

Participants.

Studies were eligible if they included pre-service (i.e., in-training) or in-service classroom teachers (i.e., teachers without specialized training in physical education) or ECEs in early childhood education, primary/elementary education, or secondary education. Because the focus of this review was on teachers and ECEs who may lack the capacity to implement physical activity and FMS interventions, studies including specialist PE teachers (i.e., teachers specifically trained PE) were excluded. Studies were also excluded if they included other school/childcare personnel who were not teachers or ECEs in their analytic sample.

Interventions

All capacity building interventions were eligible. For the purpose of this review, capacity building interventions were defined as interventions that aimed to increase educators’ capacity to increase young people’s engagement in physical activity through the advancement of knowledge and skills, the expansion of support and infrastructure, the development of partnerships with others, or through the development and institutionalization of policies to promote favourable practice.

Study designs

Controlled (including randomized and non-randomized), single group pre-post, and cross-sectional case control studies were eligible for inclusion.

Outcome measures

Studies were eligible for inclusion if they examined teachers’ or ECEs’ perceived capabilities to increase children’s physical activity and FMS (e.g., self-efficacy, perceived behavioural control, perceived competence), physical activity and FMS related knowledge, or their attitudes towards promoting physical activity and FMS development in young people. Validated and made-for-purpose self-reported scales were included. Both test-based and perception-based knowledge questionnaires were included. Scales that measured outcomes for physical activity and sedentary behaviour simultaneously were included; however, scales that measured outcomes exclusively for screen time and sedentary behaviours were excluded. Scales that measured outcomes for physical activity or FMS and any other health behaviour (e.g., healthy eating) simultaneously were excluded, as it is not possible to differentiate the effect of the interventions on physical activity or FMS and other health behaviours.

Study selection

Search results were saved in Covidence (Veritas Health Innovation, Melbourne, Australia, https://www.covidence.org ), where duplicates were automatically removed. Unique references were then uploaded to ASReview. ASReview is an open-source machine learning program which uses active learning to assist in the review process [ 34 ]. The machine learning model was trained with prior knowledge by manually labelling three studies for inclusion and 10 studies for exclusion. The model then ranks the remaining articles in order of their likelihood of inclusion and the reviewer manually labels whether the study presented by ASReview is either relevant or irrelevant. After each selection, the model is retrained. For this review, ASReview’s default active learning model was used (see Van de Schoot et al., 2021 for details). Three independent reviewers each completed the title and abstract screening of the relevance ranked list. Each reviewer kept screening titles and abstracts until the following two criteria were met: (a) 30% of all titles and abstracts were screened, and (b) 500 consecutive titles and abstracts were labelled as irrelevant by the reviewer. Simulation studies have demonstrated that in reviews with greater than 5,000 unique records, 100% of relevant records are found in the first 30% of articles screened using ASReview [ 34 ]. All articles that were labelled as relevant by at least two reviewers were retrieved for full text screening. Titles and abstracts of articles that were labelled as relevant by a single author were re-reviewed by the lead author who made the final decision on whether full texts were retrieved. Non-published master and doctoral theses that were identified in the search and met the inclusion criteria were included in the review.

Full text screening was completed for each potentially relevant article in Covidence by two independent reviewers. Where there were discrepancies between reviewers, the lead author reread the full text and made the final decision on whether it was included. After a list of full texts was finalised, each reviewer screened the reference list of included studies to identify any potentially relevant articles not identified in the database search. Additionally, more recently published articles that cited included studies were identified using Scopus. A list of potentially relevant articles was made, and the lead author reviewed the full-text of each article to determine its appropriateness for inclusion in the review.

Data extraction

A single author extracted data into a standardized, pre-piloted extraction template in Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA). Data was extracted for sample characteristics (average age, percent female, type of educator, level of educator), outcome measures (i.e., perceived capability, knowledge, and attitudes), study design and duration, and intervention characteristics (e.g., capacity building components). Capacity building components include training and professional development (i.e., in-person or online courses/lectures/modules), resources and toolkits (i.e., providing support materials or physical resources useful for the implementation of physical activity in the classroom), communities of practice (i.e., developing networks to share knowledge experiences, thoughts, etc. among members), mentorship (i.e., one-on-one support provided by a physical activity/FMS expert), ongoing support (i.e., email, phone, or in-person technical support provided to teachers after the completion of initial training/professional development), and policy (i.e., develop and implement policies which support teachers to implement physical activity). WebPlotDigitizer (Ankit Rohatgi, Pacifica, CA, https://automeris.io/WebPlotDigitizer ) was used to extract numerical data from graphs where values of the mean and standard deviations of the outcomes were not presented in the text. WebPlotDigitizer has demonstrated validity and intercoder reliability [ 35 ]. All extracted data was cross-checked by another reviewer to ensure accuracy.

Risk of bias/quality assessment

Risk of bias for randomized controlled trials was assessed using the RoB2 tool [ 36 ] and the ROBINS-I tool was used for non-randomized controlled trials [ 37 ]. Quality of single group pre-post studies with no control group was assessed using the National Institute for Health’s Quality Assessment Tool for Before-After (Pre-Post) Studies With No Control Group [ 38 ]. Risk of bias assessments were conducted by two-independent reviewers. Discrepancies were resolved through a discussion between the reviewers until a consensus was achieved. The overall risk of bias for each study was assessed using procedures outlined in the original tools. For randomized controlled trials, the overall risk of bias was rated as low if it had a low risk of bias in all domains, some concerns if the study raised some concerns in at least one domain, and as high if the study had a high risk of bias in at least on domain or had some concerns in multiple domains [ 36 ]. The overall risk of for non-randomized controlled trials was rated as low if it had a low risk of bias in all domains, moderate if it had a low or moderate risk of bias for all domains, serious if it had a serious risk in at least one domain and critical if it had a critical risk in at least one domain [ 37 ]. For single group pre-post studies, overall study quality was rated based on the reviewer’s judgment of the risk measurement bias, selection bias, information bias, and confounding [ 38 ]. The overall quality of these studies was rated as poor, fair, or good.

Calculation of effect size

The standardized mean difference (SMD; Hedge’s g) for perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes were calculated for continuous variables using raw score metrics [ 39 ]. The SMD for continuous variables reported in controlled trials was calculated as the difference in the mean change from baseline to post-intervention between the intervention and control group, divided by the pooled standard deviation from baseline. For continuous outcomes reported in single group pre-post studies, the SMD was calculated as the mean change from baseline to post-intervention, divided by the standard deviation at baseline.

For dichotomous variables reported in controlled trials, the difference in log odds-ratio comparing baseline to post-intervention for the intervention and control group were calculated. For single group pre-post studies, the log odds-ratio comparing baseline to post-intervention was calculated. Log odds-ratios were converted into SMDs by dividing the log odds-ratios by \(\frac{\pi }{\sqrt{3}}\) [ 40 ]. All SMDs were adjusted for the upward bias of small samples sizes [ 41 ].

Variances in effect sizes were calculated using the equations specified by Borenstein et al. (2009). The variance of log odds-ratios were converted to the variance for SMD by dividing by \(\frac{{\pi }^{2}}{3}\) . For single sample pre-post studies, the correlation between outcomes between baseline and post-intervention were calculated and used to estimate variance. Where a correlation could not be calculated the median of the correlations for all other studies were used for each outcome which was 0.38 for perceived capability and 0.45 for attitudes. No correlations could be calculated for knowledge so a conservative correlation of 0.40 was used to calculate the variance of effect sizes.

