Case study: an effective system to help the accounting profession transform (2/2)
In the first part of this case study we discovered the methods and main principles of the training course set up by Didask and Pluriel Consultants to support the transformation of the accounting profession. The challenge of this second part is to decipher its content: what method was followed to create modules that meet the specific needs of the profession and allow for a real and sustainable increase in skills?
When the objective is to achieve a real and sustainable increase in skills, the creation of online content requires a pedagogical method that is both rigorous (based on the fundamental mechanisms of learning) and transferable (applicable as quickly as possible independently by the holders of the expertise to be transmitted). Always in the interest of efficiency, we have chosen to articulate our method around pillars proven by research in cognitive science.
The purpose of this article is to decipher two steps of this teaching method and to show how we implemented them with our partners as part of the e-Coll project. These two steps, which are essential for effective training, are as follows:
Granularization corresponds to the division of a training course into modules and the articulation of these modules in a course. According to the Didask method, a good module corresponds to a fifteen to twenty minute exercise session that allows you to work on a particular skill. Each module is explicitly associated with a specific state change objective.
Why exercises? It's the famous Testing Effect, who says that you learn much better through practice than through passive consultation of resources. This is why each module on Didask necessarily contains 5 to 10 cases to solve.
Why fifteen to twenty minutes? Because to learn well, you must avoid mental overload. Rather than presenting all the content in one go, the content is cut into small grains, corresponding to a concept on which attention can be maintained from start to finish.
Why a change of state? Because learning is changing. A skill, whether it is know-how or interpersonal skills, always means the ability to do something that you were previously unable to do. If there is no possible change of state, there is no need for training.
The essential prerequisite for effective content production is therefore to granularize the training, that is to say to break it down into units of skills that can be assimilated in about fifteen minutes. For the e-coll project, this work was carried out jointly by Pluriel Consultants and Didask, as part of a training day.
Divided into groups, the experts of Pluriel Consultants were asked to think about the following question: what do we want the employee to be able to do at the end of the training day? With the help of Didask educational engineers, the experts were able to list all the skills and behaviors that accountants must acquire in order to successfully make the digital transition of their profession. Then, for each of these skills, clear educational objectives were defined in the form of a change of state before and after.
Take aptitude as an example.” Fast Closing ”, which means the ability to produce accounting documents expeditiously. The collaborator who masters the Fast Closing is the one who understands that a quick balance sheet is not incompatible with a quality report, and knows, if he wants to be able to deliver his accounts more quickly, what actions can be put aside (flawless entry of the labels), which customers should be prioritized (disorganized customers, for example) and how to organize himself beforehand (do a retroplanning). Concretely, we can recognize the accountant who masters the Fast Closing by its reaction to concrete work situations. For example, it will now include recurring expenses from December to November. This is a change of state!
Granularization requires both the expertise of the business specialist and the method of the educational engineer. The experts were able to imagine 5 to 10 situations mobilizing this skill in practice. They therefore considered it realistic to work on this skill in 15 to 20 minutes. The entire course was broken down according to this logic, to finally arrive at forty modules that could range from “reducing your useless actions” to “evaluating the company's performance through added value and EBT”.
Second key step in content design: create exercises that are pedagogically effective. In e-learning, the exercise often takes the form of a short evaluation quiz at the end of a training course. Writing this quiz is seen as one deliverable among others. It is therefore rarely the most essential or the one that elicits the most thoughtful.
However, research in cognitive science has shown that it is precisely when the quiz is put into practice that sustainable learning can really take place. If it doesn't take any effort to put it into practice, nothing happens. Result: the learners read PDFs, watch videos, check a few boxes... and come out of the training exactly as they entered it. This is what should be avoided at all costs with accountants, for whom change is not an option.
In order to induce the change of state defined during granularization, the Didask method puts exercise at the heart of learning: we learn by putting into practice, via a trial-and-error approach. For each skill, it is a question of finding between 5 and 10 situations that will allow the learner to progressively acquire the right attitudes. Designing a relevant test of this type cannot be improvised. It is a science — docimology — that has clear principles. (See our article on docimology)
First of all, for there to be learning, the questions must be of a certain level of difficulty. (see our article on desirable difficulties). Creating a good MCQ is not easy! The work of our educational experts is to create quizzes through which we truly learn, by identifying and avoiding certain classic pitfalls:
As the editing process progresses, natural reflexes give way to a more rigorous approach, and designers end up adopting the method.
Then, the questions should focus on practice over theory, and the mobilization of skills over the memorization of concepts.
Thus, among the exercises carried out with Pluriel Consultants, nearly 4 out of 5 are scenarios. Here is an example:
“Mr. Mallard has been running an import-export store for several years. You have been following his file since its creation. He would like to increase his result because he cannot continue to live with so little remuneration, but he does not want to cut back on the quality of the products sold, or on his quality-price ratio, or deprive himself of the services of his employee who comes to support him during peaks of activity. He doesn't know how to do it. He is asking you for advice to reach his goal.”
The accounts are made available to the learner, who must then choose which approach to propose (reducing their rents? reduce your insurance policies?). The situations are all plausible, that is to say inspired by reality. This is what allows employees to develop skills that can be mobilized in their work situations once the online training is over.
Finally, the questions should offer learners a Feedback relevant, i.e. corrective feedback. If the answer they've chosen is wrong, they need to understand exactly why it's wrong; if it's right, why it's good, and what that means.
To design the E-Coll training in accordance with these two main principles, it was first necessary to proceed iteratively, by regular back and forth between Pluriel Consultants and Didask, in an approach of co-construction of content. With practice, the design experts were able to internalize the teaching method, thus allowing the Didask teaching team to gradually withdraw from the creative process.
In the end, e-Coll represents about forty modules of 8 questions on average, or about 320 questions. Each of these questions was subject to rigorous quality control, statement by statement, distractor by distractor, explanation by explanation. This work obviously required a lot of time and effort, both from the designers of Pluriel Consultants and from the teaching team: the total estimated design time per module was one and a half days.
But isn't that the price to pay for learners to finally get concrete results from their learning? According to the feedback from Pluriel Consultants trainers, the investment has more than paid off: when the learners arrived for the training day after a working session on Didask, they held “incredible words, of an absolutely incredible maturity” showing that they already mastered the essentials.
For a growing number of professions affected by automation, this question is actually not a question: there will soon be no choice. Those who cannot organize the real and sustainable development of their employees will disappear; the others will succeed in their digital transformation as well as all the other future transformations of their activity.
Prenez directement rendez-vous avec nos experts du eLearning pour une démo ou tout simplement davantage d'informations.
