The academic orientation gives pride of place to transmitting content and increasing conceptual understanding. Its characteristic methods are lectures, seminars and individual reading and preparation. The goals are incorporated first in a syllabus, which will be "covered," and then in examinations which test the students' recall of the content and principles and their ability to "apply" them under simulated conditions.
The laboratory orientation It provides an opportunity to gain insight and skill from direct experience and manipulation of a limited number of elements under controlled conditions. It is through laboratory training that the student of medicine discovers the wonders of human anatomy, the bacteriologists to-be develop first-hand familiarity with pathogens and the budding physicist discovers subtle applications of the law of gravity.
The activity orientation emphasizes practice of a particular skill. Its primary objective is improved individual performance on a specific job. This orientation founded the long and honorable history of apprenticeship, understudy, and internship, and the "counterpart" function of international aid schemes. The advantage of leaving the learning process unaided and unsystematized is the opportunity for exploration it affords participants whereby they can "get the feel of the job," given sufficient time. Since this orientation puts training "on the job," it avoids the problems of transfer from training back to the job. Finally, it makes lighter demands on the work organization than other orientations.
The action orientation is similar to the activity orientation. Its emphasis on the "practical" can become so strong that the training purpose gets lost. In the absence of renewal through training, action soon fails in quality, becomes discontinuous, and in many cases ceases. If action is called for as in disaster relief or in digging a common village well, these limitations need not concern here. But if an action program is chosen as a training orientation, then action by itself is not enough. It ensures neither sound practice nor the understanding of working procedures required for further development.
The person-development orientation completes the range of orientations that aim to train an individual. This orientation gives weight to both job requirements and the processes by which these requirements are met. It consists basically of providing participants with alternating opportunities.
The organization-development orientation goes beyond the person¬ development orientation in just one respect: organizational change. Its explicit, central focus and changes in individuals through training is just one means for organizational change. This orientation requires the closest collaboration between the training institution and the work organization. The institution plays a consulting role prior to executing the core parts of their required training and often again after participants have returned to their jobs.
Training strategy therefore is not a static blue print. It is open to clarification, modification and further development through experience. Training systems in turn need strategies for their own maintenance, strengthening and further development.
Participants