Thaler & Sunstein - Nudge theory

As is sometimes the case, the catalyst for a theory is a popular book. Nudge theory hit both the popular and professional consciousness when Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein published Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness (2008). Thaler is a Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist. Note that education or training is not in the title but they touch upon education and the principle or technique can and has been applied in learning. They call their approach libertarian paternalism, where people are gently nudged into doing what is best for them, through small nudges and steps which can lead to significant changes in behaviour. They have had enormous influence as behavioural economics and psychology influenced government policies.

Nudge theory 

Nudge theory reverses the idea that we tell people what to do or legislate that they should do something. Behavioural psychology and economics starts first with people; where they are, what they are doing and what they need to do to improve their health, finances, happiness and learning. They recommend thinking about problems in terms of ‘choice-architecture’ that changes attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviour, with small nudges in the right direction, rather than large-scale programmes and training. 

Thaler & Sunstein start with the now famous example of an etched image of a fly in the urinals at Schiphol Airport, in Amsterdam, where spillage was reduced by 80%, playing to men’s playfulness in trying to hit the fly. Smaller plates were found to lead to less food waste. Turn rubbish bins into characters with big mouths.

Designing nudges

You must use choice-architecture to avoid the natural inertia that exists in behaviour. Drawing on the work of Kahneman and Tversky on anchoring, availability and representativeness, they give not only many examples but some guidance on how to design nudges. 

Some of their design recommendations are useful. Think in terms of defaults - assume that people will default and take the path of least resistance and not read the manual! Expect Error - to err is human, so always assume that users will make errors and mistakes. Map your digital architecture or choices onto useful outcomes for consumers. Simplify and structure complex choices. Also provide incentives such as showing the costs of electricity used, as you use it. Give feedback - tell learners they’re doing well or making mistakes and why.

Social and peer pressure

They also call on research by Asch (1995), where people answered questions correctly on their own but, defying the evidence of their own senses, got things hopelessly wrong they saw others give wildly wrong answers. People are therefore heavily influenced by others in decision making, through groupthink. This conformity rate seems to happen 20% - 40% of the time. Peer pressure, explored in brilliant detail by Judith Harris appears to be a problem. Sherif (1937) found that this group effect was stronger in small groups, especially when they had to make their results public. This has led to nudges both avoiding the peer pressure of inertia but also the efficient design of nudges that use social pressure, for example, in the UK Government’s EAST methodology. This is important in learning where social or peer pressure can be used to push individuals forward.

Learning nudges

We make poor decisions about our health, wealth and happiness. We also make poor decisions about teaching and learning. In education and training the course; hours, days, weeks, even years long, has been the dominant paradigm. You have to go somewhere at a certain time to be taught something. Yet subtle nudges that introduce learning into your routine, may help you sustain a learning experience, like learning a new language.

They point towards a high degree of ‘unrealistic optimism’ about learners’ self-perceived performance, something they also found in self-judgements among faculty. This unrealistic optimism is common in high stakes decision making, such as the success of marriage. People need to be nudged out of these misconceptions. Creative nudges have been used in advertising, marketing and public contexts by governments and organisations, nudges are now commonly used in online learning. Notifications in adaptive learning systems to propel learners forward. They can be used to deliver timely reminders, even content, based on personal and aggregated data to motivate learners without delivering courses and content. Clark (2020, 2021) and others recommend using techniques such as micro-videos to nudge managers towards using better management techniques or making people aware of security problems like phishing.

Critique

Some see Nudge theory as a new form of paternalism, even worse a manipulative technique that goes against the freedom of choice and agency that we should have in life and work. Rather than change laws and policies or demand that processes and procedures in organisations are changed, the theory is used as an ‘under the radar’ marketing tool to effect change. In the context of social media it has been criticised as being the driver towards polarisation, as people are nudged through algorithmic and marketing techniques, such as ‘likes’ to drift towards more extreme positions. The concept has also been seen as vague and ill-defined, as anything that is a stimulus to action and that what is new is not the idea but its role in popular behavioural psychology. They are openly libertarian and so on school choice they think that nudging parents to make good choices is the solution and the rest is a given. This ignores the many other possible ways of making schooling better and fairer. 

Influence

Nudge theory has been taken up by governments and organisations as part of change management programmes. The UK government has what is called a Nudge unit, which has developed its own EAST method. In learning it has been given life by the rise in LXP (Learning Experience Platform) technology, where notifications and nudges are pushed to learners, rather than courses.

'Nudge' by Thaler and Sunstein is the book that took a theory from behavioural psychology into a mainstream policy technique for many governments. It also found a place in learning, as a method of increasing the efficacy of learning.

Bibliography

Thaler, R.H. and Sunstein, C.R., 2008. Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness.

Asch, S.E., 1995. Foundations of Conformity and Obedience. Psychological Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, p.267.

Sherif, M., 1937. An experimental approach to the study of attitudes. Sociometry, 1(1/2), pp.90-98.

Clark, D., 2020. Artificial Intelligence for Learning: How to Use AI to Support Employee Development. Kogan Page Publishers. 

Clark, D., 2021. Learning Experience Design: How to Create Effective Learning that Works. Kogan Page Publishers.

