Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2018 - 18

verbal working memory, which is a part
of the short-term memory.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Learn more about the findings that Dr. Henry Roediger and Dr. Jeffrey Karpicke uncovered
about learning reinforcement in the research brief, "The Power of Testing Memory."
Dr. Art Kohn discusses more types of reinforcement to offer after training in the article,
"Deploying an After-Training Program."

seeing 70 percent of that budget wasted
after a single day is mind-boggling.
Because of the fast rate at which we
forget, your organization is probably
spending more and seeing less in return.
But the impact of the forgetting curve
extends well past budget concerns.
When you're training your employees
about workplace safety, for instance,
having employees forget 70 percent of
what you've taught them by the next
day can be downright dangerous.
The good news is that it is possible to
counteract the forgetting curve and
dramatically increase learning retention
in training programs. Let's explore a few
strategies that corporate trainers can
apply to start seeing better learning
retention and training application with
your employees.

CONTENT CHUNKING
Content chunking is a concept that
was first introduced back in 1965 by
Harvard psychologist George A. Miller.
Miller hypothesized that the short-term
memory could only hold five to nine
chunks of information at a time.
A study by the University of California
found that in the modern workplace,
employees are interrupted every 15
minutes, on average. That's just one
reason why, in the reality of today's work
environment, trainers can no longer rely
on long-form e-learning courses to serve
as a primary method of training.
Microlearning has been one of the
biggest trends to hit the L&D scene since
training first started moving online.
Microlearning has been successful

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for multiple reasons, but its biggest
benefit is that it focuses on chunks of
learning content that have a narrow
focus, rather than requiring a learner
to only receive training from long,
comprehensive courses.
When you adapt content for smaller
chunks, you're gaining a level of control
over the amount of information your
learners are retaining. Effectively spacing
out this chunking means that you
can offer memorable, comprehensive
content that will be better retained.

REINFORCE LEARNING
Another effective strategy to overcome
the forgetting curve is to test learned
material. Many employers require
employees to take quizzes over the
content they've viewed, and while that's
certainly a step in the right direction,
there are multiple other ways to ensure
the reinforcement of training content
is sufficiently preventing learning from
being lost.
Reinforcement strategies can include
having learners write down information,
making quiz or test questions
challenging, and providing memory
boosts for the content. Some of these
may sound obvious, but I'll go into more
detail about each to emphasize why
they work.

WRITE IT DOWN
There should always be some response
questions for learners to answer. This
would require reviewing and possibly
grading their responses, but studies
show that writing down information
shortly after first learning it works the

Using questions that ask employees to
put learned information into their own
words forces them to recall and restate
information. By writing the information
down, learners use more channels to
retain that information and understand
how to turn learning into application.

THE IMPACT OF
THE FORGETTING
CURVE EXTENDS
WELL PAST BUDGET
CONCERNS.
MAKE IT HARD
Doctors often put medical residents on
the spot by asking very challenging,
specific questions. These questions
aren't designed to necessarily be
answered correctly at the time, but
rather to help the resident remember
the correct answer afterward.
When learners are forced to recall
information by having to answer tough
questions, two things generally happen.
Either the learner remembers the answer
and the new knowledge is reinforced
more strongly, or the learner gets the
question wrong, but the correct answer
is committed to memory due to the
difficulty of the question.
To see learning retention improve over
time, the brain has to be challenged so
that it better understands information
and can apply it to different situations.
This is what learning agility is all about.

BOOST THE CONTENT
Professor Henry Roediger at Washington
University in St. Louis has done extensive
research on learning reinforcement, and
his findings demonstrate that forced

http://psych.wustl.edu/memory/Roddy%20article%20PDF%27s/Roediger%20&%20Karpicke%20(2006)_PPS.pdf https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine/issue/deploying-an-after-training-program/

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