How Do People Learn?

Part 3 of a Four-Part Series

Last week we discussed the Learning Loop or PDCA for short and how to increase your training performance. This week we will discuss how people learn.

To be effective at training we need to understand how people learn. Most people can learn at an “A” level if they are given enough time and appropriate instruction. Therefore, the problem with training is time. In business we do not have the luxury of spending a lot of time. We usually only have hours to deliver days worth of material. People need to pick up the concepts quickly. The question is how can we speed up the learning process? The answer is in understanding how people learn in the first place.

People learn in a variety of ways but there are three main factors that influence the speed at which you learn anything new: aptitude (IQ), prerequisite knowledge and the quality of instruction.

Aptitude and Learning

The most often used measure of aptitude is Intelligence Quotient or IQ. An average person would be defined as having an IQ of 100. A person with a high IQ means that they have above average intelligence. In training this translates into the ability to grasp new ideas and concepts quickly.

So, the more high IQ students you have in a class the easier it is for the teacher. That’s because they can quickly fill in the “training gaps” on their own and teach themselves. I am sure you have experienced such “training gaps”. It’s when the teacher is presenting concepts and you feel like they have not been fully explained. You start to feel lost and then you drift away while in class.

High IQ students may drift off also but the difference is they understand the concepts and may be getting bored. The problem is high IQ students actually make it harder for everyone else. The teacher needs to fix the “training gaps” so that everyone can learn quickly. We can’t and don’t have companies of all high IQ employees. So, we can’t design classes with “training gaps”.

Prerequisite Knowledge and Learning

The other way people learn quicker is by having prerequisite knowledge of the subject. Prerequisite knowledge is the extent to which you already possess the foundation for the material you are attempting to learn. Schools do this all the time by breaking up the learning into multiple classes that build on each other.

For example, if you want to take our ISO Auditor/Lead Auditor course then you would need to complete the online ISO 9001 foundation class first. The foundation class discusses what ISO 9000 quality standards are all about. By ensuring that everyone has read and understands the ISO 9001 standard then the class can cover the rest of the auditor material a lot faster since we know that everyone has at least a basic understanding of ISO compliance.

Both aptitude and prerequisite knowledge are student characteristics and many times we don’t have control over these two variables. Employees have operational functions to complete and cannot spend too much time in training. But we do have a lot of control of the last factor – quality of instruction. In fact, we have toal, 100% control over our own instructional quality.

Quality of Instruction and Learning

When talking about the quality of instruction we want to go beyond the basic principles of course design:

• • Break course into instructional units.
  • Define the learning objectives for each unit.
  • Determine how students will demonstrate mastery of the learning objectives for a unit prior to beginning the next unit.

All courses must exhibit the basic principles of course design. Now our discussion is about the body. What we have found out about learning is that it is not all in your head. Learning takes place throughout your entire body. To be effective, instructors must design their classes to take into account how the whole body learns. So, how does the entire body learn? That is what we will discuss next week.

This week we discussed how people learn in a variety of ways and that the three main factors that influence the speed at which you learn anything new are aptitude (IQ), prerequisite knowledge and the quality of instruction. Next week we will look further into how the body learns and how we can improve our training performance even more by teaching the whole body and not just the mind.

Learn more about developing policies, procedures and processes, or improving your organization by attending the next How to create well-defined processes or ISO 9000 Lead Auditor training classes.

Part 1: Is Your Training Effective?
Part 2: How to Increase Your Training Performance
Part 3: How do People Learn?
Part 4: Learning is Not All in Your Head

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Originally published in 2005 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title How Do People Learn?. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com