Nudge learning

Things move fast in organisations and when Standard Life merged with Aberdeen Asset Management, an agile learning approach to changing behaviour in the new organisation was implemented, a training intervention that is itself agile and resulted in actual behavioural change. A huge traditional course, whether face-to-face or online, based on a diet of knowledge would have been counterproductive in this fast moving, post-merger commercial environment and be seen as a bit old-school and non-agile. Whereas a series of short, sharp interventions that nudge people into applying agile in their own context and work environment was likely to work better. At least, that's what Peter Yarrow, Head of Learning, thought – and I think he's right. It was his brainchild.

His successful project used the 'nudge' technique. Nudge theory recommends small interventions to push people into changing behaviour. Famous examples include the image of a fly in men’s urinals, to improve aim and reduce cleaning costs! Opting out, rather than into organ donation is another. The psychological theory is laid out in the book 'Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness’ by Thaler and Sunstein. They could well have added ‘Learning’ to the title.

Nudge solution

In learning, Standard Life Aberdeen sent small, professionally shot videos (on average 1min 30secs long), mainly talking heads from leaders and experts in the organisation, out via email. In addition to the video, there was a ‘challenge’ to apply the lesson in their own working environment. I like this approach, and it is a truly fresh and agile 'nudge'intervention.In their case it was general management techniques but I feel that agile techniques could be applied in response to all sorts of needs. Each starts with a proposition, or problem, followed by a suggested solution and finally, and crucially, a call to action. This is based on techniques also used in web and online design.

Example 1

Video on importance of comms

It’s hard to be a high performing team if colleagues don’t know each other well. Without trust, mutual respect and goodwill, performance will most likely remain middle of the road. Exceptional performance is fuelled by positive working relationships. Take this week’s challenge to get to know your colleagues better.

Example 2

Video on mentoring

Being mentored is a great way to develop and progress. But how do you get started? Begin by identifying someone you trust who has taken a career path you aspire to. Take this week’s challenge to learn more about making mentoring relation ships work.

These videos and challenges were sent out by email and usage tracked. The take-up across the organisation surprised the training department and the feedback was very positive. People felt that it was integrated into their natural workflow (they were not too long and intrusive) and that it was made more relevant by virtue of nudging people towards action by them as individuals in their specific job.

Suggestions for nudge learning

Great start but rather than batch emails, I'd use an algorithm to decide personal needs and, take data from usage and get more precise in timing and targeting. This means harvesting more data, which one can do, even with internal email systems. People get habituated out of responding if they get too many emails.

On the challenges I’d use more of a pure marketing approach, a strong command verb at the start, really concise, with reason and emotional pull. Give your audience a reason why they should take the desired action, maybe a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), maybe some compelling numbers. Writing calls to action is both a science and an art and it’s worth being a little creative.

I'd also do slightly more than just state the challenge. I'd get the user to do something there and then to make sure they got the main points in the video (we've done this by grabbing the transcript and getting the user to check they've understood the main points) using AI generated, open-input experiences with WildFire.

None of this is a criticism of Peter’s pioneering project, merely suggestions to make it more potent.

Conclusion

I really liked Peter’s fresh thinking around the ‘nudge’ thing. It has legs and could go in all sorts of directions. It is the combination of proven marketing techniques with learning that make this approach fly. Few in marketing want to slab out hours and hours of content – they think first audience, second channels and third action. Their whole way of thinking is around ‘less is more’. This also happens to be exactly what the psychology of learning tells us about learning experiences. The limits of working memory, cognitive overload, forgetting and the need for transfer mean doing less but doing it better. 

Nudges and learning

Nudge, nudge

'Nudge' by Thaler and Sunstein is the book that in every policy maker’s, combination-lock briefcase this summer. It’s another ‘concept’ book, which is basically an innocuous word masquerading as a serious idea.

But there are several problems with the book:

1. The basic concept is too vague and covers too many cases to be taken entirely seriously. TV ads, slogans, pictures, policy tweaks – you name it, it can be called a nudge. It’s a jack of all trades term.

2. It is hopelessly US-centric. They literally talk about the American Dream (which has just turned into a nightmare) as if it were the premise behind all human behavior. They really do distrust government and have unbridled trust in business (hope they’re watching TV this week). Their whole treatise is framed in a Democrats v Republican frame (say no more). It’s libertarian capitalism at its worst.

3. They are really lawyers masquerading as psychologists. They drag out a couple of old Asch studies but largely ignore the bulk of 20^th century social psychology, depending on anecdote and examples.

4. By recommending ‘nudges’ as a panacea, they simply put policy making into the marketing sphere. The bad news is that the private sector will market you out of existence. Take smoking. The only way to stop those crooks from killing our children is to make the laws tougher.

Nudges are actually interesting

To be fair, nudges is a nice little word, and some of their examples are quite catching.

Example 1: place the image of a fly in airport urinals to reduce spillage (I can confirm that this works as the cleanest urinals in Brighton are in Zilli’s restaurant)

Example 2: cash feedback loops on utility and petrol consumption

Where the book scores is in giving a complex set of techniques a simple name. It forces you into thinking about how to change behaviour without automatically defaulting into compulsion.