Statistical analysis

Statistical analyses were completed in RStudio v. 1.3 (RStudio Team, Boston, MA), using the robumeta [ 43 ], clubSandwhich [ 44 ], metaphor [ 45 ], and PublicationBias [ 46 ] packages. Random-effects meta-analyses were used to estimate the pooled effect sizes for each outcome. To account for non-independent effect sizes within studies for perceived capabilities, a robust-variance estimator (RVE; Hedges et al., 2010; Tanner-Smith & Tipton, 2014) was used to calculate the pooled effect size. RVE provides non-biased estimates of effect sizes and their variances, even when the exact covariance structure is unknown [ 47 , 48 ]. The analysis used approximately inverse variance averaged weights assuming a correlation of 0.8 between effect sizes within studies. A small sample size adjustment was applied to the estimation [ 49 ]. Between study variance is estimated using a method of moments estimator [ 48 ]. For knowledge and attitudes, the average number of non-independent effect sizes within studies was small (i.e., < 1.5). Therefore, effect sizes within studies were combined before analysis so that each study only had an individual effect size, and a pooled effect size was estimated using the generic inverse variance method. Between study variance was estimated using the restricted maximum likelihood method [ 50 ]. Between study heterogeneity was assessed using I 2 [ 51 ] and an approximate 95% prediction interval [ 52 ]. I 2 presents the proportion of between study variance of the total variance and the 95% prediction interval provides a range of likely effects in similar future studies. A sensitivity analysis was conducted for each outcome excluding randomized controlled trials which were rated as a high risk of bias, non-randomized controlled trials rated as having a serious or critical risk of bias and single group pre-post studies rated as poor quality.

Subgroup analysis was conducted for perceived capabilities. Planned subgroup analysis was conducted for type of teacher (early childhood educator, elementary/primary teacher) and a planned meta-regression was run to estimate the effect of the length of the study. Based on available data, a subgroup analysis was also conducted to examine differences between study designs (control group, single group), teacher level (pre-service, in-service), and theoretical basis of the intervention (theoretically informed, atheoretical), and meta-regression was conducted to determine if the number of capacity building components was related to changes in perceived capabilities. As suggested by Tipton and Pustejovsky (2015) the approximate Hotelling’s \({T}_{Z}^{2}\) test was used to test moderators for perceived capabilities. Given the limited number of studies and unequal distribution of effect sizes between subgroups, subgroup analysis was not estimated for knowledge or attitudes.

Publication bias was assessed through the examination of funnel plot asymmetry. Funnel plot asymmetry was estimated using Egger’s regression [ 54 ]. To avoid an artificial correlation between an SMD and its standard error, the SMD was removed from the equation when calculating the standard error for Egger’s regression [ 55 ]. Additionally, to determine how sensitive the result of the meta-analyses were to publication bias, the methods described by Mathur and Vanderweele [ 46 ] were used to calculate a fail-safe n to determine the number of non-affirmative studies that would need to be published to lead to null results. The unpublished non-affirmative results are assumed to be comparable to published non-affirmative results. Tests of publication bias were only conducted for meta-analyses with at least 10 independent effect sizes [ 51 ].

After removing duplicates, the literature search yielded 11,720 potentially relevant articles. Of these, 4,315 titles and abstracts were screened manually, and the reaming 7,404 were ranked below the threshold for manual screening. Each reviewer screened a slightly different pool of titles and abstracts based on their unique machine learning algorithm. Overall, 795 titles and abstracts were screened by a single reviewer, 804 titles and abstracts were screened by two reviewers, and 2,716 titles and abstracts were screened by all three reviewers. A total of 292 full text articles were sought for retrieval. One full text could not be retrieved, so 291 full texts were reviewed. Of these, 273 were excluded and 18 relevant articles met all inclusion criteria. Four additional articles were identified by checking and reverse checking reference lists. In total 22 articles, reporting on 25 unique samples were included (Fig. 1 ).

PRISMA flowchart of study screening and selection

Study characteristics

Characteristics for the included studies are displayed in Appendix C. Studies were conducted in the United States (k = 7), Australia (k = 6), Canada (k = 5), Turkey (k = 3) and Ireland (k = 1). Of the included articles, 14 employed a single group pre-post design [ 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ], four were randomized controlled trials [ 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ], and three were non-randomized controlled trials [ 74 , 75 , 76 ]. One study was a randomized control trial, however, only reported on the outcomes of interest in the intervention group [ 77 ]. Almost all studies reported on ECEs (k = 10) or elementary/middle school teachers (k = 10). Additionally, one study reported on both ECEs and elementary teachers and one study did not report the type of school. No studies reported on secondary school teachers. Overall, 13 studies reported on in-service teachers, eight reported on pre-service teachers, and one reported on both pre-service and in-service teachers. The proportion of study populations that was female ranged between 40 and 100% (median = 94.8%). The sample size of included studies ranged from five to 308 (median = 56) and studies ranged in length from 2 weeks to 9 months. By far and away, the capacity building interventions described in the literature focused on individual level capacity building. The most common capacity building components reported in studies included training/professional development (19 studies), resources and toolkits (12 studies), communities of practice (10 studies), mentorships (seven studies), and ongoing support (four studies). Twenty of the 25 interventions included multiple capacity building strategies (median = 2.00). Overall, 11 studies reported the model that was used to inform their intervention. Some studies reported using multiple models. Ten of these reported on behaviour change models including the Social Cognitive Theory (k = 8), ecological models (k = 5), Behavioural Choice Theory (k = 2), and Self-Determination Theory (k = 1). A single study reported using a Cooperative framework to teacher professional development.

Risk of bias/study quality

The results from the assessment of risk of bias and study quality are displayed in Appendix C. For randomized controlled trials, three studies were rated as having some concerns overall while two were rated as having a high risk of bias, mainly owing to risk of bias from the randomization process and selective reporting. The two non-randomized controlled trials were both rated as having a high risk of bias overall, owing to risk of confounding, risk in the selection of participants, and risk due to the measurement of the outcome. Of the single group pre-post studies, four were rated as good quality, six were rated as fair quality, and three were rated as poor quality. Studies were rated as poor quality for not having a clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, not performing appropriate statistical tests, and having small sample sizes.

Meta-analysis

Perceived capability.

A total of 19 studies reported on 22 unique samples and 62 effect sizes, with a combined sample size of 1,849, were included in the meta-analysis for perceived capability. Results demonstrated a medium pooled effect (g = 0.614, 95% CI = 0.442, 0.786; Fig. 2 ); however, there was substantial between-study heterogeneity (I 2 = 85.60%) and the 95% prediction interval was − 0.179 to 1.407. The results from the Egger`s regression was non-significant ( p = .365), indicating that there was not significant funnel plot asymmetry (Appendix D). Results from the fail-safe n indicated that no number of non-affirmative results could sufficiently attenuate the results so they become null.

Forest plot of effect sizes from the robust variance meta-analysis for perceived capability

Results from the sensitivity analysis excluding studies with a high risk of bias or low study quality demonstrated a somewhat attenuated pooled effect (k = 14, g = 0.486, 95% CI = 0.298, 0.673), with similar between study heterogeneity (I 2 = 89.13%, 95% prediction interval = -0.331, 1.303).

Results from the subgroup analysis and meta-regression show that the estimated effect size did not significantly differ across any of the subgroups tested and was not related to the length of the study (Table 1 ).

