Hit or Myth: What’s the Truth?

Chapter highlights:

Hit-or-myth game that separates fact from fiction about learning Research-based debriefing Practical advice on remaining vigilant in the face of tradition.

 

So much of what passes for accepted practice or stable truths in training is often counterproductive to the learning process and to workplace performance. Yet these apparent truisms get passed along from generation to generation of trainers. We have read whole treatises on how examining the shape of learners’ skulls and feeling their cranial bumps can help you better instruct them (that is, the 19th- and early 20th-century phrenology movement). Teachers and trainers took that seriously along with maintaining the balance of the body’s humors (still alive in some new-age writings). In studying the history of training, we have seen firmly held beliefs concerning racial differences in learning and about what content and methods are more appropriate for each gender (for example, don’t teach too much mathematics and science to women because they haven’t the reasoning capacity for those subjects).

At the start of the 20th century, teaching and training leaned heavily on memorization as an excellent means for strengthening the brain, which was viewed as a muscle that required exercise. That and other myths for building “character” and “reasoning abilities” have been debunked scientifically as no more than intuitive myths formulated on the basis of flawed logic and pseudoscience. Surely training has progressed far beyond these primitive beliefs? Perhaps.

This chapter provides some additional pieces of the learning puzzle. Some of them don’t fit neatly with the preceding chapters, but they are valuable and we want to share them with you. We have created a series of statements that we’ve tied together into a “Hit-or-Myth” game, one of the activities we described in chapter 8. Here’s how it works.

In worksheet 12-1 are a dozen statements that relate to training and workplace performance. Read each one and decide whether you believe it is true—a hit—or false—a myth. Check off your choices on the worksheet. When you’ve finished, we will debrief the exercise with you and share what we have discovered about each statement.

Have you checked off your choices? Please force yourself to choose in each case. It will make what follows more meaningful and fun for you.

1. Experts who perform well generally know what they are doing and are the best people to explain their successes.

 

That statement feels intuitively sensible, but it contradicts what the field of knowledge engineering has discovered. Early in this book we discussed how differently experts and novices process information. Many experts cannot articulate the knowledge they use when demonstrating expertise. They can relate what they do in specific cases, but can’t recommend general principles that apply in all cases. An experiment done with New York taxi drivers illustrates this point. The drivers could say why they were taking a particular route from one part of Manhattan to another, but could not give general principles for navigating the city. They just “know” what to do each time based on traffic, time of day, the latest information, and weather conditions. Most of all, they sensed what was the best route to take as a result of their experience. The first statement is a myth.¹

2. Attention to learning styles is necessary for effective teaching. Some learners are more visual and others are more auditory. Still others are highly kinesthetic. Matching instruction to these styles results in improved learning results.

 

We alluded to this earlier. Research has shown there to be differences in which senses individuals favor for attending to and processing learning information. In recent years, much press has been given to the importance of learning styles. What exactly is this? Is it preference, habit, or inborn trait?

Worksheet 12-1. Hit-or-Myth Game

 

Statement	Hit	Myth
1. Experts who perform well generally know what they are doing and are the best people to explain their successes.
2. Attention to learning styles is necessary for effective teaching. Some learners are more visual and others are more auditory. Still others are highly kinesthetic. Matching instruction to these styles results in improved learning results.
3. The more enjoyable the instructional methods, the greater the learning achievement.
4. All other things being equal, media and technology make a major difference in learning effectiveness.
5. Working out problems on your own results in better problemsolving performance than studying those that have already been worked out.
6. The more content you give to learners, the more they take away.
7. A well-designed training program will overcome a poor implementation plan.
8. Technology is the key to future workplace learning success.
9. Lack of workplace performance results mostly from a lack of required skills or knowledge.
10. Successful performance during training usually results in improved performance on the job.
11. Attending to right brain–left brain scientific findings helps us to aid learners who have either right or left hemispheric dominance. Instruction focused toward the right hemisphere can enhance creativity; to the left hemisphere it can foster logical thinking.
12. Good, old-fashioned common sense is a natural best friend of science. It is a sure guide for making sound training decisions.