Nudges and learning

What are useful are the lessons to be learnt about the marketing of learning and e-learning to learners. The book does have some useful ideas that could be taken across into the learning world. Here’s my top ten starter list:

1. Language nudges

Learning professionals should use appropriate language and scrap training, learning styles, competences, objectives, homework and so on.

2. Feedback nudges

Focus on regular formative and not end-point feedback. Learning is about correcting errors, see Beyond the Black Box.

3. Email nudges

Email nudges like no other form of communication, yet little actual learning is delivered or prompted by this means.

4. YouTube nudges

Use YouTube nudges to virally spread learning. For example, this brilliant PowerPoint tutorial – hilarious and succinct.

5. Book nudges

Encourage the purchase of books, give everyone an Amazon account and budget, and get one into your bag for the train or plane.

6. Note nudges

Branson has a notebook on him at all times. Memory is fallible and note taking dramatically increases learning. Take notes every day.

7. Audio nudges

Podcasts, audio books, recording lectures. A still, vastly underused form of nudge learning.

8. Doing nudges

Buy Getting Things Done by Allen. It’s full of nudges around getting things done, on the premise that you leave nothing hanging in the air. Brilliant book.

9. Feed nudges

Get a personalized home page with feeds from your favourite learning sources and start using RSS.

10. Blog nudges

Get blogging. You’ll learn loads by habitually writing things down.

Why is learning so hard? Hyperbolic discounting – what is it and what to do about it

Julie Dirkson knows a thing or two about learning. Well versed in the research, she is especially good at bringing ‘behavioural psychology’ to the foreground. Understand learners and you understand why it is so difficult to get them to learn. So it was a pleasure seeing her speak and speak with her afterwards. 

Her starting point is the metaphor of the elephant and its rider, the rider the conscious, verbal, thinking brain; the elephant the automatic, emotional visceral brain. Academically this is Kahneman’s two systems, fast and slow explained in his book Thinking Fast and Slow (An alternative is the very readable story in The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis.) 

Hyperbolic discounting

One cognitive bias that is hits learning hard is that of hyperbolic discounting, a well researched feature in behavioural economics. Take two similar rewards, humans prefer the one that arrives sooner rather than later. We are therefore said to discount the value of the later reward and this discount increases with the length of the delay.

If the consequences of our learning are distant, we are likely to take it less seriously. Smokers don’t stop smoking just because you tell them it’s dangerous, and there’s no greater danger than death! In practice, smokers see the consequence as being some time off, so they don’t stop smoking just because you warn them of dying several decades down the line. So it is with learning. Rewards feel distant in learning, which is why students tend to leave study and cram just prior to exams, or write essays on the last night. They are not committed when it is likely that they won’t use their newly acquired knowledge and skills for some time, if at all. No one watches printer problem videos until they have a printer problem. So how do we get the learner to be a rider and not be stopped by the elephant?

Autonomous control

Give people control over their learning as personal agency acts as an accelerant. If I feel that things are not imposed upon me, but that I have chosen to take action, then intrinsic motivation will, on the whole, work better than extrinsic motivation. Giving people the choice over what and when they learn is therefore useful.

Push to engage

Technology allows us to push motivating messages and opportunities to learners. We can nudge them into learning. Nudge theory has been used in everything from insects in urinals to reduce splashes to serious behavioural change. Stream is a LXP that raises learner engagement by nudging and pushing learners forward through timely reminders. We know that learners are lazy and leave things to the last minute, so why not nudge them into correcting that behaviour. Woebot is a counselling chatbot that simply pops up in the morning on Facebook Messenger. You can choose to ignore or re-schedule. It has that drip-feed effect and, as the content is good and useful, you get used to doing just a few minutes every morning. 

Place in workflow

Just in time training, performance support and workflow are all terms for delivering learning when it is needed. This closes the gap between need and execution, thereby eliminating hyperbolic discounting, as there is no delay. Pushes and pulls can sit in Slack, Messenger, Microsoft teams of whatever social or workflow system your organisation uses.

Use events as catalysts

A sense of immediacy can be created by events – a merger, reorganisation, new product, new leader. All of these can engender a sense of imminence. Or manufacture your own mini-event. Several companies have implemented ‘phishing’ training by sending fake phishing emails, seeing how people react and delivering the training on the back of that event.

Recommendations

Almost everything you do online – Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon and Netflix, use recommendation engines to personalise what the system thinks you need next. Yet this is rarely used in learning, except in adaptive systems, where AI acts like a teacher, keeping you personally on course. 

Visual nudges

Online learning needs to pick up on contemporary UX design and use slight movement, colour changes, positioning and layout to push people into action. In WildFire we use AI to create extra links during the learning experience. These appear as you work through an idea or concept, and are highlighted of the system thinks you didn’t really get it first time. But there’s lots of things you can do to nudge people forward in learning.

Calls to action

A neat combination of events as catalysts, nudge learning and calls to action, used widely in marketing, was a project by Standard Life. They used a merger with another large organisation as the catalyst, short 90 second videos as nudges and challenges (calls to action) to do something in their own teams. Use was tracked and produced great results. Calls to action are foundational in marketing, especially online marketing, where you are encouraged to contact, registered, inquire or buy through a call or button. Have a look at Amazon, perhaps the most successful company in the world, built on the idea of calling to action through their one-click buying button.