A total of eight studies reporting on 10 independent effect sizes and 642 participants were included in the meta-analysis for knowledge. There was a large pooled effect for this outcome (g = 0.792, 95% CI = 0.459, 1.125; Fig. 3 ) and there was substantial between-study heterogeneity (I 2 = 75.52%) with a 95% prediction interval of -0.239 to 1.824. The results from the Egger`s regression were non-significant ( p = .067) indicating that there was not significant funnel plot asymmetry (Appendix D). Results from the fail-safe n indicated 22 non-affirmative results could sufficiently attenuate the results so they become null.

Forest plot for effect sizes from the random effects meta-analysis for physical activity-related knowledge

Results from the sensitivity analysis excluding studies with a high risk of bias or low study quality demonstrated a somewhat attenuated pooled effect (k = 6, g = 0.600, 95% CI = 0.166, 1.036), with increased between study heterogeneity (I 2 = 82.70%, 95% prediction interval = -0.648, 1.743).

A total of eight studies reporting on nine independent samples and including 1,112 participants were included in the meta-analysis for attitudes. The pooled effect for this outcome measure was modest (g = 0.376, 95% CI = 0.181, 0.571; Fig. 4 ). There was substantial between-study heterogeneity (I 2 = 84.98%) and the 95% prediction interval was − 0.256 to 1.008. The funnel plot of effect sizes can be seen in Appendix D.

Forest plot for effect sizes from the random effects meta-analysis for attitudes towards promoting physical activity

Results from the sensitivity analysis excluding studies with a high risk of bias or low study quality demonstrated an almost identical pooled effect (k = 8, g = 0.372, 95% CI = 0.164, 0.581), and between study heterogeneity (I 2 = 85.70%, 95% prediction interval = -0.312, 1.056).

Classroom teachers and ECEs play an important role in ensuring children engage in sufficient levels of physical activity and have the movement skills necessary to engage in lifelong physical activity [ 17 , 18 ]. Teachers’ capabilities, attitudes, and the opportunities afforded by the environments in which they work may all simultaneously and synergistically influence their behaviours related to promoting physical activity and FMS [ 24 , 25 ]. Capacity building interventions, either at the individual or school level, have the potential to increase teachers’ and ECE’s capacity to incorporate physical activity and FMS into the curriculum through increasing their knowledge, perceptions about their capabilities (e.g., self-efficacy), and improving attitudes towards physical activity and FMS [ 22 , 23 , 78 ]. Therefore, this meta-analysis evaluated the effect of capacity building interventions on teachers’ and ECEs’ capacity related to physical activity and FMS. Results suggest that capacity building interventions were effective at increasing both teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities (g = 0.614), knowledge (g = 0.792), and attitudes (g = 0.376) related to physical activity and FMS. Based on models of teacher growth [ 32 , 33 ], these improvements in teacher outcomes are likely to positively influence student outcomes through changes in teachers’ practices. These findings speak to the value of capacity building interventions to foster more active educational settings.

Generally speaking, the capacity building interventions identified in this review focused on capacity building strategies at the individual level. Almost all studies included in the current review provided teacher training or professional development as a capacity building component of the intervention. The results from this meta-analysis demonstrate that providing teacher training or professional development opportunities are likely to increase teachers’ and ECEs’ capacity to implement physical activity opportunities into the curriculum, and highlight the value of giving classroom teachers and ECEs physical activity and FMS specific training. However, most interventions included multiple capacity building components, including training in combination with continued support, communities of practice, resources and toolkits, or mentorship. Previous research has demonstrated that taking a multi-strategy approach towards teacher capacity building can lead to increase implementation of physical activity opportunities in schools [ 79 , 80 ], and may be more effective than providing teacher training alone [ 81 ]. As such, it is promising to see that most capacity building interventions are taking a multi-strategy approach. Although most studies took a multi-strategy approach to capacity building, very few studies utilised strategies to build capacity at both the individual and organizational level. A range of factors across various levels of influence, including organizational capacity (e.g., support from leadership) and community level (e.g., funding) have the potential to facilitate or inhibit implementation of physical activity programs and policies in school settings [ 22 , 23 ]. Indeed, the competency of individuals itself may not be sufficient to achieve health promotion goals, and support from the organizations that they work within is equally important [ 28 ]. Therefore, more research is needed to determine if incorporating strategies to increase teachers’ and ECEs’ capacity alongside strategies aimed at improving organizational capacity, such as policy implementation, environmental modifications, support from leadership, and increased funding, are more effective at increasing teachers’ and ECEs’ knowledge, competence, and attitudes towards implementing physical activity and FMS opportunities in the curriculum.

An important finding from this meta-analysis is that capacity building interventions were effective at increasing perceived capabilities in both pre-service and in-service teachers. The limited number of studies precluded a formal subgroup analysis comparing the effects of capacity building interventions on knowledge and attitudes in pre-service and in-service teachers and ECEs. Nevertheless, results from individual studies included in the meta-analysis indicate that capacity building interventions can increase pre-service teachers’ and ECEs’ physical activity-related knowledge [ 63 , 69 ] and attitudes [ 59 , 60 , 82 ]. Therefore, in addition to improving in-service teachers’ and ECEs’ physical activity-related practices, capacity building interventions have the potential to increase pre-service teachers’ and ECEs’ capacity to promote physical activity when they enter the profession. However, teachers and ECEs may not be given the opportunity to engage in formalised training in physical activity and FMS [ 14 , 15 ]. Nevertheless, embedding physical activity content into the pre-service training of teachers is perceived as a feasible, acceptable, and even necessary by a range of stakeholders including university lecturers, pre-service teachers, and school administrators to equip teachers with the pedagogical skills necessary to promote physical activity in the classroom [ 59 , 60 ]. Providing pre-service teachers and ECEs with the requisite skills, knowledge, and attitudes to promote physical activity in their classrooms could have far-reaching positive impacts on children’s physical activity.

Although the results from this meta-analysis demonstrated the effectiveness of capacity building interventions on teacher outcomes, an important consideration to make is that reach of the studies included in this systematic review and meta-analysis were relatively limited, with the median sample size of included studies being 56 teachers or ECEs. An important area of future research is to consider the scalability of capacity building interventions. Large-scale capacity building interventions may be a necessary component of the implementation of district, state, or national regulations relating to physical activity, which may have inadequate adherence [ 83 , 84 ] and limited effect at increasing children’s engagement in physical activity when implemented alone [ 85 ]. Recently, an evaluation of a large scale capacity building initiative, implemented alongside the introduction of a state legislated active play policy in childcares [ 86 ], was conducted with over 1,800 childcare staff (including ECEs, and other support staff) [ 87 ]. The capacity building intervention, which included training, toolkits, technical support and communities of practice, used a train-the-trainer approach, where regional trainers were given the skills necessary to deliver the capacity building intervention in their municipality, and was successful at increasing childcare staff’s capacity to increase children’s physical activity [ 87 ]. Interestingly, the effect of the capacity building intervention was largely consistent across modalities including in-person, live online workshops, and e-learning modules [ 87 ]. However, findings relating to the effectiveness of virtual capacity building interventions from the current review were mixed, with some studies showing that virtual interventions may be effective [ 69 ], while others had mixed or null findings [ 71 , 73 ]. Given the potential reach and cost effectiveness of delivering capacity building interventions online, further research is warranted to examine the effectiveness of online interventions.

