IDTX session asks are you training passive recipients or causal agents?
IDTX: Evidence Informed Practice, announces a session from Kurt Ewald Lindley exploring the missing link between learning design and genuine behaviour change, causal agency.
Kurt Ewald Lindley will be taking to the stage at the upcoming IDTX: Evidence-Informed Practice conference with a new session, "Promoting Causal Agency: The Missing Link Between Learning and Behaviour Change."
Research into Causal Agency Theory supports the importance of developing people who believe they can influence outcomes in their own lives and take purposeful, directed action towards meaningful goals. Yet a great deal of training, however well-intentioned, produces the opposite. It creates passive recipients of information rather than people equipped and motivated to act.
Kurt's session draws on that research to examine what practitioners can do to change that. The session centres on three essential elements of learner agency:
- Volitional Action, the capacity to act by personal choice and in line with one's own values;
- Agentic Action, the ability to take purposeful steps towards meaningful goals;
- Action-Control Beliefs, the conviction that effort and action actually lead to success.
For L&D and HR practitioners, understanding how to promote agency in learners has direct implications for how programmes are designed, how learning is framed, and whether the work we do translates into measurable behaviour change once people leave the room. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of why so much well-designed training fails to produce lasting change, and with practical approaches to designing learning that develops agency rather than dependency.
Kurt's session is one of a strong lineup at IDTX 2026. He'll be joined on the day by Matthew Richter, Sukhvinder Pabial, Amy Brann, Sara L. Farwell, Maciej D. Zatonski, Elena Marie Ivanushkina, Joseph Devlin, Laura Watkin, and others.
Every session is built around the same principle: moving from theory to practice, with tools and insights that participants can apply immediately. All registered delegates will also receive recordings of any sessions they were unable to attend on the day.
IDTX Evidence Informed Practice takes place on Friday 29th May 2026 at Eastside Rooms, Birmingham.
Tickets are £100 and are available now on the IDTX website.
Spaces are limited, so early booking is advised.
The event is delivered in partnership with The Learning Network, Learning News and The CPD Group, who are accrediting the whole programme.
IDTX: Evidence Informed Practice is proudly sponsored by Evolve, L&D Free Spirits, iSpring Solutions, and Manageable.