Get social

Reframe learning into a more social experience, online or offline, so that learners have their peer group to compare with. If you see tat others are doing things on time, you are more likely to follow than be presented with some distant consequence. Future promises of promotion, even money, have less effect that near experiences of being part of a group doing things together or being encouraged, even peer reviewed, as encouragement and feedback engenders action.

Habit

Habitual learning is difficult to embed, but once adopted is a powerful motivator. Good learners are in the habit of taking notes, always having a book in their bags, reading before going to sleep and so on. Choose your habit and force yourself to do it until it becomes natural, almost unthinking. In Kahneman language you must make sure that your System 2 has some of the features of what were once System 1. Or your elephant starts to get places on its own without the rider urging it along.

Conclusion

Learning is one thing, getting people to learn is another. Psychologically, we’re hard-wired to delay, procrastinate, not take learning seriously and see the rewards as far too far down the line to matter. We have to fight these traits and do what we can to encourage authentic and effortful learning, Make it seems as though it really does matter through all sorts of nudges; social, autonomy, push, place in workflow, events as catalysts, recommendations, visual nudges, recommendations, calls to action and habits.

Bibliography

Lewis, M. (2017) The Undoing Project. Penguin

Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking fast and Slow.Penguin

Roediger, H. McDaniel M. (2013) Make It Stick. Harvard University Press

Only one thing lacking in Educating Essex – education!

Television has a nasty habit of showing state education as dysfunctional. If you have any doubt about Channel 4s intentions check out the sleazy publicity above. Suggests it's more about Essex Schoolgirls (nudge, nudge) than education. They view schools through a pathological lens, with an unnatural focus on problem kids. Channel 4 are obsessed with this approach. Educating Essex, like C4s ridiculous Jamie’s Dream School before it and again C4s The Unteachables before that, are a disgrace. This has become a TV genre all of its own promoted by the Tristams; TV types, who, in my experience, largely went to private schools, where problem kids are filtered out of the system.

The makers of this programme certainly lack the objectivity and professionalism of real documentary makers, as they simply select ‘discipline’ themes from hundreds and hundreds of hours of tape. It’s yet another example of a London-based, editorial class pushing their personal agendas. It’s the same with Channel 4 Learning, who burn millions year on year on dubious games to tackle social problems. It’s a patronising view of state education by a bunch of posh kids in Horseferry Rd.

The programme started well but I didn’t expect EVERY episode to descend into yet another ‘chav-porn’ series of portraits of individual children causing havoc in front of the cameras. It’s exactly what Owen Jones wrote about in Chavs, about the demonization of the state system. There’s precious little coverage of any of the hundreds of other ordinary children getting on with their education, only insanely detailed coverage of Sam, Vinnie and whatever lad they’ll choose next week as it makes for ‘good TV’. Have they no shame?

Where’s the teaching and learning?

In one of the few glimpses (that’s all we get) of actual teaching, we see a teacher make the classic mistake of introducing PI without any adequate reason or explanation. The charming young Carrie’s reaction was pained but rational, “What is PI? Where did it come from?.....” Cue the difficulty of teaching maths. This could have gone somewhere, but it was only used as an amusing clip. In fact, look carefully and it shows a typical maths teacher with his back to the audience simply reading out a Word document from the and e screen, and has failed to break the solution down into steps comprehensible by the class.

I’d like to know if this absence of teachers and learning was the result of editorial bias or at the request of the teachers and/or the teachers’ unions. As a governor in a comprehensive school I and other Governors faced extreme resistance when we tried to report honest observations from our scheduled classroom visits. We were eventually told that classroom visits were banned! If this is true, it would be a shame, as I’m sure many of the teachers in the school are good, inspiring and professional. The problem the programme makers may be up against is the hagiographic idea, sometimes promoted by the teaching profession, of all teachers being brilliant and inspiring, when many, like any other profession, are just average. I would much rather have seen the truth, than this wildly distorted, corridor-only, punishment room view of the school.

Administrators galore?

The one thing you do notice is the relatively large numbers of support staff on camera. This is exaggerated by the angle taken by the editors (problem kids), nevertheless, from the Head of Inclusion to the pair who sit in the support unit, the sympathetic Miss Baldwin and Mr Tracey, as well as Mr Drew and a team who are always in and around his office, it seems that teachers and teaching have been curiously erased from the programme. We saw a lot of Miss Conway, head of house and PE teacher in the last episode, but we’ve yet to see any sport or teaching of PE.

Obsession with  uniforms?

I really like the Headmaster, Deputy Heads (the legendary Mr Drew and Mr King) but shouldn’t they be doing more teaching? An unbelievable amount of time is spent policing school uniforms. Is this really what matters in schools? High school students in Finland don’t wear a uniform and it is one of the highest performing systems in the world. Imagine if all that time, effort and money went on education, as opposed to enforcing uncomfortable and impractical ties and blazers.