There are several research gaps that can be identified from the results of the current systematic review and meta-analysis that warrant further attention. No studies were identified that examined the effect of capacity building interventions on secondary school classroom teachers’ perceived capabilities, knowledge, or attitudes. This may be because secondary schools are more likely to have specialised PE teacher and formalized PE curriculums than primary schools [ 12 ]. However, given that classroom teacher led physically active lessons may be an effective strategy to improve adolescents’ physical activity, fitness, and on-task behaviour in secondary school students [ 88 , 89 ], it may be important to consider how capacity building interventions affect secondary school classroom teachers. Second, the vast majority of studies were conducted in high income countries. It is important to determine the effectiveness of capacity building interventions in more diverse contexts and examine if teachers from low-to-middle income countries would benefits from unique or additional capacity building components. Additionally, while validated tools exist to measure the outcomes included in this review [ 90 , 91 , 92 , 93 ], most studies included in this review employed scales that were not validated. Future research should use validated measures of teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived competence and attitudes relating to physical activity and FMS whenever possible. Further, while some studies included measures which simultaneously referred to physical activity and screen time/sedentary behaviours, future research may consider examining these outcomes related to these behaviours independent of physical activity.

Strengths and limitations

This review is the first meta-analysis to examine the effect of capacity building interventions on teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes related to physical activity and FMS. This review used a machine learning classifier to assist in title and abstract screening. This is advantageous as it allows for the expansion of search terms; and therefore, the identification of a greater number of potentially relevant articles, without becoming overwhelming for reviewers. Additionally, the extremely imbalanced nature of data found in database searches (i.e., significantly more irrelevant than relevant titles and abstracts) means that traditional reviews may be error prone [ 94 ]. By displaying the most relevant articles first, using the machine learning algorithm may reduce the error rate when identifying relevant articles from titles and abstracts. Additionally, a thorough approach to reviewing articles cited in and cited by all included studies was implemented to ensure that relevant articles missed in the original search were included in the review. There are also some limitations to the current review that should be taken into consideration. First, this review was limited to articles written in English, potentially omitting relevant studies written in other languages, and introducing an English language bias [ 95 ]. Second, the database search was conducted in May 2022, and was already somewhat outdated by the time this review was published. Third, the review included both controlled trials and single group pre-post studies. There are several compelling reasons to exclude single group pre-post studies from a meta-analysis [ 96 ]. However, given that the extant literature consists of a majority single group pre-post studies, it was not viable to exclude them from the current meta-analysis. Raw score metrics as described by Morris and DeShon [ 39 ] were used to calculate all effect sizes, so they were comparable across study designs. Additionally, the results from the subgroup analysis indicated that study design did not significantly moderate the estimated effect size for perceived capabilities, increasing confidence that it was appropriate to combine study designs. Lastly, many of the included studies were rated as having a high risk of bias or as poor quality. This may have implications for the reliability and validity of the reported results and more high-quality studies are needed to confirm the results of this meta-analysis.

Findings from this meta-analysis suggest that capacity building interventions are effective at increasing teachers’ and ECEs’ perceived competence, knowledge and attitudes related to physical activity and FMS. The most common capacity building intervention component implemented in the identified studies was teacher training/professional development, highlighting the value of providing training to increase teachers’ and ECEs’ capacity to increase physical activity and improve FMS in their students. Training should be provided to teachers and ECEs at both the in-service and pre-service level. Capacity building may also be an important component to the implementation of physical activity policies and mandates to ensure adherence.

Data availability

Contact Matthew Bourke to request access to the extracted data and analysis code.

Abbreviations

Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature

Early Childhood Educator

Education Resources Information Center

Fundamental Movement Skills

Physical Education

Preferred reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; PROSPERO: International Prospective Register for Systematic Reviews

Standardized Mean Difference

Robust Variance Estimator

Chaput J-P, Willumsen J, Bull F, Chou R, Ekelund U, Firth J, et al. 2020 WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour for children and adolescents aged 5–17 years: Summary of the evidence. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Activity. 2020;17:141.

Article Google Scholar

Carson V, Lee E-Y, Hewitt L, Jennings C, Hunter S, Kuzik N, et al. Systematic review of the relationships between physical activity and health indicators in the early years (0–4 years). BMC Public Health. 2017;17:854.

Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Pate RR, Hillman CH, Janz KF, Katzmarzyk PT, Powell KE, Torres A et al. Physical activity and health in children younger than 6 years: a systematic review. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019;51.

Cairney J, Dudley D, Kwan M, Bulten R, Kriellaars D. Physical literacy, physical activity and health: toward an evidence-informed conceptual model. Sports Med. 2019;49:371–83.

Article PubMed Google Scholar

Jones D, Innerd A, Giles EL, Azevedo LB. Association between fundamental motor skills and physical activity in the early years: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sport Health Sci. 2020;9:542–52.

Engel AC, Broderick CR, van Doorn N, Hardy LL, Parmenter BJ. Exploring the relationship between fundamental motor skill interventions and physical activity levels in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2018;48:1845–57.

Hill PJ, Mcnarry MA, Mackintosh KA, Murray MA, Pesce C, Valentini NC, et al. The influence of Motor competence on broader aspects of Health: a systematic review of the Longitudinal associations between Motor competence and cognitive and social-emotional outcomes. Sports Med. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01939-5 .

de Greeff JW, Bosker RJ, Oosterlaan J, Visscher C, Hartman E. Effects of physical activity on executive functions, attention and academic performance in preadolescent children: a meta-analysis. J Sci Med Sport. 2018;21:501–7.

Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC healthy schools: Physical Education and physical activity. 2021. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/physicalactivity/index.htm .

Goldfield GS, Harvey A, Grattan K, Adamo KB. Physical activity promotion in the preschool years: a critical period to intervene. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2012;9:1326–42.

Wick K, Leeger-Aschmann CS, Monn ND, Radtke T, Ott LV, Rebholz CE et al. Interventions to promote Fundamental Movement skills in Childcare and Kindergarten: a systematic review and Meta-analysis. Sports Med. 2017;:1–24.

Hardman K, Marshall J. World-wide survey of School Physical Education: final report. Paris, France: UNESCO; 2014.

Google Scholar

Faulkner GEJ, Dwyer JJM, Irving H, Allison KR, Adlaf EM, Goodman J. Specialist or nonspecialist physical education teachers in ontario elementary schools: examining differences in opportunities for physical activity. Alta J Educational Res. 2008;54:407–19.

Martyniuk O, Tucker P. An exploration of Early Childhood Education students’ knowledge and preparation to facilitate physical activity for preschoolers: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health. 2014;14:727.

Bruijns BA, Adamo KB, Burke SM, Carson V, Irwin JD, Naylor P-JJ, et al. Exploring the physical activity and screen-viewing-related knowledge, training, and self-efficacy of early childhood education candidates. BMC Pediatr. 2019;19:5.

Hills AP, Dengel DR, Lubans DR. Supporting public health priorities: recommendations for physical education and physical activity promotion in schools. Prog Cardiovasc Dis. 2015;57:368–74.

Vanderloo LM, Tucker P, Johnson AM, Van Zandvoort MM, Burke SM, Irwin JD. The influence of centre-based childcare on preschoolers’ physical activity levels: a cross-sectional study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014;11:1794–802.

Webster CA, Russ L, Vazou S, Goh TL, Erwin H. Integrating movement in academic classrooms: understanding, applying and advancing the knowledge base. Obes Rev. 2015;16:691–701.

Article CAS PubMed Google Scholar

Norris E, van Steen T, Direito A, Stamatakis E. Physically active lessons in schools and their impact on physical activity, educational, health and cognition outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2020;54:826 LP – 838.

