I.

Introduction:
A recurring, if often contentious, theme in the literature on diffusion of innovations,
and more specifically on how best to time (or synchronize) the spread of innovation-
linked skills and 'habits', is that three key factors (or variables) -- Knowledge, Attitude
and Practice (KAP) -- are implicated in such an exercise, as part of broader HR
management and training processes. Johnson (1976: 2.2), for example, points out
that one of the purposes of training is to develop "new skills, knowledge,
understanding, and attitudes"(see also Clelland, 1973:42-47; Gersovitz et al, 1998:
875-883; Sudsawad, 2007; Webb, Falko, Sniehotta and Michie, 2010; USAID, 2011;
WHO, 2012; Chien-Yun et al, 2012; and Strauss, Tetroe, and Graham, Eds, 2013;
Legare and Zhang, 2013). The theme recurs, indeed, but in a more assertoric than
theory-driven or empirical evidence-adducing fashion in the texts typically published
for certain courses in academia. Still, the 'KAP approach' has a powerful intuitive and
intriguing appeal.

Armstrong (1999: 488; 2012: 274-308) is an enduring influencer in the KAP

conversation; but he singles out practical experience and, more recently, workplace-
specific challenges as anchors for the drive toward high-quality learning. He adds,
moreover, that "Individuals must be motivated to learn...[and] should be aware that
their present level of knowledge, skill or competence, or their existing attitude or
behaviour, needs to be improved..." (Armstrong, 1999: 494-495). So practical
experience, motivation and the environment in which work actually takes place are
key factors in Armstrong's visualization of the KAP process.

Pattanayak and Verma (1997: 94) have briefly weighed in here, too, and define
training as a process "designed to improve and bring about measurable change in
knowledge, skills, attitude and social behavior..." So 'measurable change' is a useful
metric for them. Cole (2002: 380-397; see also 1995: 138-137), on his part, notes
that learning implies observable change, which "usually manifests itself through
behavior". Measurable and observable change mean the same important thing, of
course. As already indicated above, there are even more recent contributors to this
discourse. All in all, KAP is a clearly converging meme in the behavior-change
management conversation.
II. The KAP Approach:
The 'KAP approach' is a kind of holy grail, and not just for training facilitators.
Educators and learners of all strands as well are energized, in one way or another,
by the value they see in it. That is to say, the value that it represents for clarifying the
causality of practice and spotlighting the reinforcement processes likewise
associated with practice. It is worth noting here that, as Cole (1997: 254) has keenly
observed, a fundamental characteristic of learning "is that is acquired." It is acquired
through training of one or another kind.

Training has a long history, as Miller (1996: 3-18) has suggested. And, Dessler
(2000: 253) asserts, "Training is essentially a learning process..." We can say in
general that we educate and train people in order to make them more predictably
productive in their behavior; and more proactive in whatever ways they apply such
'learning'. Such predictability and proactivity of the 'parts' create in society itself, or
'the whole', the capacity to function more organically, as well as more purposefully.
However, the realities of learning, and of how society organizes itself -- or how
individuals and groups within it do -- in order to optimally leverage the learning, are
more complicated and less straightforward than first appears. Still, leveraging is
innovating.

READ: CSO 589 Advanced Training Techniques...

The 'KAP aproach' is a useful formula for interrogating the phenomenological

interplay between knowledge, as mediated by attitude -- itself in turn invariably or
potentially mediated or 'disrupted' by key contingent factors -- and
behaviour/practice/action change. It has an interesting scholastic pedigree, to say
the least.

Since the +4th century, one understands, the Chinese have debated, reversed and
reversed the converse of the saying: "Action is easy but knowledge is difficult", which
was Sun Yat Sen's version in the early 20th century. A +17th century Chinese
thinker, Wang Chhuan-Shan, used to say: "Knowledge is the beginning of practice,
and practice is the completion of knowledge" (see Needham, 1959: 165-6).

