Instructional design

Hurray for brevity. Less IS more!

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Want your learning audience to retain more and perform better?  Then lighten their cognitive load.

Cognitive load theory says that “the more a person has to learn in a shorter amount of time, the more difficult it is to process that information in working memory.” Add to this processing difficulty the fact that we retain less when overloaded with data, information, and concepts. The idea behind cognitive load theory is that reducing the volume of information to be learned to only the “need to know” level lets the learner retain more of the information and make the necessary transfer of learning to be able to perform a skill or task.   And that might just be a very good thing when it comes to designing training.

“By reducing the load on the cognitive system, summaries may enable students to carry out the cognitive processes necessary for meaningful learning.” 

From When Less Is More: Meaningful Learning From Visual and Verbal Summaries of Science Textbook Lessons, by Richard E. Mayer, William Bove, Alexandra Bryman, Rebecca Mars, and Lene Tapangco 

What does this mean about people’s desire and tolerance for information?

Twitter taught us that we’re in a sound bite zeitgeist. When it comes to information and learning, we want it short. Sweet. To the point. Quick. Rapid. Just the facts. Twitter? Yammer? What’s the matter?  

Despite growing research supporting this “less-is-more” notion, it can be hard for subject matter experts to let go of the urge to create an information dump when designing training. Experts sometimes get stuck in the mindset of, “more is more,” and struggle to see how presenting a more basic volume of information might lead to better learning. Parsing out the nice-to-know from the need-to-know is the great challenge of the instructional designer.  Having a little less-is-more research in the back pocket might just come in handy for the designer who’s trying to convince a subject matter expert to limiting content to the need-to-know level.

Check out Cathy Moore’s “Making Change” blog post about an early study that showed the positive impact of reducing the amount of text presented to a summary on the ability to retain and transfer learning.

Learning and the Pursuit of Shibumi

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

“When in doubt about do or don’t, don’t.”

That’s my my new mantra. Almost sounds lazy, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not actually.

It’s all about Shibumi.  That’s spelled, 渋み. And it’s all about editing. Refining. Reducing. Simplifying.

Shibumi: “The ability to achieve the maximum effect with the minimum means” – Rough translation of a Japanese Zen concept

Shibumi is a concept I have been consciously (and even unconsciously) searching for since childhood, although I didn’t know the name for it until recently. The concept of Shibumi refers to a particular aesthetic of simple, subtle, and unobtrusive beauty. It reflects the ability of a person (or organization, or object d’arte) to achieve effortless effectiveness, elegant simplicity, and the height of excellence.

There are five key steps to reach shibumi:

  1. commitment
  2. preparation
  3. struggle
  4. breakthrough
  5. transformation

Read this short and insightful article if you want to learn more: Learning and the Pursuit of Shibumi – Chief Learning Officer, Solutions for Enterprise Productivity.

Susan

What does the Dunning–Kruger Effect mean to you?

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

I literally stumbled upon the Dunning–Kruger effect on Wikipedia today, and it gave me an ah-hah moment. I’ll describe my moment of insight shortly, but first let’s look at the Dunning–Kruger effect:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes. The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than it actually is, while the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to the situation in which less competent people rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence: because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.   – From the “Dunning-Kruger Effect” on Wikipedia

So, let me get this straight (to the tune of the Hokey Pokey)…

You put a lack of skill in + a resulting bad decision + an erroneous conclusion = inflated self-assessment

Presence of skill + inflated assessment of others’ skill = inaccurately low self-assessment

In other words, the very people who should be seeing themselves as more skilled, actually have less confidence in their own skills and over-estimate the capabilities of others. 

What could this mean for training design and development?  That’s where my Ah-hah moment comes in. But, you’ll have to wait, because I’m not confident enough in my thought process to actually tell you about it. So, does that mean I’m encountering the Dunning-Kruger effect?

Oh, and just in case you’re wondering whether (a) these guys know what they are talking about, or (b) instead they suffer from their own posited effect, Dunning and Kruger were awarded the Ig Nobel Prizes in Psychology in 2000 for their report, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.”

