Shaping Behaviour Through Trainings A Tool for Developing and Evaluating the Use of Behaviour Change Techniques in Industrial Operator Trainings

Abstract

Training operators within the manufacturing industry is an essential means of com- petence development and organisational improvement. In many training contexts, a key objective is to achieve behavioural change among participants, which makes it important to ensure that training initiatives succeed in this regard. For training investments to be justified, it is necessary to be able to evaluate whether trainings employ appropriate learning techniques that are supported by theory, and if they are intentionally designed to facilitate behavioural change. On this basis, the aim of this thesis has been to develop a practical and applicable tool for developing and evaluatingtrainingswiththepurposeofeffectivelyshapingorreinforcingbehaviours. Through a literature review and interviews with experts within the industry, five behaviours were identified as relevant for operators to exhibit: following standards, acting on deviations, following time frames, adapting to the environment, and acting with humility. Furthermore, through a literature review and observations of three trainings, the findings indicate that effective reinforcement or shaping of behaviours within trainings requires the fulfilment of five conditions: psychological capability, physical opportunity, social opportunity, reflective motivation, and automatic moti- vation. It was also found that seven intervention functions and 21 unique behaviour change techniques were considered particularly relevant and effective within the con- text of manufacturing training, taking the target group, learning perspectives, and practical conditions into account. With this in consideration, a tool was developed combining the identified conditions, intervention functions, and behaviour change techniques, together with a grading system evaluating the extent to which trainings address these aspects. The findings suggest that trainings aiming to shape or reinforce behaviours related to safety, effi- ciency, and quality may strengthen their capacity to support sustained behavioural reinforcement by achieving a high grading within the tool. To ensure accurate inter- pretation and application, the tool is accompanied by explanatory sheets, providing the terminology definitions and necessary information explained in this report. Col- lectively, these contributions offer a structured foundation for designing and evalu- ating trainings with greater behavioural impact.