The 'KAP approach' is indeed not immune to this ebb and flow of a puzzle. However,
its focus of attention is not directly on the easier path to the knowledge-action space.
Rather, the focus is on the (taken-for-granted) flow of effects that one should
typically see, empirically if not so readily theoretically, from imparted knowledge, as
the starting point, to attitude (a concept which subsumes/presumes values) and on to
behavior or practice. Clearly, however, K is not always the starting point of the great
variety of human ventures that we can bring to mind. The explorer's mind-set, for
example, does rearrange the KAP sequence into another: APK.
Other permutations can easily be imagined as well. Here's the totality of the
nuances:
KAP KPA
APK AKP
PKA PAK
READ: The Explorer's APK.
READ: The Apprentice's PKA

II.1. Knowledge
According to Talcott Parsons (1970: 304), knowledge (the essential content of the
sociology of knowledge) refers to: "cognitively ordered orientations to objects, with
reference both to empirical facts and to problems of meaning." According to him,
then, the sociology of knowledge has two primary foci, namely:

1. Empirical facts, and -- particularly with reference to "the social system" as the
'empirical' object -- the attendant problem of ideology
2. Problems of Meaning, and the Weberian preoccupation with religious ideas
(Parsons, 1970: 304)

Knowledge, as I understand it, refers to: the ability to DO, tell, describe, explain,
show, and/or say. Thus, to know is to be able to do, tell, describe, explain, show or
say. The extant literature acknowledges that knowledge has three
components: Subject (one who knows), Object (that which one knows),
and Cognition (the act of knowing). Conversely, Habermas (1972) suggests that
there are three categories or types of knowledge:
1. Scientific, Empirical-Analytic Knowledge
2. Hermeneutic-Historical Knowledge
3. Critical Knowledge

There are yet other ways of classifying or labelling knowledge, which we will not
dwell upon here, such as: Apodictic ('Scientific', 'Certified'), Assertoric (Empirical
'facts'), and Problematic (Critical, Speculative, Predictive-Deductive).

II.2. Attitude and Attitude Theory:

Winston Churchill is said to have remarked, with deep insight, that: "Attitude is a little
thing that makes a big difference"

Attitude, incorporating values, refers to “An individual’s characteristic way of

responding to an object or situation. It is based on experience [or knowledge] and
leads to certain behavior or the expression of certain opinions.” (Graham and
Bennett, 1998: 294). That is to say, the concept of attitude stands for:
"... a relatively enduring system of affective, evaluative reactions based upon and
reflecting the evaluative concepts or beliefs which have been learned about the
characteristics of a social object or class of social objects. As an affective reaction, it
is a covert or implicit response... [In other words] it is a drive-producing response
which elicits motives and thus gives rise to overt behavior" (Shaw and Wright, 1967).

The basic question in attitude-behavior theory is the extent to which a person's

attitude toward a certain behavior (such as drug- taking, drinking illicit-brew or
wearing a three-piece suit) can be used to predict how that person
will actually behave when confronted with the opportunity, for example, to drink such
brew.
The debate is not yet settled as to whether (knowledge of) one's attitude toward
'something' is a reliable predictor of one's behaviorvis-a-vis that 'thing,' and vice-
versa. There is, in other words, no consensus in the literature concerning the linkage
between attitude and behavior. Thus:

1. Some writers argue that a person's attitude toward a given behavior is a

consistent predictor of the person's actual behaviour. Conversely, if a person
behaves in a certain way, then it can be inferred that the person has attitudes which
predispose him/her to behave that way.

But what about behavior that one is forced by other persons (significant others), or
economic circumstances, for example, to adopt?

2. Other writers argue that "overt behaviour" varies independently with attitudes. In
other words, one's attitude toward a particular behaviour or practise have no bearing
on one's actual behaviour, and vice versa. That is, you may disapprove of three-
piece suits, but still wear them for other, such as ceremonial or broadly pragmatic,
reasons.

