‘Spaced-out
Learning’ by Howard Kiewe (talking to Harvard’s Dr Price Kerfoot) Training
Journal, October 2013
I visited
Harvard University many years ago and was immediately struck by the elegant atmosphere of
the place. I also observed the reverence
of the students for their professors and the lack of challenge to the latter’s
concepts and generalisations. I was at
Ashridge Business School at the time and was used to stroppy managers challenging every
assertion; I recall being amazed and jealous at the same time. It showed me that the power of the brand can
extend to management education and the magic of Harvard’s reputation is still
around today.
I have
to admit to being susceptible to this reputation because I review a high
percentage of articles from the Harvard Business Review. This is partly because the alternatives are
not that attractive and also because I know that others also respect the
brand. But, as my natural instinct is
non-conformist, I enjoy questioning the value of Harvard articles and have felt
recently that the calibre has been on the decline.
This is
not an HBR article but one in which a Harvard associate professor - Doctor
Price Kerfoot - is interviewed and he is from the Medical rather than the
Business School. He does however
research in the area of learning, which has encouraged the Training Journal to feature him in
this article. It is interesting that
this article is reviewed on the same day that the new GCSE programme was confirmed by Michael Gove - moving from coursework to final examinations –
because Kerfoot’s main message is that ‘spaced-out’ learning is much more
effective for learning retention than ‘one-off’ inputs. Mr Gove has obviously not heeded this
research.
As with
much research into learning and management issues, this article confirms what
many of us have found from experience. I
learnt the hard way by cramming information for accounting examinations, before
forgetting everything within a few months.
The research conclusions also justify the move by many companies to
blended rather than ‘one-off’ learning designs; few companies these days ask
for programmes which are ‘one-off’ inputs.
Pre and post activities and modular structures are the norm rather than
the exceptions they were twenty years ago.
So what
is new about this Harvard research, claimed by the author to be
‘ground-breaking'? One interesting aspect
is that his research is combined with
study of the impact of ‘gamification’, which is, according to Dr Kerfoot - ‘a
term that is heard a lot’. I must have
missed this and my spellcheck seems to have done so too; apparently it is
engaging students by introducing games into learning. This is another aspect that doesn’t seem
particularly new as business games have been around for a long time and even
the most basic designs usually have a series of learning stages.
The
other research finding is rather more interesting and will be more pleasing to
Mr Gove. This is that the very act of
testing not only assesses learning but also helps to retain it. Though this seems a new insight for Harvard
Medical School, it is another assertion that most learning designers involved
in business training have been applying for years, thus the increased use of
quizzes and multiple choice questions in both face to face and e-learning.
The
article builds on its coverage of ‘gamification’ by emphasising the importance
of rewards and introducing an interesting framework. This is SAPS or Status, Access, Power and
‘Stuff’, the latter being material reward.
There is also a distinction between these extrinsic rewards and the intrinsic
motivations of the learner, such as personal satisfaction and enjoyment.
The Harvard research indicates that ‘Stuff’ is the least effective motivator and
that the other three extrinsic rewards can be just as powerful when applied in
a team as well as an individual context.
This is another finding that we can relate to in management training;
the competitive behaviour stirred by a business game can be extreme and is
usually even more powerful than individual competition. It can however - and this is a point missed
by Dr Kerfoot - be at the expense of learning when the ‘win at all costs’
mentality sets in and the group forgets about the learning objective.
There is
also a suggestion that ‘Leader-boards’ are an important element in taking
advantage of the extrinsic motivators. It
is acknowledged that these have dangers when applied on an individual basis
because it can lead to feelings of shame and inferiority. This is best covered by showing restricted
information; learners are told confidentially of their own position but they do
not know the individual positions of others. During a learning game this confidentiality is
not necessary because the shame and inferiority is shared with others.
So what
is the article really telling us? My
main conclusion is that students at medical school are motivated in similar
ways to the managers we find on our courses.
Also it is reassuring that the developments in management training over
the last twenty years or so - blended learning, on-going assessment, use of
competitive exercises - are borne out by this research. The other conclusion is that Harvard is still
the strongest brand in the business!
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