They get through the exhausting and difficult days with a healthy mix of banter and humour. No shots of the staff room though. I wonder why! Could it be that these were edited out? Surely we can take some reality here. These are real people with a real sensitivity towards the children. Those we see do really care, we just don’t see enough of them teaching or kids learning. We’re four episodes in and I have no idea what’s taught or how it’s taught – hopefully the next few episodes will enlighten me.

10 powerful online feedback (should be called feedforward) techniques

Most of the frustration experienced by learners is poor, slow or inadequate feedback; the embarrassment of being asked questions in a classroom in front of others, even one-to-one by a human tutor, the fear of asking questions in a classroom or in a Zoom session, as you’d feel stupid, the lack of opportunity to ask for clarification or ask questions in a Zoom lesson, classroom or lecture, the email reply that takes days to come back, that solitary mark A-D and brief comment on a piece of work or general and non-specific comments like ‘needs more clarification’.

The solution is good feedback. Feedback is the lubricating oil of teaching and learning. Feedback accelerates learning. It can therefore reduce the amount of time spent teaching. It motivates and propels learners forward. You need to work hard to keep learners on task, feedback is the spark and stimulus that gets them to the next stage. 

Technology can use feedback to propel online learning. We spend so much of our technology time to present linear, media ‘experiences’ that we forget about the locomotive power of feedback. Creating videos, graphics and screeds of text is easy, feedback is personal and hard. Yet there are methods that have emerged from recent technology that make it much easier. We need more focus on technology to deliver feedback as well as media.

There are many forms of feedback; confirmatory, explanatory, consequential, real-time, semantic, media specific, peer-to-peer, reflective, calls to action. It is a powerful aid to learning and should be used to power learners forward.

1. Confirmatory

Right, Correct, Yes, Wrong, Incorrect, No Try again. This feedback simply confirms whether you have succeeded or not.

2. Hints

Hints give snippets of information to nudge learners forward in a task. They are useful in making the learner think deeper about the problem. (Lavbic, Matek & Zrnec, 2017).

3. Explanatory

Go one step further and explain WHY you got something right or wrong. Note that even when it is right, reinforcing with different wording and extra information and explanations can be useful.  A Clark and Mayer (2016) meta-study shows that this is superior to no or corrective feedback.

4. Consequential

Feedback can lead to consequences in branched and other forms of simulations. Here you provide remedial or fast-track routing, depending on the response. This can be very sophisticated in adaptive learning where personalisation, through data and AI. uses these techniques.

5. Realtime

Feedback in real time is common in VR and real-time simulations and games, where consequences of decisions and actions are immediate as they would be in real life.

6. Semantic

You use AI to semantically interpret responses and act upon the meaning. Sentiment analysis has also been used to determine the subjective feelings of the learners to deliver feedback.

7. Media specific

You can choose to provide positive feedback in a specific confirmatory medium, like audio or video, using text or other forms of feedback for negative responses. This strengthens the memory of the positive act and avoids memories of negative responses.

8. Peer-to-peer

One way to scale feedback is to get one learners to peer review each other. In pairs or groups. There are systems that provide this functionality.

9. Reflective

Leaners can be asked to reflect mentally or write a reflective piece, as a forms of self-referential feedback. 

10. Call to action

Learner is asked to do something in the real world as a result of their online response. This can be a nudge towards practice and transfer. It may trigger an action in a spaced or retrieval practice system.

Thanks to Connie Malamoud who inspired me to write this blog.

Year of learning dangerously – my 15 highs and lows of 2018

So 2018 is behind us. I look back and think… what really happened, what changed? I did a ton of talks over the year in many countries to different types of audiences, teachers, trainers, academics, investors and CEOs. I wrote 65 blogs and a huge number of Tweets and Facebook posts. Also ran an AI business, WildFire, delivering online learning content and we ended the year nicely by winning a major Award. 

So this is not a year end summary nor a forecast for 2019. It’s just a recap on some of the weirder things that happened to me in the world of ‘learning’…

1. Agile, AI-driven, free text learning

As good a term as I can come up with for what I spent most of my year doing and writing about, mostly on the back of AI, and real projects delivered to real clients of AI-generated award winning content, superfast production times and a new tool in WildFire that gets learners to use free-text, where we use AI (semantic analysis) as part of the learning experience. Our initial work shows that this gives huge increases in retention. That is the thing I’m most proud of this year.

2. Video is not enough

Another breakthrough was a WildFire tool that takes any learning video and turns it into a deeper learning experience by taking the transcript and applying AI, not only to create strong online learning but also use the techniques developed above to massively increase retention. Video is rarely enough on its own. It's great at attitudinal learning, processes, procedures and for things that require context and movement. But is it poor at detail and semantic knowledge and has relatively poor retention. This led to working with a video learning company to do just that, as 2+2 = 5.

3. Research matters

I have never been more aware of the lack of awareness on research on learning and online learning than I was this year. At several conferences across the year I saw keynote speakers literally show and state falsehoods that a moments searching on Google would have corrected. These were a mixture of futurists, purveyors of ‘c’ words like creativity and critical thinking and the usual snakeoil merchants. What I did enjoy was giving a talk at the E-learning network on this very topic, where I put forward the idea that interactive design skills will have to change in the face of new AI tech. Until we realise that a body of solid research around effortful learning, illusory learning (learners don’t actually know how they learn or how they should learn), interleaving, desirable difficulties, spaced practice, chunking and so on… we’ll be forever stuck in click-through online learning, where we simply skate across the surface. It led me to realise that almost everything we've done in online learning may now be dated and wrong.