3. Yet other writers argue that attitudes affect behavior, but that
the impact of attitude on behavior is mediated by contingent or
situational factors (Acock and DeFleur, 1972: 714-726).

Andrews and Kandel (1979: 298-310) generally equate situational factors with
"perceived group norms" held by "significant others and expressed either verbally or
in actions." In my view, situational factors can be represented not only by perceived
group norms but also by factors such as:

1. Socio-Economic Status: based inter alia on income, wealth, occupation, age,

gender, race, education and religion

2. Level of experienced psychological or physiological stress.

3. Availability of facilitating or enabling means: such as having the money to buy

what is needed, assuming the availability of the needed item. Armstrong (1999: 488)
might want us to add here the example of, already mentioned above, of "workplace-
specific challenges".

4. Level of attachment to the attitudes of relevant out-groups toward the behavior in

question.

Theorists who emphasize the importance of contingent factors in the uncertain

interplay between attitude and behavior are persuasively on firmer ground. This
suggests that, for policy makers, there is not quite yet a precise formula for
generating a critical mass of well-informed and proficient practitioners.

II. 3. Practice as Behavior and Behavior as Action

Practice refers to applied skills, techniques, methods or standard operating
procedures (SOP). It can indeed be argued that practice or behavior is applied
attitude. These are actual patternsof physical behavior, activity or action. In this
case, action, activity or behavior deriving more or less directly from a
given knowledge-base and mediated by attitudes that are also rooted in that
knowledge. Skill refers to know-how -- that is, knowing, or capacity for, "how to".

That is to say, a skill is:

“An organized and coordinated pattern of mental and/or physical activity in relation to
an object or other display of information, usually involving both receptor and effector
processes [a receptor process provides the sensory input, while an effector process
performs the output or response function]. It is built up gradually in the course of
repeated training or other experience. It is serial, each part from second to second is
dependent on the last and influences the next. Skills may be described as
perceptual, motor, manual, intellectual, social, etc. according to the context or the
most important aspect of the skill pattern.” Definition from the UK’s Department of
Employment’s Glossary of Training Terms, as quoted in Graham and Bennett (1998:
296).

A skill is, additionally, “A practiced, expert way of perceiving a relevant stimulus and
then responding to it” (Graham and Bennett, 998: 296)

II. 4. The Practical Challenges of Changing Action/Behaviour Patterns via

Knowledge and Attitude Change
It is worth emphasizing that the acquisition of a 'body' of professional knowledge
incorporates or 'engenders', or has built into it, a set of certain professional values,
attitudes, worldviews and/or orientations which can or do impact practice. So
practice means not only applied skills, techniques and or methods -- in a word SOP
(Standard Operating Procedures) -- but also, very importantly, applied attitudes. The
linkage between attitude and behaviour becomes a matter of practical concern, such
as when we use the mass media, for example, to fast-track the spread of IT skills, or
spearhead a disease prevention or political-party mobilization campaign.

In principle, all educational programmes explicitly or implicitly acknowledge that

attitude and behavior are interlinked. Such a programmes have as their starting-point
the view that desired behavior-change must be preceded by appropriate attitude
change, rooted in new knowledge. Thus, such programmes devote a good deal of
resources and effort to the introduction of new or relevant knowledge, information or
ideas. To make headway in all this, certain questions, which press for answers, must
be addressed. These include:

1. How much attitude conditioning (for example through media campaigns --

including advertising and propaganda) is necessary and sufficient to bring about the
desired behaviour-change?
2. To what extent should attention focus on attitudes as opposed to, say, physical
and legal restriction, or facilitation of availability or access?

3. Under what circumstances can we mass-target, and for how long?

III. KAP and Training Typologies

 The 'KAP approach' suggests that all “training” falls under the following broad
categories:
1. Training, or re-training, in Knowledge
2. Training or re-training in Attitude
3. (a) Training or re-training in Skills/Practices/Behaviors, including, (b) Management
Training.

