Error Management in Training: Conceptual and Empirical Results Michael Frese Department of Psychology, University of Giessen, Otto-Behaghel-Str. lOF D-35394 Giessen, Germany Abstract. There are two strategies to deal with errors in training: Error prevention or error management. It is argued that the error management concept can be used to improve the quality of training. It has been shown repeatedly that error training - that is using errors as an enhancer of learning - leads to better performance. Various mechanisms for the superiority of error training can be distinguished: (a) Better emotional processing, (b) more effective error handling strategies, (c) higher motivation, and (d) errors as instigators of exploration. Mechanism (a) has partial empirical and (b) has no empirical support. Mechanism (d) has been shown to exist and to account for a large part albeit not all of the superiority of the error training concept. Keywords. Error, training, management. 1. Introduction There are two strategies that can be used to deal with the error problem in training: a) Error prevention, that is the reduction of errors as far as possible or b) error management. Curiously, there have been more theoretical and empirical arguments for an error prevention approach. Skinner (1968) has explicitly argued for error prevention. Since errors were assumed to work like punishment, Skinner argued for an error free learning process. Erroneous behaviors disrupt good performance. Therefore, programmed learning, growing out of this tradition, made strenuous attempts to eliminate errors. Similarly, humanistic approaches have been critical of errors. While there does not exist a corpus of principles from humanistic psychology pertaining to errors, there is the concept that learning might get impeded by frustrations that go along with making errors. C. Zucchermaglio et al. (eds.), Organizational Learning and Technological Change © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1995