Masini A, Marini S, Gori D, Leoni E, Rochira A, Dallolio L. Evaluation of school-based interventions of active breaks in primary schools: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sci Med Sport. 2020;23:377–84.

Johnstone A, Hughes AR, Martin A, Reilly JJ. Utilising active play interventions to promote physical activity and improve fundamental movement skills in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health. 2018;18:789.

Cassar S, Salmon J, Timperio A, Naylor P-J, van Nassau F, Contardo Ayala AM, et al. Adoption, implementation and sustainability of school-based physical activity and sedentary behaviour interventions in real-world settings: a systematic review. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Activity. 2019;16:120.

Naylor P-J, Nettlefold L, Race D, Hoy C, Ashe MC, Wharf Higgins J, et al. Implementation of school based physical activity interventions: a systematic review. Prev Med (Baltim). 2015;72:95–115.

Michie S, van Stralen MM, West R. The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterizing and designing behaviour change interventions. Implement Sci. 2011;6.

Jerebine A, Heering T, Barnett LM. Educator-Perceived barriers and facilitators to structured-physical activity in early Childhood centres: a systematic review. Res Q Exerc Sport. 2024;:1–20.

Nathan N, Elton B, Babic M, McCarthy N, Sutherland R, Presseau J, et al. Barriers and facilitators to the implementation of physical activity policies in schools: a systematic review. Prev Med (Baltim). 2018;107:45–53.

Ma J, Hogan MJ, Eyre ELJ, Lander N, Barnett LM, Duncan MJ. Using collective intelligence to identify barriers to implementing and sustaining effective Fundamental Movement Skill interventions: a rationale and application example. J Sports Sci. 2021;39:691–8.

Smith BJ, Tang KC, Nutbeam D. WHO Health Promotion Glossary: New terms. Health Promot Int. 2006;21:340–5.

DeCorby-Watson K, Mensah G, Bergeron K, Abdi S, Rempel B, Manson H. Effectiveness of capacity building interventions relevant to public health practice: a systematic review. BMC Public Health. 2018;18:684.

Wandersman A, Duffy J, Flaspohler P, Noonan R, Lubell K, Stillman L, et al. Bridging the Gap between Prevention Research and Practice: the interactive systems Framework for dissemination and implementation. Am J Community Psychol. 2008;41:171–81.

Flaspohler P, Duffy J, Wandersman A, Stillman L, Maras MA. Unpacking prevention capacity: an intersection of research-to-practice models and community-centered models. Am J Community Psychol. 2008;41:182–96.

Desimone LM. Improving Impact studies of teachers’ Professional Development: toward Better Conceptualizations and measures. Educational Researcher. 2009;38:181–99.

Clarke D, Hollingsworth H. Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teach Teach Educ. 2002;18:947–67.

van de Schoot R, de Bruin J, Schram R, Zahedi P, de Boer J, Weijdema F, et al. An open source machine learning framework for efficient and transparent systematic reviews. Nat Mach Intell. 2021;2021 3(2):3:125–33.

Drevon D, Fursa SR, Malcolm AL. Intercoder Reliability and Validity of WebPlotDigitizer in extracting Graphed Data. Behav Modif. 2016;41:323–39.

Sterne JAC, Savović J, Page MJ, Elbers RG, Blencowe NS, Boutron I, et al. RoB 2: a revised tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials. BMJ. 2019;366:l4898.

Sterne JAC, Hernán MA, Reeves BC, Savović J, Berkman ND, Viswanathan M, et al. ROBINS-I: a tool for assessing risk of bias in non-randomised studies of interventions. BMJ. 2016;355:i4919.

Institute National Heart Lung and Blood. Study Quality Assessment Tools. 2021. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/study-quality-assessment-tools .

Morris SB, DeShon RP. Combining effect size estimates in meta-analysis with repeated measures and independent-groups designs. Psychol Methods. 2002;7:105–25.

Sánchez-Meca J, Marín-Martínez F, Chacón-Moscoso S. Effect-size indices for dichotomized outcomes in meta-snalysis. Psychol Methods. 2003;8:448–67.

Hedges LV. Distribution theory for Glass’s estimator of Effect size and related estimators. J Educational Stat. 1981;6:107–28.

Borenstein M, Hedges LV, Higgins JPT, Rothstein HR. Introduction to meta-analysis. West Sussex, UK: Wiley; 2009.

Book Google Scholar

Fisher Z, Tipton E, Zhipeng H. Robust Variance Meta-Regression. (Version 2.0). 2017. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/robumeta/robumeta.pdf .

Pustejovsky J. Cluster-Robust (Sandwich) Variance Estimators with Small-Sample Corrections. (Version 0.5.3). 2021. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/clubSandwich/clubSandwich.pdf .

Viechtbauer W. Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package. 2010.

Mathur MB, Vanderweele TJ. Sensitivity analysis for publication bias in meta-analyses. Appl Statist. 2020;69:1091–119.

Hedges LV, Tipton E, Johnson MC. Robust variance estimation in meta-regression with dependent effect size estimates. Res Syn Meth. 2010;1:39–65.

Tanner-Smith EE, Tipton E. Robust variance estimation with dependent effect sizes: practical considerations including a software tutorial in Stata and SPSS. Res Synth Methods. 2014;5:13–30.

Tipton E. Small sample adjustments for robust variance estimation with meta-regression. Psychol Methods. 2012;20:375–93.

Harville DA. Maximum likelihood approaches to variance component estimation and to related problems. J Am Stat Assoc. 1977;72:320–38.

Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, Cumpston M, Li T, Page MJ, et al. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. Wiley; 2019.

Higgins JPT, Thompson SG, Spiegelhalter DJ. A re-evaluation of random-effects meta-analysis. J Royal Stat Society: Ser A. 2009;172:137–59.

Tipton E, Pustejovsky JE. Small-sample adjustments for tests of moderators and Model Fit using Robust Variance Estimation in Meta-Regression. J Educational Behav Stat. 2015;40:604–34.

Egger M, Smith GD, Schneider M, Minder C. Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. BMJ. 1997;315:629–34.

Article CAS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar

Pustejovsky Melissa A, Rodgers JE, James Pustejovsky CE. Testing for funnel plot asymmetry of standardized mean differences. Res Synth Methods. 2018;10:57–71.

Barcelona JM, Centeio EE, Hijazi K, Pedder C. Classroom Teacher Efficacy toward implementation of physical activity in the D-SHINES intervention. J Sch Health. 2022;92:619–28.

Fletcher T, Mandigo J, Kosnik C. Elementary classroom teachers and physical education: change in teacher-related factors during pre-service teacher education. Phys Educ Sport Pedagogy. 2013;18:169–83.

Johnson-Shelton D, Ricci J, Westling E, Peterson M, Rusby JC. Program evaluation of healthy Moves™: a community-based trainer in residence professional development program to support generalist teachers with physical education instruction. J Phys Act Health. 2022;19:125–31.

Lander N, Mazzoli E, Cassar S, Symington N, Salmon J. Embedding active pedagogies within pre-service teacher education: implementation considerations and recommendations. Children. 2020;7:207.

Lander N, Koorts H, Mazzoli E, Moncrieff K, Salmon J. The feasibility and impact of embedding pedagogical strategies targeting physical activity within undergraduate teacher education. Transform-Ed! Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2019;5:125.