 

General consensus is that a learning style is a mode of learning that is most effective for a person. It helps the individual obtain superior learning results. Here’s the bad news: More than 25 years of research on this and related themes has not provided any form of conclusive evidence that matching the form of instruction to a learning style improves learning or even attention.²

More powerful than those differences is the overall effect of stimulus variation. In simpler terms, research suggests that varying the training message to affect more than one sensory input channel has a greater learning impact than focusing on a single sense for each learner type. By targeting sight, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste, we increase attention because the learner simultaneously engages several senses in a complementary (nonconflicting) manner. This results in heightened comprehension and retention. (For example, see an apple, bite into it to touch and taste it, smell the apple, and hear the crunch.)

So, although it’s true that some learners are more visual and others are more auditory, the difference is not important for effective learning. Learners process what they learn at deeper levels (involving meaning) than merely at the sensory levels. It’s another myth. Stimulus variation offers a greater payoff.

Oh, just one more interesting point. Although the marketplace is replete with learning-style tests dealing with 13 categories of identified learning styles, an in-depth review of them by researchers not related to the developers’ tests found that only three of the 13 learning style models came even close to demonstrating internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and predictive value.³

3. The more enjoyable the instructional methods, the greater the learning achievement.

 

We would like this to be true, but the results of research on learner enjoyment or satisfaction and learner success vary from a negative correlation of .80 to a positive .75. There is no stability in the findings. Some studies conducted with high- and low-ability students and structure found the following to be true: High-ability students prefer structure but do better in exploratory modes; low-ability students prefer less structure but do better in the structured, more directive mode.

Overall, enjoyment and satisfaction do not seem to be the critical variables for learning. Persistence or time on task appears to be far more powerful. If enjoyment makes learners persist longer, then that works. But studying unhappily for hours and sweating it out works just as well, and if the learner is meaningfully mentally engaged, perhaps it works even better.

To add one more layer, enjoyment and satisfaction as a cause of improved attention and learning requires that the learning activities, themselves, be deemed “enjoyable” by the learners. However, in some studies, enjoyment or satisfaction was expressed as a result of the learning event. In other words, it was not necessarily the enjoyment factor in the instruction or learning activity itself, but the positive consequence of what took place: high test score, valued accomplishment, or a sense of having overcome a difficult learning endeavor.⁴ Score another myth.

4. All other things being equal, media and technology make a major difference in learning effectiveness.

 

This has been one of the most persistent myths we have seen over the past 50-plus years. In 1913, Thomas Edison predicted the demise of traditional teaching with the invention of the “moving picture.” At various times, particularly after World War II in the late 1940s and 1950s with the audiovisual boom, in the 1960s with television, and from the 1980s to the present with computers, enthusiastic educators have lauded the power and potential of the “new media.” Studies on the impact of individual media, media combinations, even on various media attributes— comparing one to another or to “conventional” training—have all more or less ended up in the same place. When all the dust has settled, the media have not shown superiority among themselves or against other training modes over time.

Media and technology-based delivery systems, especially computer-driven ones, have improved accessibility to training, permitted cost savings for large learner populations, and provided greater consistency of training messages. Their potential to improve efficiencies in learning is still being studied, again with varying results. All other things being equal, the use of media and technology-based learning systems to improve learning effectiveness to any large degree has not been demonstrated.

It is worthwhile mentioning a large and rigorous study conducted in 2009 and revised in 2010 on the use of online learning, including Web 2.0 applications and systems. The study systematically examined the research literature involving computer usage in various configurations—alone and including a variety of media and blended use (both computer and live classroom)—from 1996 through July 2008.

The report authors identified more than 1,000 empirical studies of online learning. They thoroughly analyzed the studies that contrasted an online to a face-toface condition, measured student learning outcomes, applied a rigorous research design, and provided adequate information to calculate an effect size (how big the difference was between different treatment groups). They then conducted a meta-analysis on the retained studies. This allowed them to discover, on average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those who had received face-to-face instruction. The highest performance results came from those learners who had been taught with a blend of online and face-to-face instruction. The blended instruction often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in the face-to-face condition. The analyst-authors conclude that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media or technology. They noted that the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium. In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum, and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which were likely to have included additional learning time and materials and additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. The studies included in the meta-analysis were drawn from a broad spectrum of contexts including school, higher education, and workplace settings.⁵ Yes. Another myth.

5. Working out problems on your own results in better problem-solving performance than studying those that have already been worked out.

