Keywords

Training, Hispanic, Spanish, accent, language, dialect, Mexican, Puerto Rican, immigrant

Abstract

The present study explored the outcomes of delivering training to Spanish speakers in either their native dialect or in Standard Spanish in the context of a self-running, narrated PowerPoint presentation on a health topic, "The Importance of Vaccinations." The training outcomes that were examined included learning scores; attitudes toward the training; and attitudes toward employment with organizations that employed the same or different dialect-speaking employees, supervisors, and trainers. In addition to examining the effects of ethnicity upon outcomes, this study also examined the effect of age, education level, time in the U.S., and familiarity with the locally dominant subgroup's dialect. Overall, results showed mixed support for the effect of presenting training to participants in their native dialect, as compared to the non-native dialect. The results of this study are discussed in terms of the theoretical implications for acquiring a better understanding of the cognitive and affective factors underlying the role of training language in the learning process. Practical implications for training design are presented within the context of cognitive load theory and the need for a theory-based approach to delivering training to non-English speakers. Implications for organizational efforts toward employee attraction and retention are discussed.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Pritchard, Robert

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000881

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000881

Language

English

Release Date

January 2006

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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Included in

Psychology Commons

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