Louth S, Jamieson-Proctor R. Classroom teachers and daily student physical activity requirements: A study of capacity building through Traditional Indigenous Games (TIG). In: Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference 2015. Australian Association for Reseach in Education (AARE); 2015. pp. 1–14.

Murtha K, Thompson K, Cleland P, Gallegos D. Adaptation and evaluation of a nutrition and physical activity program for early childhood education settings in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in remote Far North Queensland. Health Promotion J Australia. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/hpja.352 .

Sevimli-Celik S. Moving between theory and practice: preparing early childhood pre-service teachers for teaching Physical Education. J Early Child Teach Educ. 2021;42:281–98.

Webster C. Relationships between personal biography and changes in preservice classroom teachers’ physical activity promotion competence and attitudes. J Teach Phys Educ. 2011;30:320–39.

Whipp PR, Hutton H, Grove JR, Jackson B. Outsourcing Physical Education in primary schools: evaluating the impact of externally provided programmes on generalist teachers. Asia-Pacific J Health Sport Phys Educ. 2011;2:67–77.

Wright C, Buxcey J, Gibbons S, Cairney J, Barrette M, Naylor P-J. A pragmatic feasibility trial examining the effect of job embedded professional development on teachers’ capacity to provide physical literacy enriched Physical Education in elementary schools. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17:4386.

Xiang P, Lowy S, Mcbride R. The impact of a field-based elementary physical education methods course on preservice classroom teachers ’ beliefs. J Teach Phys Educ. 2002;21:145–61.

Bai P, Thornton A, Lester L, Schipperijn J, Trapp G, Boruff B et al. Nature play and fundamental movement skills training programs improve childcare educator supportive physical activity behavior. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17.

Bruijns BA, Johnson AM, Burke SM, Vanderloo LM, Adamo KB, Carson V, et al. Change in pre- and in-service early childhood educators’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and intentions following an e-learning course in physical activity and sedentary behaviour: a pilot study. BMC Public Health. 2022;22:244.

Bruijns BA, Johnson AM, Irwin JD, Burke SM, Driediger M, Vanderloo LM, et al. Training may enhance early childhood educators’ self-efficacy to lead physical activity in childcare. BMC Public Health. 2021;21:386.

Hoffman JA, Schmidt EM, Arguello DJ, Eyllon MN, Castaneda-Sceppa C, Cloutier G, et al. Online preschool teacher training to promote physical activity in young children: a pilot cluster randomized controlled trial. School Psychol. 2020;35:118–27.

Mazzucca SL. Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in Early Care and Education Centers: Identifying Opportunities and Testing Strategies to Support Active Classroom Environments. 2017.

Ward S, Bélanger M, Leis A. Comparison between the healthy Start-Départ Santé Online and in-person training of childcare educators to improve healthy eating and physical activity practices and knowledge of physical activity and fundamental movement skills: a controlled trial. Prev Med Rep. 2020;20:101264.

Altunsöz IH. Early childhood education majors’ self-efficacy for teaching fundamental motor skills. Percept Mot Skills. 2015;121:482–9.

Duff C, Issartel J, O’ Brien W, Belton S. Kids active: evaluation of an educator-led active play and fundamental movement skill intervention in the Irish preschool setting. J Mot Learn Dev. 2019;7:389–407.

Ünlü H, Erbaş MK. Effect of a physical education training program on the Physical Education teaching efficacy of classroom teacher candidates. Phys Educ. 2019;76:964–89.

Hivner EA, Hoke AM, Francis EB, Lehman EB, Hwang GW, Kraschnewski JL. Training teachers to implement physical activity: applying social cognitive theory. Health Educ J. 2019;78:464–75.

Wenden EJ, Pearce N, George P, Christian HE. Educators’ barriers and facilitators to physical activity policy implementation in the childcare setting: qualitative findings from the play active project. Am J Health Promotion. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/08901171221105052 .

Nathan N, Hall A, McCarthy N, Sutherland R, Wiggers J, Bauman AE, et al. Multi-strategy intervention increases school implementation and maintenance of a mandatory physical activity policy: outcomes of a cluster randomised controlled trial. Br J Sports Med. 2022;56:385–93.

Nathan N, Sutherland RL, Hope K, McCarthy NJ, Pettett M, Elton B, et al. Implementation of a School Physical Activity Policy improves Student physical activity levels: outcomes of a cluster-randomized controlled trial. J Phys Act Health. 2020;17:1009–18.

Delk J, Springer AE, Kelder SH, Grayless M. Promoting teacher adoption of physical activity breaks in the Classroom: findings of the Central Texas CATCH Middle School Project. J Sch Health. 2014;84:722–30.

Webster C, Monsma E, Erwin H. The role of biographical characteristics in preservice classroom teachers’ school physical activity promotion attitudes. J Teach Phys Educ. 2010;29:358–77.

Allison KR, Vu-Nguyen K, Ng B, Schoueri-Mychasiw N, Dwyer JJM, Manson H, et al. Evaluation of Daily Physical Activity (DPA) policy implementation in Ontario: surveys of elementary school administrators and teachers. BMC Public Health. 2016;16:746.

Mâsse LC, Naiman D, Naylor P-J. From policy to practice: implementation of physical activity and food policies inschools. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Activity. 2013;10:71.

Carson V, Zhang Z, Kuzik N, Adamo KB, Predy M, Crozier M, et al. The impact of new government childcare accreditation standards on children’s in-care physical activity and sedentary time. BMC Public Health. 2022;22:616.

Government of British Columbia. Director of Licensing Standard of Practice - Active Play. 2017.

Hassani K, Buckler EJ, Nzunga JM, Fakih S, Scarr J, Mâsse LC, et al. Implementing appetite to play at scale in British Columbia: evaluation of a capacity - building intervention to promote physical activity in the early years. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17:1132.

Mavilidi MF, Mason C, Leahy AA, Kennedy SG, Eather N, Hillman CH, et al. Effect of a time-efficient physical activity intervention on senior school students’ on-task behaviour and subjective vitality: the ‘Burn 2 learn’ cluster randomised controlled trial. Educ Psychol Rev. 2021;33:299–323.

Lubans DR, Smith JJ, Eather N, Leahy AA, Morgan PJ, Lonsdale C, et al. Time-efficient intervention to improve older adolescents’ cardiorespiratory fitness: findings from the ‘Burn 2 learn’ cluster randomised controlled trial. Br J Sports Med. 2021;55:751–8.

Bruijns BA, Johnson AM, Burke SM, Tucker P. Educators’ self-efficacy to promote physical activity and Outdoor Play and minimize sedentary behavior in Childcare: a Tool Validation Study. J Res Child Educ. 2022;:1–10.

Derscheid LE, Kim S-Y, Zittel LL, Umoren J, Henry BW. Teachers’ self-efficacy and knowledge of healthy nutrition and physical activity practices for preschoolers: instrument development and validation. J Res Child Educ. 2014;28:261.

Humphries CA, Hebert E, Daigle K, Martin J. Development of a Physical Education teaching efficacy scale. Meas Phys Educ Exerc Sci. 2012;16:284–99.

Bruijns BA, Johnson AM, Burke SM, Tucker P. Validation of a physical activity, sedentary behavior, and Outdoor play behavioral intention and perceived behavioral control Tool for early childhood educators. Early Child Educ J. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-022-01314-5 .

Wang Z, Nayfeh T, Tetzlaff J, O’Blenis P, Murad MH. Error rates of human reviewers during abstract screening in systematic reviews. PLoS ONE. 2020;15:e0227742.