 

Particularly in instances where learners may encounter a variety of unique problems in their work, recent research suggests something that appears initially surprising. Don’t have learners work out each problem. Rather, provide them with worked out (or partially worked out) problems and have them study the model solutions before attacking similar new problems or troubleshooting occurrences. This appears to lighten the learners’ cognitive load and increase problem-solving success. Once again, we may have been tempted to believe that solving everything on one’s own builds superior problem-solving capabilities. Further reflection based on research gives us pause. Yet another myth!⁶

6. The more content you give to learners, the more they take away.

 

Based on our observations of many training programs delivered live, via manuals, or online, we are amazed by how much content trainers and training developers attempt to cram into a session. Time and again, we have heard trainers express the fear that “we didn’t give the learners everything they might need.”

Learners, as we pointed out earlier, are born with cognitive load limits. Through the use of information chunking and leveraging of cognitive strategies, we can increase the amount of skills and knowledge learners can acquire and retain. But human ability to process information is fixed and has been for thousands of years. By prioritizing and culling extraneous information, we can help our learners retain what is essential. Less is more. Hosing down learners with high-pressure information flows will not make them absorb more knowledge. It will only drown them. Myth!⁷

7. A well-designed training program will overcome a poor implementation plan.

 

So many excellent training programs are sitting on shelves collecting dust. The reason: poor implementation planning. This particular myth is not a scientifically researched issue. This has been examined more in the management of training literature. No matter how well the training has been conceived, it will have low impact if

• no time is budgeted for workers to take the training
• insufficient instructors, equipment, or learning time is available
• no pretraining preparation or posttraining support is available for the learners
• resources to exploit the training are inadequate
• there are no incentives to apply the training on the job
• no changes in policies and procedures have been created to integrate newly acquired skills and knowledge.

Implementation is key to the success of any training. Even partial or not perfectly designed training has a higher probability of on-the-job success if the factors listed above are accounted for than does a wonderfully created training program with a poor implementation strategy. If you pit great training against an unprepared environment, expect the environment to win. Myth number 7.

8. Technology is the key to future workplace learning success.

 

The bottom line in deciding whether this statement is a hit or a myth is a lack of supporting evidence. Although technology suppliers and enthusiastic technophiles have touted the future-world of learning as being upon us, facts have not supported that assertion. Despite the launching of an armada of e-learning and related technology-based training systems, few convincing research findings have demonstrated the effectiveness of these ventures in terms of superior learning gains or better performance from workers.⁸

Recently, even such taken-for-granted assertions as technology-based learning solutions save time and money (not having to travel to a course, no instructors, and no hotel and per-diem costs) are being called into question. High initial costs of hardware and software plus high costs associated with technology-based training development are not being sufficiently amortized through large-scale, repeated use. Rapid obsolescence of equipment, learning software, and courseware have reduced savings.⁹

A recent trend has been the development of automated systems for training and the breaking down of learning content into reusable chunks or objects that are housed in information repositories. Although a great deal of experimentation and effort is being made in these areas, much uncertainty still exists as to how viable the new approaches will be.¹⁰ Remember that technology only amplifies and accelerates. If what we provide is more telling material, technology will tell louder and faster. But it won’t result in valued transformation.

The most recent information we have obtained shows that although the mid to late 1990s and early years of the 21st century experienced a decrease in live training and an increase in technology-based training in North American work organizations, that trend has slowed and even reversed in some cases. Count number 8 as a myth!

9. Lack of workplace performance results mostly from a lack of required skills or knowledge.

 

Another way to state this is that the most effective way to improve workplace performance is through training. Building skills and knowledge is worthwhile, but many other factors have been found to supersede skill or knowledge deficiencies. In studying workplace performance, researchers have identified the following to be key causes of performance problems: lack of clarity in expectations; limited access to required information, resources, incentives, or consequences; inadequate feedback systems; and poor selection of people to perform the tasks. In many cases, people already know how to do their jobs. Training and development are important for increasing their performance. Without attending to all of the other factors, however, much of training’s potential contributions are lost. Score another myth.¹¹

10. Successful performance during training usually results in improved performance on the job.

 

The sensible, logical conclusion that one is tempted to draw is that, if people perform well during training, they will continue to do so on the job. If not, why train? Sadly we report that the research evidence does not support that assertion. Training is necessary in many instances. Rarely, however, is it sufficient to achieve sustained, improved posttraining performance. A quote from Baldwin and Ford, who in 1988 published an extensive review of training research, seems appropriate here: “American industries annually spend more than $100 billion on training … not more than 10 percent of these expenditures actually result in transfer to the job.” Ten years later, Ford and Weissbein (1997) updated Baldwin and Ford’s review and arrived at the same conclusion.