4. Hyperbolic discounting and nudge learning

Learning is hard and suffers from its consequences lying to far in the future for learners to care. Hyperbolic discounting explains why learning is so inefficient but also kicks us into realising that we need to counter it with some neat techniques, such as nudge learning. I saw a great presentation on this in Scotland, where I spoke at the excellent Talent Gathering.

5. Blocked by Tom Peters

The year started all so innocently. I tweeted a link to an article I wrote many moons ago about Leadership and got the usual blowback from those making money from, you guessed it, Leadership workshops.. one of whom praised In Search of Excellence. So I wrote another piece showing that this and another book Good to great, turned out to be false prophets, as much of what they said turned out to be wrong and the many of the companies they heralded as exemplars went bust. More than this I thought that the whole ‘Leadership’ industry in HR had le, eventually to the madness of Our Great Leader, and my namesake, Donald Trump. In any case Tom Peters of all people came back at me and after a little rational tussle – he blocked me. This was one of my favourite achievements of the year.

6. Chatting about chatbots

Did a lot of talks on chatbots this year, after being involved with Otto at Learning Pool (great to see them winning Company of the Year at the Learning technologies Awards), building one of my own in WildFire and playing around with many others, like Woebot. They’re coming of age and have many uses in learning. And bots like Google’s Duplex, are glimpses into an interesting future based on more dialogue than didactic learning. My tack was that they are a natural and frictionless form of learning. We’re still coming to terms with their possibilities.

7. Why I fell out of love with Blockchain

I wrote about blockchain, I got re-married on Blockchain, I gave talks on Blockchain, I read a lot about Blockchain… then I spoke at an event of business CEOs where I saw a whole series of presentations by Blockchain companies and realised that it was largely vapourware, especially in education. Basically, I fell out of love with Blockchain. What no one was explaining were the downsides, that Blockchain had become a bit of a ball and chain.

8. And badges…

It’s OK to change your mind on things and in its wake I also had second thoughts on the whole ‘badges’ thing. This was a good idea that failed to stick, and the movement had run its course. I outlined the reasons for its failure here.

9. Unconscious bias my ass

The most disappointing episode of the year was the faddish rush towards this nonsense. What on earth gave HR the right to think that they could probe my unconscious with courses on ‘unconscious bias’. Of course, they can’t and the tools they’re using are a disgrace. This is all part of the rush towards HR defending organisations AGAINST their own employees. Oh, and by the way, those ‘wellness’ programmes at work – they also turned out to be waste of time and money.

10. Automated my home

It all started with Alexa. Over the months I’ve used it as a hub for timers (meals in oven, Skype calls, deadline), then for music (Amazon music), then the lights, and finally the TV. In the kitchen we have a neat little robot that emerges on a regular basis to clean the ground floor of our house. It does its thing and goes back to plug itself in and have a good sleep. We also have a 3D printer which we’re using to make a 3D drone… that brings me to another techy topic – drones.

11. Drones

I love a bit of niche tech and got really interested in this topic (big thanks to Rebecca, Rosa and Veronique) who allowed me to attend the brilliant E-learning Africa and see Zipline and another drone company in Rwanda (where I was bitch-slapped by a Gorilla but that, as they say, is another story). On my return I spoke about Drones for Good at the wonderful Battle of Ideas in London (listen here). My argument, outlined here, was that drones are not really about delivering pizzas and flying taxis, as that will be regulated out in the developed world. However, they will fly in the developing world. Then along came the Gatwick incident….

12. Graduation

So I donned the Professorial Gown, soft Luther-like hat and was delighted to attend the graduation of hundreds of online students at the University of Derby, with my friends Julie Stone and Paul Bacsich. At the same time I helped get Bryan Caplan across from the US to speak at Online Educa, where he explained why HE is in some trouble (mostly signalling and credential inflation) and that online was part of the answer. 

13. Learning is not a circus and teachers are not clowns

The year ended with a rather odd debate at Online Educa in Berlin, around the motion that “All learning should be fun”. Now I’m as up for a laugh as the next person. And to be fair, Elliot Masie’s defence of the proposition was laughable. Learning can be fun but that’s not really the point. Learning needs effort. Just making things ‘fun’ has led to the sad sight of clickthrough online learning. It was the prefect example of experts who knew the research, versus, deluded sellers of mirth.

14. AI

I spent a lot of time on this in 2018 and plan to spend even more time in 2019. Why? Beneath all the superficial talk about Learning Experiences and whatever fads come through… beneath it allies technology that is smart and has already changed the world forever. AI has and will change the very nature of work. It will, therefore change why we learn, what we learn and how we learn. I ended my year by winning a Learning technologies award with TUI (thanks Henri and Nic) and and WildFire. We did something ground breaking – produced useful learning experiences, in record time, using AI, for a company that showed real impact.

15. Book deal

Oh and got a nice book deal on AI – so head down in 2019.

