The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...

, skill

Skill

A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills...

s, and competencies

Competence (human resources)

Competence is the ability of an individual to perform a job properly. A competency is a set of defined behaviors that provide a structured guide enabling the identification, evaluation and development of the behaviors in individual employees. As defined, the term "competence" first appeared in...

 as a result of the teaching of vocational

Vocational education

Vocational education or vocational education and training is an education that prepares trainees for jobs that are based on manual or practical activities, traditionally non-academic, and totally related to a specific trade, occupation, or vocation...

 or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

s and provides the backbone of content at institutes of technology

Institute of technology

Institute of technology is a designation employed in a wide range of learning institutions awarding different types of degrees and operating often at variable levels of the educational system...

 (also known as technical colleges or polytechnics). In addition to the basic training required for a trade, occupation

Employment

Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...

 or profession

Profession

A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain....

, observers of the labor-market recognize the need to continue training beyond initial qualifications: to maintain, upgrade and update skills throughout working life

Career

Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....

. People within many professions and occupations may refer to this sort of training as professional development

Professional development

Professional development refers to skills and knowledge attained for both personal development and career advancement. Professional development encompasses all types of facilitated learning opportunities, ranging from college degrees to formal coursework, conferences and informal learning...

.

Some commentators use a similar term for workplace learning to improve performance

Performance improvement

Performance improvement is the concept of measuring the output of a particular process or procedure, then modifying the process or procedure to increase the output, increase efficiency, or increase the effectiveness of the process or procedure...

: "training and development

Training and development

In the field of human resource management, training and development is the field which is concerned with organizational activity aimed at bettering the performance of individuals and groups in organizational settings...

". One can generally categorize such training as on-the-job or off-the-job:

• On-the-job training takes place in a normal working situation, using the actual tool
  Tool
  A tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...
  
  s, equipment, documents or materials that trainees will use when fully trained. On-the-job training has a general reputation as most effective for vocational work.
• Off-the-job training takes place away from normal work situations — implying that the employee does not count as a directly productive worker while such training takes place. Off-the-job training has the advantage that it allows people to get away from work and concentrate more thoroughly on the training itself. This type of training has proven more effective in inculcating concepts and ideas.

Training differs from exercise in that people may dabble in exercise as an occasional activity for fun. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability

Capability

Capability is the ability to perform actions.As it applies to human capital, capability is the sum of expertise and capacity.It is a component within the theories of:* Capability-based security and Capability-based addressing in computing...

, capacity

Wiktionary

Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...

, and performance

Performance (disambiguation)

Performance art refers to events in which one group of people behave in a particular way for another group of people .Performance may also refer to:* A show in the performing arts...

.

Compare:

• Education
  Education
  Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
  
  
• Learning
  Learning
  Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
  
  

Physical training

Physical training concentrates on mechanistic goals: training-programs in this area develop specific skills or muscles, often with a view to peaking at a particular time. Some physical training programs focus on raising overall physical fitness

Physical fitness

Physical fitness comprises two related concepts: general fitness , and specific fitness...

.

In military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

 use, training means gaining the physical ability to perform and survive in combat

Combat

Combat, or fighting, is a purposeful violent conflict meant to establish dominance over the opposition, or to terminate the opposition forever, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed....

, and learning the many skills needed in a time of war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

. These include how to use a variety of weapons, outdoor survival skills, and how to survive capture by the enemy, among others. See military education and training

Military education and training

Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles....

.

For psychological or physiological reasons, people who believe it may be beneficial to them can choose to practice relaxation

Relaxation (psychology)

In psychology, relaxation is the emotional state of low tension, in which there is an absence of arousal that could come from sources such as anger, anxiety, or fear. Relaxation is a form of mild ecstasy coming from the frontal lobe of the brain in which the backward cortex sends signals, or...

 training, or autogenic training

Autogenic training

Autogenic training is a relaxation technique developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz and first published in 1932. The technique involves the daily practice of sessions that last around 15 minutes, usually in the morning, at lunch time, and in the evening. During each session,...

, in an attempt to increase their ability to relax or deal with stress.
While some studies have indicated relaxation training is useful for some medical conditions, autogenic training has limited results or has been the result of few studies.

Religion and spirituality

In religious

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

 and spiritual

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 use, training may refer to the purification of the mind, heart, understanding and actions to obtain a variety of spiritual goals such as (for example) closeness to God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 or freedom from suffering

Dukkha

Dukkha is a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, discontent, unsatisfactoriness, unhappiness, sorrow, affliction, social alienation, anxiety,...

. Note for example the institutionalized spiritual training of Threefold Training

Threefold Training

The Buddha identified the threefold training as training in:* higher virtue * higher mind * higher wisdom - In the Pali Canon :...

 in Buddhism, Meditation in Hinduism

Hinduism

Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 or discipleship in Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

.

Compare religious ritual

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

.

Artificial-intelligence feedback

Researchers have developed training-methods for artificial-intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 devices as well. Evolutionary algorithms, including genetic programming

Genetic programming

In artificial intelligence, genetic programming is an evolutionary algorithm-based methodology inspired by biological evolution to find computer programs that perform a user-defined task. It is a specialization of genetic algorithms where each individual is a computer program...

 and other methods of machine learning

Machine learning

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...

, use a system of feedback

Feedback

Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...

 based on "fitness functions" to allow computer programs to determine how well an entity performs a task. The methods construct a series of programs, known as a “population” of programs, and then automatically test them for "fitness", observing how well they perform the intended task. The system automatically generates new programs based on members of the population that perform the best. These new members replace programs that perform the worst. The procedure repeats until the achievement of optimum performance.
In robotics

Robotics

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots...

, such a system can continue to run in real-time after initial training, allowing robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

s to adapt to new situations and to changes in themselves, for example, due to wear or damage. Researchers have also developed robots that can appear to mimic simple human behavior as a starting point for training.

See also

• HRD (human resource development)
• Training Simulation
  Training simulation
  A training simulation is a virtual medium through which various types of skills can be acquired. Training simulations can be used in a wide variety of genres; however they are most commonly used in corporate situations to improve business awareness and management skills...
  
  
• Physical education
  Physical education
  Physical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
  
  
• Practice (learning method)
  Practice (learning method)
  Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". Sports teams practice to prepare for actual games. Playing a musical instrument well takes a lot of...
  
  
• Retraining
  Retraining
  Vocational rehabilitation or retraining is the process of learning a new skill or trade, often in response to a change in the economic environment. Generally it reflects changes in profession rather than an "upward" movement in the same field....
  
  
• Supercompensation
  Supercompensation
  In sports science theory, supercompensation is the post training period during which the trained function/parameter has a higher performance capacity than it did prior to the training period.- Description :...
  
   (physical fitness)
• Trainer (business)
  Trainer (business)
  Trainers work in many different areas, mainly educating employees of companies on specific topics of workplace importance.Some trainers are in-house, and others work for training companies....
  
  
• Athletic Training