Choosing video capturing software

/ Susan Hendrich / 3 Comments

Choosing video capturing software

Joe: “Help! I need to make a movie to show how our new software program works!”

Susan: “No worries, Joe. There are numerous software programs out there that let you record your mouse clicks and even create interactive “try it yourself” activities!”

Here are three video capturing software applications that I like: 

The quick review:

I much prefer Captivate, as the editing capabilities are far superior to any other product I’ve used. But, Camtasia is easiest to grasp for a new learner. The HyperCams and CamStudios of the world really are not sufficient for enterprise application. But, hey, can you beat forty bucks? 

Now, I’m curious as to your experiences and preferences with screen capturing software…

Globalize your On Demand Business

/ Susan Hendrich / 2 Comments

Check out these excellent writing tips from IBM on how to “Globalize your On Demand Business” 

Style tips

The following style suggestions can help ensure your information is clear for all types of audiences:

  • Write sentences as short and simple as possible. Try to keep sentences to 25 words or less.
  • Make sure that lists are complete and can stand by themselves.
  • Use a complete sentence to introduce a list.
  • Make list items complete sentences or complete phrases.
  • Make list items parallel in structure.
  • Avoid slang, jargon, humor, sarcasm, colloquialisms, and metaphors. For example, use “estimate” instead of “in the ballpark.”
  • Be succinct. Eliminate unnecessary text and redundancies.
  • Do not use Latin abbreviations.
  • Avoid negative constructions. For example, use “It is like the previous request” rather than “It is not unlike the previous request.” Or, use “Log on again to reconnect” instead of “You cannot reconnect without logging on again.”
  • Avoid ambiguity.
  • Use an appropriate and consistent tone.
  • Choose examples that are appropriate for the intended audience.

Grammar tips

Appropriate grammar enables easier, more accurate translations and enhances audience understanding:

  • Write in active voice whenever possible and use the present tense.
  • Avoid the infinitive (to create), present participle (creating), and past participle (created) forms of verbs in the beginning of sentences. These verbs are less direct, and the subject of the clause is not always obvious. Completing steps could mean “When you complete the steps” or “Because you complete the steps.”
  • Avoid noun strings. Limit compound phrases to no more than three words. When a compound phrase is used, be sure that it has only one meaning and that the phrase is used consistently.
  • Make the subject of a verb phrase clear. Avoid complex sentences where several adverbs or other modifiers are used. If you use complex sentences, it is particularly important to include whatever words are necessary to make the subject clear. Do not omit the word “that” from clauses. The use of the conjunction “that,” while technically optional in some sentences, is never wrong and makes the sentence easier to translate and clearer for users whose primary language is not English. For example, use “Verify that your directory service is working” rather than “Verify your directory service is working.”
  • Avoid using words in multiple grammatical categories (verb, noun, adjective). In English, many words can change their grammatical category. In most other languages, the same word cannot be a verb, a noun, and an adjective. (Use “during the restore operation” instead of “during the restore.”)
  • Avoid ambiguous pronoun references where the pronoun can possibly refer to more than one antecedent. For example, in the statement “If there is prompt text for the completed field, it does not change,” it is not clear if the “prompt text” does not change or the “completed field” does not change.
  • Use simple and clear coordination so the reader can tell what the relationships are between the elements of a sentence. For example, “the file or result field definition” could mean: “The result-field definition or the file,” “The file definition or the result-field definition,” “The file-field definition or the result-field definition,” “The definition of the file or of the result field,” or “The field definition of the file or of the result.”
  • Ensure the elements of a sentence are parallel. Words, phrases, and clauses should be grammatically equal. Use “network management, databases, and application programs” rather than “network management, databases, and writing application programs.”
  • Avoid using too many prepositions in a sentence, but do not omit prepositions or articles that are necessary. The sentence “This is a list of the current status of all event monitors for this process” could be rewritten to “This lists the current status of all event monitors for this process.”
  • Do not use the dash parenthetically (as in “It is at this point – the start point – that designers and writers meet”). Translators, however, accept the dash being used to show an extension of a sentence (as in “The most important people in IBM are the customers – they pay us”).