Transfer - why is it ignored? Here's how to fix it...

Transfer is something that is often completely ignored in experience design. But what is the point of having learning experiences of they don’t transfer to actual application and performance? Learning experiences may not only fail to transfer but actually stop transfer.

You must design with transfer in mind and blends or learning journeys must move learning forward towards action, towards doing, towards practice and performance. No matter how much training you deliver, it can be illusory in the sense of not leading to transfer from cognitive change to actual performance, which in turn has impact on the organisation.

Doing and Practice are experiences. In fact without doing or practice it is unlikely to be retained long-term. Your design must move from experiences that match whatever type of learning you need, cognitive, psychomotor and affective, but practice and application experiences also matter. Your design should provide transfer pathways towards mastery, through actual doing and practice in the formal learning as well as practice and extension activities beyond the initial learning experiences.

Note that observable behaviours can be used but this is notoriously difficult, except in very formal apprenticeship-type learner journeys. Behaviour is notoriously difficult to measure and arguably behaviour must result in an impact in the organisation. It is better to go for data on KPIs, as they are commonly found in organisations. Note also that learning in workflow increases transfer as you are using it immediately. The training is proximate to the task. 

Knowledge can lie inert (Renkl et al 1996) and fail to transfer. Research focused on the idea that elements in the learning must be identical to those in the real world if transfer is to succeed (Singley & Anderson 1989). But it was Tulving who focused more on the retrieval of specific ‘cues’ in memory (Tulving & Thompson, 1973), recommending that such cues be designed into the learning experience, along with retrieval and spaced practice. We use this 'cues' technique in WildFire, where AI is used to create online learning, with cues, in minutes not months.

Near and Far transfer

A useful distinction is between ‘Near’ and ‘Far’ transfer Near transfer is where the task is simple and routine, such as learning how to ‘cut and paste’ in a word processor, where the contexts are similar. Far transfer involves troubleshooting or problem solving, using learned knowledge and skills, such as management skills or learning experience design!, as the contexts, where skills are applied, will be very hugely varied. Far transfer is what is often pointed to as a key component in and increasing number of future jobs, as routine tasks are automated.

Near transfer is easy to design for using methods such as varied worked examples, retrieval, deliberate, directed and spaced practice. 

Far transfer is far trickier. You will want to present the training in as realistic a way as possible, so that the cues can be embedded in the training. So, when doing management training, use real imagery or video within a real office. This suggests that we avoid cartoon representations or imagery that does not match the actual environment in which the training is to be applied. Flight simulators provide a good example of congruence between the training and environment. 

Note that it is often necessary to design learning experiences that are not too open and sophisticated, as the novice would suffer from overload and confusion (Caroll, 1992). In software training, for example, you narrow down the options with guided, step-by-step instruction, so as not to overwhelm the learner. The constraints may be loosened as expertise is built. Similarly in language learning, early learning will be of basic vocabulary and grammar, leading to guided and supported use and finally immersion.

Far transfer needs variation in context so that the principles can be applied in new situations as they arise. Variation in worked examples and applications by the learner will give them the flexibility to adapt what they learn to future problems, so support far transfer.

The classroom is often a poor environment for transfer, whereas on-the-job training provides real cues and context. Transfer is therefore strong argument for learning in the workflow, where you learn and do it immediately in the real world. What is needed is something that approximates the old apprenticeship model, now perhaps re-named as Blended Learning. A true Blended Learning experience integrates theory and practice, providing a process for progress, from novice to expert. The process may take weeks or months and not be restricted to a simple one or two day course or online learning experience. Learning needs transfer and transfer takes time. Specific features of an optimal Blended Learning design, may be experiences that allow you to apply what you learn in the real world, working through real case studies, models of expert performance, make changes and see how they affect the outcome, voice or articulate what you do as you do it to others and, of course, learning from mistakes. In other words learning experiences benefit from actual experiences.

Situated learning, where you learn in the job context, allows for actual results to act as a measure of success, if practiced in a safe environment. But pure situated practice can take a long time and is difficult to execute. It may, as Anderson et al. 1996 found, be an exaggeration to think that it is the optimal solution. Marshall 1995 found that a blend or combination of theory and examples works best and some job or workflow training. 

Spaced practice is one way to overcome delayed performance. Interestingly transfer may be increased by delayed feedback. There is ample evidence to show that spaced-practice will increase retention and transfer.

Druckman and Bjork 1994, showed that delaying feedback, allows learners to make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, so be careful in always giving immediate feedback. We do this in WildFire created content, where you get the presented learning experience, do retrieval practice but only at the end of the online module, where you get Red, Amber and Green feedback, are you asked to go back and correct your Red and Amber mistakes. Giving learners room to think, reflect and make mistakes will in crease retention, subsequent retrieval and transfer.

Technology and transfer

Technology also gives us the opportunities to practice and therefore transfer learning. Simulations have long provided powerful practice and transfer. Pilots really do learn how take-off, fly, land and cope with rare emergencies using simulators. So why are simulators not more commonly used in learning? Well, the pilot goes down with the plane. There is not much hyperbolic discounting when your imagination and the reality of your job takes you to 35,000 feet in 300 tons of metal and 600 passengers. 