Egger M, Zellweger-Zähner T, Schneider M, Junker C, Lengeler C, Antes G. Language bias in randomised controlled trials published in English and German. Lancet. 1997;350:326–9.

Cuijpers P, Weitz E, Cristea IA, Twisk J. Pre-post effect sizes should be avoided in meta-analyses. Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci. 2017;26:364–8.

Download references

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University, Elborn College, 1201 Western Road, London, ON, N6G 1H1, Canada

Matthew Bourke, Ameena Haddara, Aidan Loh, Kendall A Saravanamuttoo, Brianne A Bruijns & Patricia Tucker

Children’s Health Research Institute, 800 Commissioners Road East, London, ON, N6C 2V5, Canada

Patricia Tucker

Health and Wellbeing Centre for Research Innovation, School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Matthew Bourke

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

MB conceptualized the study. MB conducted the literature search. MB, AH, and AL screened titles, abstracts, and full texts. MB and AH extracted study data. MB and KAS conducted the risk of bias assessment/study quality. MB conducted statistical analyses. MB wrote the original draft of the manuscript. AH, AL, KAS, BAB, PT reviewed the original draft, and made revisions. All authors approve the final version of the manuscript submitted for publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Matthew Bourke .

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate, consent for publication, competing interests.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1

Supplementary material 2, supplementary material 3, supplementary material 4, supplementary material 5, rights and permissions.

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Bourke, M., Haddara, A., Loh, A. et al. Effect of capacity building interventions on classroom teacher and early childhood educator perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes relating to physical activity and fundamental movement skills: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health 24 , 1409 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18907-x

Download citation

Received : 26 May 2023

Accepted : 21 May 2024

Published : 27 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18907-x

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Physical activity
Fundamental movement skills
Capacity building
Early childhood educators

BMC Public Health

ISSN: 1471-2458

General enquiries: [email protected]

Advancing social justice, promoting decent work ILO is a specialized agency of the United Nations

Terms of Reference

The ILO is seeking the services of a consultant, who will be tasked to:

Undertake a literature review of impact assessments and meta-analysis which involve FDPs and host communities, looking either at individual, community or institutional changes and benefits derived from inclusion into national systems, such as education systems, labour market, protection and social protection, and critical infrastructure (such as WASH, digital connectivity, etc.)
Document and map the different types of benefits associated with inclusion into national systems, at individual, community and institutional levels.
Work in partnership with EMPLOYMENT specialists to develop a methodology (e.g. ex-post with (quasi)-experimental approaches, meta-analysis that can support ILO PROSPECTS to measure its impacts at the individual, community and institutional levels, allowing to determine also the number of indirect/induced beneficiaries. The consultant is expected to highlight the implications in terms of time and resources needed as well as limitations.
Validate this methodology with relevant ILO stakeholders and propose a way forward to apply it in one or more ILO PROSPECTS countries.

The consultant is asked to provide budget breakdown, clearly indicating his/her/their daily fee, the number of days for each key task, along with a CV. There is no field work foreseen for this assignment.

The work will start on 01 July 2024 and should be completed by 31 October 2024.

You may also be interested in

Call for expression of interest

Call for Expression of Interest: Excoll Consultant (National) for assessment of the Public Employment Service (PES) and Labour Market Policies in Nepal

Call for Expression of Interest: National Consultant for gendered employment analysis and policy recommendations in Nepal

Call for Expression of Interest: National Consultant

Ex-post quality review of impact evaluations & Review of the approach to clustered evaluations and their strategic value

IMAGES

literature review on training and development on employee performance
(PDF) A Literature Review on Training & Development and Qwl– Impact on
(PDF) THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING
Training and Development
A Literature Review on Training & Development and Quality of Work
(PDF) Impact of training on Job Performance: A Literature review

VIDEO

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Approaches to Literature Review
Writing the Dissertation
ATD Research: New Manager Development Training
Literature review in research
Effectiveness of Training Programs