As in statement 9, training cannot succeed without support from other factors such as information, resources, incentives and consequences, selection, communication, process design, and adequate control of task interferences. Once again, it’s another myth.¹²

11. Attending to right brain–left brain scientific findings helps us to aid learners who have either right or left hemispheric dominance. Instruction focused toward the right hemisphere can enhance creativity; to the left hemisphere it can foster logical thinking.

 

There has been so much hype about lateral hemispheric dominance in the media and in publications that it seems one should pay close attention, especially since Roger W. Sperry won a Nobel prize for his work in this area. However, from a learning perspective, a scientific finding does not necessarily translate into practical, research-supported applications. Sperry did his work mostly on people who had undergone surgery that severed connections in the corpus collosum between the two hemispheres.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the discoveries Sperry and others made, including those by his postgraduate student and colleague Michael Gazzaniga, provided great insights into the working of the brain. Educators and entrepreneurs became excited, extrapolating from this work in the learning arena. Since then, hemisphere dominance tests have populated the educational and training worlds along with curricula to address each of the parts of the brain. Here are some notes of caution.

Most functions require both hemispheres to operate optimally. While brain imaging shows structural differences between the hemispheres, little evidence suggests that these correlate with functional differences. What recent neuroscientific studies are showing is that brain functions tend to be housed in specific areas of the brain and in both hemispheres. An intensive review of 67 recent brain imaging studies on creativity concluded that there was lack of empirical evidence to substantiate the belief in any form of hemispheric dichotomy with respect to creativity.¹³

12. Good, old-fashioned common sense is a natural best friend of science. It is a sure guide for making sound training decisions.

 

If only this were true. The answer for this final statement is a resounding “myth.” Pick up any research textbook and in the early chapters you’ll discover the warning that what we euphemistically call “common sense” is one of the greatest enemies of science.

Based on common sense, authority insisted that the sun circled the earth, even after scientific and systematically gathered empirical evidence showed otherwise. Some people today still believe in a flat earth. In the name of common sense, great injustices have been visited on whole groups of people who were “obviously inferior” (that is, by observing how they live and what they believe, it makes good, common sense for us to dominate and exploit them). Doesn’t the larger physical size and strength of men suggest that they should command women?

Common sense is in the eye of the beholder who selects data to draw conclusions. Common sense is generally derived from local lore, reinforced by small samples of selected data, and subjectively filtered to arrive at convenient conclusions. This has been true of the training world where we have enshrined such common sense notions as these:

• Spare the rod, spoil the child. This has led to the justification for beating learning into schoolchildren.
• Girls lack the reasoning capability necessary for mathematics and science. This spilled over into other forms of gender discrimination and injustice in learning.
• Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you’ve told them. This has resulted in the one-way, overloaded information-dumping that is still prevalent in training today.

More modern common sense notions in training relate to some of our previously cited myths about overemphasizing learning styles or overdependence on technology to improve learning. Despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence, many people still strongly argue for large-scale, technology-driven learning systems without considering the uses to which they will be put and that will miraculously empower the worker just in time and with just what is required.

Common sense is whatever we make of it. It’s not a best friend of science. It’s not a sure guide for making sound training decisions. If we could offer the training community a motto, it would be “Let data talk, and beware of common sense.”

Let us close on this myth with two quotes from famous scientists:

“Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.”

—Albert Einstein¹⁴

“Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of it than they already possess.”

René Descartes¹⁵

The Bottom Line on Learning

How did you score on worksheet 12-1? We deliberately set up the Hit-or-Myth game to state only commonly held myths. Our purpose was not to put one over on you, but to arm you in your mission to transform your learners. Part of the job is to combat and counter tradition (“but we’ve always done it this way”), enthusiastic hype (“it’s the latest and the greatest”), and false reasoning (“just follow your—meaning my—common sense”) when it comes to helping people learn.¹⁶

Based on what we have derived from our combined 80 years of research and practice, our counsel to you is to demand hard evidence that objectively supports what others try to sell you in training. Keep your eye on the key criteria for success and on the bottom line:

• Is it learner centered?
• Is it performance based?
• Can we demonstrate results?