One common error is to assume that full fidelity is always needed. This may not be possible on cost and it is vital that a distinction be made between ‘physical’ and ‘psychological’ fidelity. Most tasks require careful design around the psychological or cognitive processes in learning. In fact, low fidelity simulations can be as effective as very expensive high fidelity simulations, if the psychological fidelity is strong. Cox et al. 1969, showed that a cardboard box and photograph simulation could be as effective as a high-fidelity simulator. You often see simple, cockpit and control set-ups in pilot training facilities. I know of one trainer who was an expert in buying old junk equipment from planes for training. They had a hanger full of the stuff. It did the job.

Simple and mini-simulations may be useful for limited tasks. Branched scenario training where decision making is needed. This requires the careful selection of scenarios, based on their most likely occurrence in real life. This breathes life into learning as well as increasing the chances of transfer. Variety of scenario should match the variety of probable real life scenarios as much as possible. Probabilistic presentation of scenarios is also possible. I’ve been involved in high-end scenario training around conflict in healthcare that involved a wide range of scenarios from alcohol and drug users in A&E, to violent patients, colleagues and even those visiting patients. Customer service may require a careful selection of customer types. I designed an airport check-in scenario-based simulator that took a carefully calibrated selection of typical customer types; impatient business traveller, large family, nervous single traveller etc. and integrated the interpersonal skills with the software skills on using the check-in system as well as the physical skills of handling luggage and labels.

A LXP (Learning Experience Platform) may nudge and challenge you to do things in the workflow. When learning experiences are delivered, with an understanding of context and at the point of need, they have a far higher chance of transfer, as they are likely to be applied immediately and in a real world context. One can push out to learners, using predictive techniques, knowing that they are likely to need learning or react to them pulling content when they feel they need the support.

VR also offers opportunities for practice and therefore transfer in expensive, rare and dangerous environments. Oil rigs, inside vehicles, emergency incidents, down to the micro-level or out in space. VR can give high-fidelity environments and now, with haptic experience providing the physical feel of handling objects, as well as cable-free headsets, the freedom to move and experience worlds you may at some time encounter.

Technology evolves fast as we have seen how simulations, LXPs and VR can certainly enable transfer.

Making it work

We must be careful with transfer, as Weinbauer-Heidel who wrote What Makes Training Work, a book on transfer, warns us against transfer strategies if the ‘capability’ is NOT there. So often training cannot deliver on practice and application. She also recommends that NO course certificates are issued, unless transfer has been shown. For her, transfer needs to be levered at the personal, training and organisational levels. 

Personally, the learner has to want to follow through to action and transfer and be confident that they can perform. They must be made aware of the value of doing this in practice. This can be done by increasing relevance and proximity to the actual tasks, which is why learning in the workflow gives a powerful boost to transfer.

Training needs to be clear about what is expected in terms of application and doing, not get stuck in and just stop at pure theory. It means designing experiences that are relevant and practical to individuals, with practice included during and after the training.

Organisationally, learners should be expected to practice, with time available and support from line managers. There are many ways to do this, through nudges, challenges, projects, mentoring, deliberate practice schedules, short apprenticeships. Opportunities for practice experiences can be deliberately recommended and created, such as designing a website, using a spreadsheet or handling things in a lab, in safe environment with no bad consequences for the organisation. This is a matter of people to supervise, space and time to practice. In short, training and managers must take the horse to water AND make it drink.

Yet, what does designing a practice experience actually mean? At some point you must let go and had the reins over to the learner. It is a matter of suggesting, structuring or simulating practice and application, not once but repeatedly. We must understand what deliberate practice means, what spaced practice means.

The danger should be obvious, that we focus on shallow media presentation to get fun or engagement but what really matters is an understanding of how the mind of the learner actually learns. Learning is not like other experiences, such as entertainment, we have learned through many decades of research, that it is a complex issue, that needs to be worked on to optimise the learning experience and result in actual transfer and application of learning. 

Bibliography

Renkl, A., Mandl, H. and Gruber, H., 1996. Inert knowledge: Analyses and remedies. Educational Psychologist, 31(2), pp.115-121.

Singley, M.K. and Anderson, J.R., 1989. The transfer of cognitive skill (No. 9). Harvard University Press.

Tulving, E. and Thompson, D., 1973. Encoding Specificity and retrieval process in episodic process. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 87, pp.353-373.

Carroll, J.M., 1992. Minimalist documentation. Handbook of human performance technology.

 Anderson, J.R., Reder, L.M. and Simon, H.A., 1996. Situated learning and education. Educational researcher, 25(4), pp.5-11.

Marshall, S.P., 1995. Schemas in problem solving. Cambridge University Press.

Druckman, D.E. and Bjork, R.A., 1994. Learning, remembering, believing: Enhancing human performance. National Academy Press.

Cox, J.A., Wood Jr, R.O. and Thorne, H.W., 1965. Functional and Appearance Fidelity of Training Devices for Fixed-Procedures Tasks (No. HUMRRO-TR-65-4). GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIV ALEXANDRIA VA HUMAN RESOURCES RESEARCH OFFICE.

Weinbauer-Heidel, I. 2018. What Makes Training Really Work