Motivation to transfer is essential for the transfer of training. Without motivation, newly acquired knowledge and skills will not be applied at work. The purpose of this integrative literature review is to summarize, critique, and synthesize past transfer motivation research and to offer directions for future investigations. First, seven contributions of past research are presented in an attempt to understand antecedents, correlates, and consequences of motivation to transfer. Second, an alternative view that complements and extends current approaches is discussed, and its implications for future studies investigating employees' motivation for training application on the job are outlined.

In spite of a broad consensus on the importance of motivation for the transfer of learning from training to the job in work organizations, studies investigating motivation to transfer are limited. This study combines the self-determination theory, the expectancy theory and the theory of planned behaviour to provide a theoretical framework for investigating attitudes towards training content, relatedness and instructional satisfaction as predictors of two dimensions of transfer motivation: autonomous motivation to transfer and controlled motivation to transfer. A total of 444 subjects, trained in 23 occupational health and safety training courses, completed multi-item questionnaires immediately following training. Structural equation modelling procedures indicate that controlled motivation to transfer was affected by attitudes towards training content and that autonomous motivation to transfer was affected by 124 International Journal of Training and Development attitudes, relatedness and instructional satisfaction. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for training effectiveness associated with the interplay of motivation and transfer in professional training.

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Epistemological beliefs are fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and learning. Research in university contexts has shown that they affect the ways and results of student learning. This article transfers the concept of epistemological beliefs on workplace learning. The basic assumption is that employees' epistemological beliefs affect whether they perceive their workplace as learning environments. A study was conducted in which the interrelation of employees' epistemological beliefs with their appraisal of the workplace as supportive for learning was investigated. Additionally, the role of professional hierarchical levels concerning work‐related epistemological beliefs was analyzed. No significant interrelation between epistemological beliefs and workplace appraisal was found. Groups from different professional hierarchical levels did not differ in their workplace appraisal. Consequences about future research about the role of epistemological for workplace learning are discussed.

This article discusses the development of vocational competence through economic vocational educational training (VET) from a theoretical and psychometric perspective. Most assessment and competence models tend to adopt a state perspective toward assessments of competence and carve out different structures of competence for diverse vocational domains. However, the order and at what stages of development these identified structures actually occur remains uncertain. This study therefore moves beyond a static perspective to denote changes in competence over the duration of vocational training, using item response theory-based scaling and a cross-sectional database of 877 economic apprentices. The resulting four-stage psychometric model represents a systematization of the development of vocational competence, characterized by the degree of occupational specificity and different forms of cognitive processing. This proposed psychometric model can be used to inform educational researchers and practitioners about the different stages of competence development, such that they can both assess and teach economic competence more effectively.