Your mission and ours is not enthusiastic telling. It is effective transformation that leads to both learner and organizational success.

Hit-or-Myth—A Final Match-Up

To close this chapter, we’ve created a brief match-up game in worksheet 12-2. In column A of the worksheet, we have randomly listed our dozen myth-conceptions. Any or all of them may be thrown at you someday. Column B contains a list of counterarguments. Your job is to match the appropriate counterargument to each myth statement. Have fun!

If you matched most of the myth statements to their appropriate counterarguments, you have a good sense of what will work in training … and what won’t.

Now we turn to our final chapter to tie some loose ends together on telling ain’t training, share some reflections, and bid you farewell but not good-bye.

Worksheet 12-1. Hit-or-Myth Game

Your Match	Column A	Column B
_____	1. Attention to learning styles is necessary for effective teaching. Some learners are more visual and others are more auditory. Still others are highly kinesthetic. Matching instruction to these styles results in improved learning results.	A. Many experts cannot articulate the knowledge they use when demonstrating expertise. They possess procedural, but not declarative, knowledge to explain.
_____	2. A well-designed training program will overcome a poor implementation plan.	B. Common sense is based on local lore, reinforced by small samples of selected data and subjectively filtered to arrive at convenient conclusions. It tells us that the earth is flat.
_____	3. Working out problems on your own results in better problem-solving performance than studying those that have already been worked out.	C. The research on learner enjoyment or satisfaction varies from a negative correlation of –.80 to +.75. There is no stability in the research findings. Persistence has been demonstrated to be more powerful.
_____	4. The more enjoyable the instructional methods, the greater the learning achievement.	D. American industries annually spend more than $100 billion on training… not more than 10% of these expenditures actually result in transfer to the job. Regardless of the success of the training effort itself, without proper transfer conditions—an all-too-common state— the training investment is soon lost. Anticipated performance change does not occur.
_____	5. Lack of workplace performance is due mostly to lack of required skills or knowledge.	E. Although there are many individual differences in the senses learners lean more toward, and although learners may have some discernible learning preferences, habits, or “styles,” these are not that important for learning. Research suggests that learners process information at a “meaning” level and engage all appropriate senses for acquiring and retaining information. Stimulus combinations and variations have more effect on acquisition and retention than a continual favoring of a single form of instruction,
_____	6. Good, old-fashioned common sense is a natural best friend of science. It is a sure guide for making sound training decisions.	F. Yes, there is well documented research showing the asymmetry of the two hemispheres. However differences in structure don’t necessarily result in differences in function. Recent neuroimaging research suggests that both hemispheres are required for most meaningful mental activities. The right brain–left brain “dichotomania” is too simplistic a notion to direct instruction.
_____	7. Experts who perform well generally know what they are doing and are the best ones to explain their successes.	G. Many other factors have been found to supersede skill or knowledge deficiencies such as lack of clear expectations, feedback, resources, incentives, consequences, and access to needed information.
_____	8. The more content you give to the learners, the more they take away.	H. Studies on the impact of media on learning over the past 50 years generally end up with the same conclusions. All other things beings equal, media is not the key variable in effectiveness of learning.
_____	9. Technology is the key to future workplace learning success.	I. Many excellent training programs sit on shelves collecting dust. No matter how well the training has been conceived, it will have low impact if it cannot be implemented adequately. Time, budget, resources, culture, incentives, policies, and procedures are key to performance in the workplace.
_____	10. All other things being equal, media and technology make a major difference in learning effectiveness.	J. Recent research suggests that showing learners model solutions partially or fully worked out is more effective than having them work out all the problems by themselves. This is especially true for nonrecurring problems.
_____	11. Attending to right brain–left brain scientific findings helps us to aid learners who have either right or left hemispheric dominance. Instruction focused toward the right hemisphere can enhance creativity; to the left hemisphere it can foster logical thinking.	K. Despite technophile enthusiasm and industry hype, few studies demonstrate the superiority of technology-based training on learning. Recent data on technology-based training does not show a dramatic increase in use.
_____	12. Successful performance during training usually results in improved performance on the job.	L. Learners have cognitive load limits. Unlike computers, their information- processing capacity has not increased. Information overload has a negative effect on learning and retention.