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Performance Technology

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Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

Performance Technology (also called Human Performance Technology, HPT) holds that instructional designers should not assume training is the answer to a performance problem until they have analyzed the gap between desired and actual performance and identified its cause. HPT emerged in the 1960s–70s out of behaviorism — its "father," Thomas Gilbert, was a student of B.F. Skinner — and is grounded in general systems theory: any solution must be understood as operating inside a larger system of people, processes, and organizational culture, not in isolation (Stefaniak, 2018).

Where instructional design assumes instruction is the answer and designs it well, HPT starts a step earlier by asking whether instruction is the right answer at all. A performance analysis compares the desired and actual states of performance to locate the gap; a cause analysis then identifies why the gap exists — is it a skills/knowledge deficit (which instruction can fix), or a deficit in environment, incentives, tools, or feedback (which it cannot)? Gilbert's (1978) Behavioral Engineering Model is the classic tool for this diagnosis, separating causes into environmental supports (information, resources, incentives) and the individual's own repertoire (knowledge/skill, capacity, motives).

When the cause is not a knowledge/skill gap, the appropriate intervention is non-instructional: job aids, workplace redesign, electronic performance support systems, feedback systems, communities of practice, or process re-engineering, rather than a training course.

Rossett and Schafer (2007) offer a concrete taxonomy for one of these non-instructional interventions, Performance Support Tools (PSTs), which they distinguish sharply from instruction: "Instruction is not performance support. It is planned experience that enables an individual to acquire skills and knowledge to advance the capability to perform" (p. 5). PSTs split into sidekicks (real-time, in-the-moment job aids used concurrently with a task, like GPS turn-by-turn navigation) and planners (used in advance to access community-curated knowledge before starting a task, like planning a driving route before a trip). Effective PSTs are characterized by four factors: convergence (proximity — the support is situated where the task and performer actually are), simplicity (focused on the here-and-now task, not a broader curriculum), relevance (the right tool for the performer's specific goal), and personalization (the learner can adjust the level of support to their own experience, and may contribute back user-generated content that improves the tool for others).

Implications

Context

Requirements

  • Access to organizational data (or the ability to gather it) sufficient to compare desired vs. actual performance and identify root cause
  • Willingness to recommend a non-instructional intervention when that is what the cause analysis indicates, even if the client requested "training"

Constraints

  • Most directly evidenced and practiced in workplace/organizational settings; the systems-level analysis is harder to apply where the designer has no authority over surrounding organizational conditions (e.g., a single K-12 classroom)
  • Does not replace instructional design where the cause genuinely is a knowledge or skill deficit — HPT is a broader diagnostic frame, not a substitute for good instructional design once training is the right call

Target Learners

  • Employees or performers embedded in an organizational system where environmental factors (resources, incentives, feedback, tools) may be limiting performance as much as or more than skill

Target Learning Objectives

  • Not learning objectives per se — performance objectives: closing a measurable gap between desired and actual organizational or individual performance, by whatever intervention (instructional or not) actually closes it

Theory

Supporting

  • Rooted in behaviorism and general systems theory (Stefaniak, 2018); a systems view is "holistic," focuses on interactions among elements rather than the elements themselves, and treats systems as nested within larger systems (Foshay, Villachica, & Stepich, 2014)

Claims

  • Scaffolding and Fading — an instructional intervention that HPT would only recommend once cause analysis rules out non-instructional causes

Examples

Key Sources

  • Gilbert, T. F. (1978). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance. McGraw-Hill.
  • Stefaniak, J. E. (2018). Performance technology. In R. West (Ed.), Foundations of Learning and Instructional Design Technology. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/lidtfoundations/performance_technology
  • Foshay, W. R., Villachica, S. W., & Stepich, D. A. (2014). Cousins but not twins: Instructional design and human performance technology in the workplace. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (4th ed., pp. 39–49). Springer.
  • Rossett, A., & Schafer, L. (2007). Job aids and performance support: Moving from knowledge in the classroom to knowledge everywhere. Pfeiffer.
Page metadata
Field Value
type theory
id performance-technology
title Performance Technology
description Performance Technology treats instruction as one of several possible interventions for closing a performance gap, and requires analyzing the organizational system around a learner before assuming training is the right solution.
status review
canonical True
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-08-29
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