But a detailed interrogation of the training function suggests a rather different kind of
classification. In other words, we can identify not three but four main types of training for
which prospective trainees may apply, or to which they may be admitted. These four main
types, it turns out, are various permutations and combinations of K, A and/or P.

Naturally, such application and admission presuppose and reflect the identification of a
training need or gap, operationalized intotraining specifications -- that is, into the
broad content of the training required. For each training type listed, then, we show examples,
not an exhaustive list, of related training techniques. Many of these techniques naturally
feature in more than one type of training, given their plasticity -- that is, their broad
applicability:

1. Knowledge Training: Appropriate knowledge training techniques include: coaching, induction,

internship, case study, mentoring, formal lectures, seminars, conferences, conventions,
symposia, panel-forums, programmed instruction (or CBT or e-learning generally) and study
tours (Graham and Bennett, 1998: 301-304; Armstrong, 2012)

2. Attitude Training: Examples include: "on-the-job experience within a group of employees

Whose attitudes are thought to be appropriate" (Graham and Bennett, 1998: 294), on-the-job
training via attachment to a senior employee whose attitudes are assessed to be exemplary,
off-the-job training involving group discussion of case studies which highlight proper
attitudes, off-the-job role playing exercises, induction, mentoring, T-groups as an off-the-job
approach to training (T = Training), team learning, sensitivity training and group dynamics
training generally (Graham and Bennett, 1998: 294-295; Armstrong, 2012)

3. Skill Training: This is realized through, inter alia: apprenticeship, demonstration, on-the-job
training and formal vocational/technical (or tertiary) level training, delegation, job rotation,
coaching, assignment, drills and other types of exercise, role playing, and projects (see, for
example, Graham and Bennett, 1998: 296-299; Armstrong, 2012)

4. Experiential Training: Examples here include: attachment, games, case work, simulations,
behavioral modelling, outward bound programmes and living-abroad programmes (see, for
example, Pattanayak and Verma, 1997: 95)

IV. Conclusion
It can be inferred from all the foregoing that, illuminating as it is, the KAP approach
rides roughshod over the attitude-behavior debate (or debacle), stating simply
that: KAP = Knowledge(changes/modifies) Attitude (which
changes/modifies) Practice.That is to say, knowledge changes (predicts) attitudes,
which change (predict) the learner's pattern of practice (or action or behavior).

Conversely, of course, one's practice reveals one's attitude, and one's attitude reveal
one's stock of knowledge or experiences. This knowledge-base can thus be
systematically exposed (subjected) to pre-selected 'influencers', and so changed --
with beneficial ripple effects on attitude clusters and subsequently sets of practices.
Key 'influencers' here are teachers, trainers, change-agents and media of all sorts.

As Legare clearly points out, however, the KAP process is far from straightforward
(see also Legare and Zhang, 2013).

[Click Below for Illustrative Images of the KAP Process:

1. France Legare's Graphic Presentation of Facilitators in the KAP Process
2. France Legare's Graphic Presentation of Barriers to the KAP Process. Text
Source: France Legare]

Whatever the end-product of training -- preferably delivered by an accredited

institution or organization -- some form of certification by an acknowledged authority
is of vital importance to the skill 'holder'. Simply put, the certification or credential
deflects pressure on the holder to prove, "a zillion times" after training, that he or she
actually underwent the training that he/she verbally claims. Certificates or
credentials are papers; papers which 'speak' with authority, on behalf of the holder,
to such authorities as the holder may want them to speak to.

Not only do credentials validate or authenticate, depending on the credibility or

reputation of the issuer, they also universalize the holder's skills. They validate by
linking back to the issuers' accounts of the process(es) by which the underlying
skill(s) were acquired and by whom, where and when. They universalize in the sense
that they are the 'passport' which allows passage into and between labour markets,
as well as participation in such markets.

1See J.M.E. Moravcsik, Editor (1948) Aristotle: A Collection of Critical

Essays. London: MacMillan

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