COMMENTS

PDF Review of Literature on Training and Development
quite a challenge. This paper focuses and analyses the literature findings on importance of training and development. Introduction: The need for training in part depends upon the company's selection and promotion policies. Companies that attempt to employ only people who already have the needed skills, place less emphasis on training. On the
Training and Development
A comprehensive review of training and development literature from 1999 to 2009 with an emphasis on the benefits that training offers across multiple levels of analysis. Arthur, Winfred A., Jr., Winston Bennett Jr., Pamela S. Edens, and Suzanne T. Bell. "Effectiveness of Training in Organizations: A Meta-analysis of Design and Evaluation ...
Human Resources Training and Development: a Systematic Literature
The human resource development strategy involves higher education. In this manner, the business course plans to furnish understudies with the abilities required in the realm of work..
Benefits of Training and Development for Individuals and Teams
This article provides a review of the training and development literature since the year 2000. We review the literature focusing on the benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. We adopt a multidisciplinary, multilevel, and global perspective to demonstrate that training and development activities in work organizations can produce important ...
A Literature Review and Reports on Training and Development
Key words: Training and Development, Evaluation and effectiveness of training, Employee's attitude, Satisfaction of employees 1. Introduction This paper enunciates the importance, need of review of literature and the related review of studies to the topic. Management Education in India is of a comparatively recent origin.
Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams
Staff Development*. Transfer, Psychology. This article provides a review of the training and development literature since the year 2000. We review the literature focusing on the benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society. We adopt a multidisciplinary, multilevel, and global perspective to demo ….
The Current State of Research on Training Effectiveness
Specifically, the current review of the literature highlights that training where it is effectively designed, can lead to important firm outcomes. ... Evaluation of training. In R. L. Craig (Ed.), Training and development handbook: A guide to human resource development (pp. 301-319). New York: McGraw-Hill. Google Scholar Kitching, J ...
Talent Development: A Thematic Categorization Using Systematic
Rezaei F., & Beyerlein M. 2018, Talent development: A systematic literature review of empirical studies. European Journal of Training and Development, 42(1/2), 75-90. Crossref. ... European Journal of Training and Development, 40(7), 490-512. Crossref. Google Scholar. Tassel-Baska J. V. (2001). The role of advanced placement in talent ...
Full article: Understanding the outcomes of training to improve
In the development of the ITTEM, we integrate two disparate training literatures; training transfer and training effectiveness. The training transfer literature has focused on identifying the contextual factors that influence training transfer, e.g. the work environment and individual characteristics (Baldwin & Ford, Citation 1988 ).
A literature review on training and development and quality of work
A literature review on training and development and quality of work life. The authors suggest that training and development is a process leading to qualitative as well as quantitative advancements in an organization, especially at the managerial level. It is stated that training has specific areas and objectives whilst development is a ...
Theoretical Framework on The Effectiveness of Training & Development
Framework on the Effe ctiveness of Training & Development - "Review Of Literature" , International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology, 9(7), 2018, pp. 932 - 943.
PDF A Literature Review on Training & Development and Qwl- Impact on
Literature Review: Training And Development: According to the Michel Armstrong, "Training is systematic development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes required by an individual to perform adequately a given task or job". (Source: A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page, 8th Ed.,2001) According
Impact of training on employees performance: A case study of Bahir Dar
Literature review. 2.1. Training. Training is consists of an organization's planned efforts to help employees ... training and development is the organization's strategic instrument to improve employee performance by acquiring and equipping employees with the cutting-edge skills and knowledge along with the right organization attitude by the ...
A Literature Review on Training & Development and Quality of Work Life
LITERATURE REVIEW: TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT: According to the Michel Armstrong, "Training is systematic development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes required by an individual to perform adequately a given task or job". (Source: A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page, 8th Ed.,2001) According to the Edwin B Flippo ...
Outcomes and Impact of Training and Development in Health Management
Background: The need for competence training and development in health management and leadership workforces has been emphasised. However, evidence of the outcomes and impact of such training and development has not been systematically assessed. The aim of this review is to synthesise the available evidence of the outcomes and impact of training and development in relation to the competence of ...
Impact of training on Job Performance: A Literature review
The literature review of HRM-related JIT articles suggests that HRM practices in the areas of staffing, training and development, compensation, and employee retention can be used to develop an ...
Systematic Literature Review of E-Learning Capabilities to Enhance
E-learning systems are receiving ever increasing attention in academia, business and public administration. Major crises, like the pandemic, highlight the tremendous importance of the appropriate development of e-learning systems and its adoption and processes in organizations. Managers and employees who need efficient forms of training and learning flow within organizations do not have to ...
International Journal of Training and Development
Edited by: Matthias Pilz. As a global forum for training and development, the International Journal of Training and Development addresses important strategies for major societal, organisational and individual challenges within the discipline. Our research is aimed at the academic and wider communities, as well as those engaged in public policy ...
BAU Journal
LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Training and Development. The firm's HR practices will immediately influence the employees' skills which will add to the organization. Furthermore, they will foster employees' development to get involved and committed to the business (MacDuffie, 1995; Wright et al., 1998).
PDF Workforce skills development: literature review
This literature review examines the available research on skill sets. It provides background for a larger research project Workforce skills development and engagement in training through skill sets, the report of which will be released early next year. This paper outlines the origin of skill sets and explains the difference between skill sets ...
PDF Review on Training and Development in Human Management
Training, Development, Human Management, Human Development, Organisation. Introduction . The purpose of this systematic review was to identify scholarly reviews published on the training and development in human management; and synthesize research recommendations toward improving the training and development in human management subject.
Exploring the Effects of Joint University-Enterprise Training ...
An effective way to improve the quality of their training is joint university-enterprise training (JUET), but research is lacking on its process and effect. Presented here is a systematic literature review and meta-analytic approach of JUET of graduate students, defining it from a feature-oriented perspective.
Exploring Instructional Strategies in Tourism and Hospitality Education
This study reviews literature on knowledge, skills, and teaching methods, and explores research directions on educational content and pedagogies to prepare T&H students for the future of work. Forty-seven empirical articles were analyzed based on underlying learning theories.
Education Sciences
Distance education and the development of assistive technologies represent a possibility of balancing the access and participation of people with special educational needs in learning experiences and participation in society. This study is aimed at finding out what is known about distance education mediated by assistive technology based on an analysis of the characteristics of scientific ...
A systematic review of virtual reality features for skill training
The evolving complexity of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies necessitates an in-depth investigation of the VR features and their specific utility. Although VR is utilized across various skill-training applications, its successful deployment depends on both technical maturity and context-specific suitability. A comprehensive understanding of advanced VR features, both technical and experiential ...
Effect of capacity building interventions on classroom teacher and
Background Capacity building may play an important role in improving classroom teachers' and early childhood educators' (ECE) capacity to implement physical activity and FMS interventions. Capacity building is the development of knowledge, skills, and structures to improve the capability of individuals and organisations to achieve effective health promotion. This review aimed to determine ...
TrainingMethodsAReviewandAnalysis (pdf)
16 Human Resource Development Review 13(1) Table 2. An Overview of the 13 Core Training Methods. Training method Definition Example References Case study Provides the participants an opportunity to develop skills by presenting a problem, without a solution, for them to solve, or with a solution, as an exemplar of how to solve it. Used in training law students, where students learn about past ...
The Development of Smartphone-Based Mathematics Learning Media
This literature review offers an in-depth analysis of the utilization and significance of learning media in mathematics education. Employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) research approach, the review encompasses distinct stages, including identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion.
Consultancy on literature review and methodological development for an
The ILO is seeking the services of a consultant, who will be tasked to: Undertake a literature review of impact assessments and meta-analysis which involve FDPs and host communities, looking either at individual, community or institutional changes and benefits derived from inclusion into national systems, such as education systems, labour market, protection and social protection, and critical ...
Meaning of Sport Monitoring and Its Development Tendencies
The earliest research on analytics in sports dates back to 1912 with the work by Hugh Fullerton on the correlation between baseball player hits, throws, and catching techniques, and success in the game. Nowadays with equally high technological and financial availability, the efficiency of the training process becomes more relevant. A well-organized and managed training process, combined with ...

How to Subscribe

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Training and Development

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

Other Subject Areas

Training and Development by Kenneth G. Brown LAST REVIEWED: 26 October 2015 LAST MODIFIED: 26 October 2015 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199846740-0013

Benefits of training and development for individuals and teams, organizations, and society

Publication types

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT AND QUALITY OF WORK LIFE

Related Papers

RELATED PAPERS

Outcomes and Impact of Training and Development in Health Management and Leadership in Relation to Competence in Role: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review Protocol

Nicola North

Zhanming Liang

Annette Dunham

Aim and Objectives

Review Questions

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Contexts or Settings

Participants

Interventions or Exposures

Comparators or Control

Outcome and Impact Measures

Primary Outcome and Impact Measures

Secondary Outcome and Impact Measures

Search Strategy

Data Extraction and Analysis

Data Extraction and Management

Assessment of Methodological Quality/Risk of Bias of Studies

Data Synthesis

Qualitative Studies

Mixed-Methods Studies

Aggregation of Data/Mixed-Methods Synthesis

Subgroup Analysis

Acknowledgments

Ethical issues

Competing interests

Authors’ contributions

Authors’ affiliations

Search Sources

Systematic Literature Review of E-Learning Capabilities to Enhance Organizational Learning

Cite this article

Similar content being viewed by others

A Systematic Review of Research on Personalized Learning: Personalized by Whom, to What, How, and for What Purpose(s)?

Exploring Human Resource Management Digital Transformation in the Digital Age

Exploring the role of social media in collaborative learning the new domain of learning

1 Introduction

2 Background and Related Work

2.2 Organizational Learning

2.3 E-learning Systems to Enhance Organizational Learning

3 Methodology

3.1 Article Collection

3.2 Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

3.3 Analysis

4.1 Sample Size and Population Involved

4.2 Research Methods

4.3 Technologies

4.4 Research Objectives

4.5 E-learning Capabilities in Various Organizations and for Various Objectives

5 5. Discussion

5.1 Status of eOL Research

5.2 Research Agenda

5.2.1 Theme 1: Couple E-learning Capabilities With the Intended Goals

5.2.2 Theme 2: Embrace the Particularities of the Various Industries

5.2.3 Theme 3: Utilize E-learning Capabilities to Implement Employee-centric Approaches

5.2.4 Theme 4: Employ Analytics-enabled eOL

5.2.5 Theme 5: Orchestrate the Employees’ Needs, Resources, and Objectives in eOL Implementation

5.3 Implications

5.4 Limitations

6 Conclusions and Future Work

Author information

Corresponding author

Additional information

Rights and permissions

About this article

Share this article

Effect of capacity building interventions on classroom teacher and early childhood educator perceived capabilities, knowledge, and attitudes relating to physical activity and fundamental movement skills: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Information sources and search

Eligibility criteria

Interventions

Study designs