Chapter 9 Does Practice Make Perfect?

Chapter 9 Does Practice Make Perfect?

The psychology advantage of including frequent job-relevant practice is that provides multiple overt rehearsal opportunities for working memory that result in encoding in long-term memory.

That learner s can be trained to self-question what they are reading or hearing and thus promote rehearsal themselves.

9.1 Design of practice in e-learning

n Effective e-learning will support all three of these processes by providing practice exercises with features that mirror the physical and psychological environment of the job.

l Select the important information in the training.

l Integrate the new information into existing knowledge in long-term memory.

l Retrieve new knowledge and skills out of long-term memory when they are on the job.

n Based on empirical evidence, we recommend four guidelines for effective practice in e-learning.

l Interactions should be the thinking processes and environment of the job.����3�P��ڪ���ҹL�{�άO�u�@��Ҭ���

l Better learning results from more practice questions interspersed throughout the lesson. �m��3�Ӥ4��b�ҵ{����(��N��D����)

l Practice questions should be formatted to be consistent with the media elements principles.(�m�ߪ����e3�P�ҵ{���e���C�����)

l Learners should be trained to provide their own questions when they are studying from receptive (expository) materials.(But how?)

9.2Practice principle one: interactions should mirror the job

n Designing effective exercises requires performing a job and task analysis to define the specific cognitive and physical processing required by the job.

n From this analysis the e-learning designer should create transfer appropriate interactions-activities that require learners to respond in similar ways during the training as they will on the job.(���ɥ�?)

n A good rule of thumb is to avoid e-learning with many questions that require simple regurgitation of information provided in the training program.(�קK�L�h�ݭn�ϯ쪺���D?)

n Your workers will need to apply new knowledge to their jobs and keep in mind the important physical features and psychological requirements of your work environment.

n See Table 9.1

9.3Psychological reasons for job-relevant practice

n The selecting process means that the learner must focus attention on the important elements of the instruction.

n The integration process means the learner must link the new lesson information in working memory into existing knowledge structures in long-term memory.

n The retrieving process means that new knowledge and skills stored in long-term memory must be retrieved and transferred back into working memory when needed on the job.

9.3.1 Practice to support selecting and integrating

l Simply asking learners to repeat information they were given in the training does not stimulate integration of new information with preexisting knowledge (rote or memorization practice).

l Questions that require applying new information to job-related situations stimulate learners to link the new information in working memory with existing knowledge in long-term memory.

9.3.2Practice to support retrieval: the encoding specificity principle

l The encoding specificity principle states that transfer is maximized when the conditions at retrieval (on the job) match those present at encoding (during learning).

l Activity alone is not sufficient for transfer. The activity must incorporate features and processes that match the features and processes of the work environment.

9.4Evidence for the benefits of practice

n Asking why improves learning

l The ��why�� question technique resulted in greater factual and inference learning. �z�L�o����H�ϬٻP��ҡA�঳�U��Dz�

n Assigning a pro and con analysis improves learning

l Requiring learners to consider both sides of an issue in the form of an argument, as well as integrate multiple sources, resulted in deeper and more original mental processing and better learning.

9.5Practice principle two: critical tasks require more practice

n To determine the value added by additional practice opportunity, consider the level of proficiency required by the job. For critical tasks, we recommend lots of practice.

n Practice distributed throughout the training period results in better long-term retention than the same practice completed in a shorter time frame.

9.6Psychological reasons for multiple distributed practice exercises

n Well-designed practice exercises provide encoding opportunities.

n Each encoding can promote more connections with existing knowledge in long-term memory.

n More connections mean a higher probability of finding the new knowledge or skill when you need it.

9.7The evidence for multiple distributed practice exercises

n We offer four lines of evidence about the amount and placement of practice in instruction.

l Research on the relationship between practice and task proficiency.��m

l Studies on the relationship between practice and expert performance.

l Comparisons of outcomes from e-lessons containing greater and lesser numbers of practice exercises.

l Research on the distribution of practice during learning.

n More practice yields(�ƶq) improved performance�A���ɥ�

l Power law of practice: the logarithm of the time to complete a task decreases with the logarithm of the amount of practice. �����w�ߡG�H�̪���3�t���H�۹��ƪ����Ŵ���

l Practice likely leads to improved performance in early sessions by learners finding better ways to complete the tasks and in later practice sessions by increased chunking of subskills and by achieving automaticity.

n The relationship between practice and expertise

l Skill development and expertise are strongly related to the time and efficiency of deliberate(���W������) practice.

l The more a person practice, the better s(he) gets regardless of initial talent and ability.

n Effects of amount of practice in e-learning

l The version with more practice increased learning for both higher- and lower-ability learners.

l To decide how much practice your e-learning courses should include, evaluate the criticality of job proficiency to determine whether the extra training time is justified by the improvements in learning.

n Distribution of practice

l Practice is more effective when it is distributed throughout the lesson rather than placed in one location.

l The spacing effect- that practice sessions spaced in time are superior to massed practices in terms of long-term retention- is one of the most reliable phenomena in human experimental psychology.

l The spacing effect does not result in better immediate learning. It is only after a period of time that the benefits of spaced practice are realized.

9.8 Practice principle three: apply the media elements principles to practice exercises

n Contiguity principle �s��

l Text should be presented close to the graphics it is explaining to assist learners with integration.

l Directions for practice exercises be clearly distinguished by placement, color, or font and be placed adjacent to the question.

l When the learner answers a question, he or she should see four components on the screen: directions, question, response, and feedback.

n Modality and Redundancy principles

l According to modality principle, audio should be used to explain graphics in the lesson.

l Audio is too transient for practice exercises.

l Learners need to refer to the directions while responding to questions.

l Any instruction or information learners need in order to answer a question should remain in text on the screen while the learner decides on a response.

l Feedback should be presented in text format so that learners can review their responses in relationship to the question.

l Based on redundancy principle, use text alone for most situations.

l Do not narrate onscreen text directions or practice questions.

n Personalization principle

l E-lessons should use conversational language and virtual coaches called agents to provide help in the form of hints, worked examples, and demonstrations.

l In the case of practice exercises, directions and hints should use the first and second person.

9.9Practice principle four: train learners to self-question during receptive e-lessons

n To learn from receptive training, learners will need to ask questions of themselves regarding the content presented.

9.10 Psychological reasons for training self-questioning skills

n Learners with high metacognitive skills as well as high prior knowledge of the course topics may be able to effectively and spontaneously provide their own processing of new content.

n Most people process information mindlessly, resulting in poor understanding, learning, and memory.

n Without explicit practice exercises, processing of content is not as complete as it might be.

9.11 Evidence for training self-questioning

n Provide learners with prompts.

n Provide models of appropriate responses (worked examples).

n Anticipate potential difficulties.

n Start with simple materials and build to more complex.

n Provide job aids to remind learners of the question stems (a cue card or pop-up screen).

n Provide practice and feedback in generating and responding to questions.

n Assess learner mastery of the technique.

9.12 What to look for in e-learning

n Several practice exercises per topic.

n Exercises that require learners to apply knowledge and skills to job-realistic situations and environments.

n Few or no questions that require only rote recall of information (unless the job requires recall of information without a job aid).

n Distribution of exercises throughout the lessons rather than placement in one location.

n More practice opportunities for highly critical tasks than for less critical tasks.

n Directions to practice exercises presented in text clearly visible near the question.

n Feedback appearing in text close to the question.

n Memory support visible near the application question.

n Training in self-questioning when e-lessons lack practice exercises.