Meeting trainees' expectations: the influence of training fulfillment on the development of commitment, self-efficacy, and motivation

The development of organizational commitment, academic self-efficacy, physical self-efficacy, and motivation was examined in a socialization-type training context with data collected from 666 military trainees. The hypotheses were that (a) training fulfillment, or the extent to which training meets or fulfills a trainee's expectations and desires, (b) trainee reactions, and (c) training performance would be related to the development of posttraining attitudes. Support was obtained for each hypothesis. Training fulfillment was positively related to posttraining organizational commitment, physical self-efficacy, academic self-efficacy, and training motivation, even after pretraining attitudes and a set of individual variables were controlled. Pretraining motivation, trainee reactions, and training performance were also related to the development of posttraining attitudes. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)