Flashcards are entirely based on this test- enhanced effect. These are cards with a question on the front and the answer on the back. They allow trainees to evaluate themselves, by reading the question on the front and answering it, before checking the solution on the back. As a trainer, have you created some?

Take your time with Distributed Learning

Do you remember how you used to learn poetry in school?  Were you the kind of child who would spend 30 minutes, at the very last moment, learning the entire sonnet by heart, or the kind of person who would take a week to learn one stanza a day, while reviewing those previously learned each evening?

Teachers should know that the second strategy is more efficient. This strategy actually has a name: distributed learning. With the same amount of work, spacing out the learning sessions over time leads to gains in memorization and restitution.  In other words, spacing makes it possible to obtain the same result, with less effort.  And yet, even though the spacing effect is more effective for 90% of the learners, a vast majority of people (72%) think that tightening up the sessions is more efficient[3].

The Spacing (or Distributed Learning) Effect was demonstrated in a recent study that showed that learning foreign language vocabulary, 13 sessions (one session every two months) was as effective as 26 sessions (with one session every two weeks).  So the same result was achieved with half the effort[4].

But to be most effective, a spacing strategy must be voluntary, not forced[5]: adults who are forced to space their learning sessions do not perform better (than when they learn the same content in a single session).

Create new habits in context

Several experiments have proven that we better retrieve information when we are in the same physical environment where we learned it.  Even familiar sounds or music have this effect.  

So what are the implications of this, when we know that B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of training, and 87% within a month^[6]?   It suggests that, whenever possible, we need to train people within the application environment.  So think about doing training in an actual work environment or store, because the environmental cues will help them to retain and apply the learning and build new habits.

And since behavior change is a process, rather than a single event, training should mirror that reality. A recent study revealed that, on average, companies spend only 5% of their budgets on “post-event training,” despite the fact that post-learning event activities contribute roughly 50% to learning effectiveness[7]. As trainers, we should work to help correct that imbalance, by planning follow-up sessions for people to share/discuss experiences in applying the learning to their daily jobs.  This is a great way to reinforce new learning and help ensure the adoption of new habits.