Should “Read and Understand” be Considered Training? – Part 2

In Part 1 of Should “Read and Understand” Be Considered Training? I explained that read and understand is an instructional design decision just like any other delivery method. It sits on a continuum of instructional methodologies with andragogy and self-directed learning on one end and instructor-led training and pedagogy on the other. At the close of Part 1, I left you with two key questions:

1. Is read and understand the right design decision?

2. Have you prepared your organization to be self-directed learners?

In this post, I’ll discuss from a neurological perspective why read and understand may or may not be the right instructional design decision. I will also discuss a few design tips to improve the effectiveness of read and understand when it must be used.

Of the many neurological learning concepts, there are two that all learning professionals should understand when it comes to instructional design. The first is that new neural pathways (dendrites, synapses, and neural networks) grow for what is actively, personally, and specifically experienced and practiced. This means that if you only listen or read about how a task is performed, you grow neural pathways for listening or reading, not the actual performance of the task. It isn’t until you actually solve a problem or physically perform a task that you will grow neural pathways for these specific actions. This is why we’re taught that when designing learning opportunities, they should be as close to the real thing as possible.

Let’s apply this concept to a typical Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) scenario. Suppose you decide to deliver a standard operating procedure (SOP) in which the content is declarative and employees are only required to know that the information exists. In that case, read and understand may be a suitable delivery method. Examples include human resource information, corporate practices, or high-level process overviews.

However, in many cases, this is where organizations get into trouble. The content is procedural in nature, and the true expected outcome of reading the SOP is employee performance. Organizations are automatically a step behind the learning effectiveness curve in such cases because you’re going against basic learning neurology. Think of it as a dendrite mismatch issue. Remember, because the employees only read the SOP, they grew dendrites based on reading the information and not performing it. This means that you’ve left the interpretation of the SOP’s content regarding performance up to the employee to determine. Whoop, there it is! This concept alone should shed serious light on your next human error investigation and/or CAPA design. (Try writing “dendrite mismatch” into your next human error investigation – he, he!)

Whether this is important or not is up to you, and each business environment will have its own set of variables to consider, such as availability of resources, complexity of the task, and criticality/risk of execution. Unfortunately, performance in GMP environments usually means perfect performance, and in heavily regulated environments, there’s usually no room for error. So you have to ask yourself, “Will they get it right, or will they get it wrong?”

Understandably, in business environments, there are times when you have to use read and understand as a delivery method, whether it’s due to a lack of resources or the insistence of the process owners. However, if performance is the expected outcome, you must enhance your read and understand efforts. This leads us to the second learning concept you need to know: practice strengthens information recall.

Neural pathways take time to grow because they take active, purposeful practice with the new learning item. The more you practice, the better you will get with what you are practicing because your brain is growing more pathways related to that specific information. Think of it as memory recall exercises for your brain. The more you do it, the stronger the neural pathways become and the easier to remember (recall) the required information. Effective instructional design should always provide a means, one way or another, for employees to practice (recall) their newly learned knowledge, skills, or abilities (KSAs).

The opposite is also true; if employees don’t practice or use their new information or skills, the neural pathways associated with a newly learned item will degrade. The brain automatically prunes pathways that are not used to make way for those who are. Now, the brain rarely loses information, but it becomes harder to recall if you don’t use it very often.

With this in mind, something as simple as a visual aide posted at the point of execution, a job aide that employees can access whenever needed, printing instructions on key documents, or establishing a recurring retraining period for critical items can be helpful. Anything that allows your employees to practice using new information or provides additional clues (recall triggers) on how to perform a task they only read about once will greatly increase the effectiveness of your read and understand efforts (and hopefully decrease performance-related human errors).

Bottom line: When you use read and understand as the sole method of delivering performance-related content, you are operating against the most basic laws of learning. It’s just not how we operate as human beings, and my guess is that organizations that overuse read and understand probably have high rates of performance-related deviations/investigations. (How about retraining as the CAPA? Ha, don’t get me started!) This usually leaves leadership wondering or asking why their employees “just don’t get it.” The answer is simple…your employees can’t “get” what you haven’t delivered.

In Part 3, I’ll cover the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) necessary for self-directed learning and what you can do at the organizational level to help your employees.

Until then, keep your saws sharp, my friends!

Cheers,

Dr. Dean