How well people learn is affected by a number of factors.
Control: how much freedom people have in choosing their own route.
Adaptibility: how the learning can be adapted to the individual.
Perception: how easy it is to pick out key information.
Attention: how well the materials keep people's interest.
Memory: how well people can remember what they study.
Comprehension: how well understood the material is.
Activity: people learn better if they are active and involved in the process rather than being passive.
Motivation: how much people want to learn.
Closeness to reality: people learn better if the learning closely resembles what they are learning to do.
Use the links to find out more about each factor.
Effectiveness of different training media
Each of the factors described here are present to varying degrees in the different types of possible learning strategies. Good learning design optimises each of the factors for each medium employed.
Studies have shown that there are significant differences in how much people
learn from different types of learning activity.
| % retention | Learning activity |
90 |
Teaching others and applying in real-life |
85 |
|
80 |
|
75 |
Practising doing |
70 |
|
65 |
|
60 |
|
55 |
|
50 |
Discussion group |
45 |
|
40 |
|
35 |
|
30 |
Demonstration |
25 |
|
20 |
Audio-visual presentation |
15 |
|
10 |
Reading |
5 |
Lecture |
You can see hear that action, closeness to the real performance and motivation, amongst others, must be having a significant effect here. Also note that there is a strong correlation between memory and attention and the different media employed.
You may be interested in some theories
of learning that help to explain this table.
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(C) Bryan Hopkins, 2005