Effortless, no learning - How to properly calibrate the level of difficulty of a training course?

The need to calibrate an appropriate level of difficulty for your learners is one of the pillars of learning.

Vos learners praise their online training on ethics and the prevention of conflicts of interest, except for one detail: the practical cases seem too specific to them, so that only 30% of them find the right answers the first time. For the reissue scheduled for next year, we suggest that you imagine a more fun course, with simple questions that put the learner in confidence. Objective: for 75% to master the module on the first attempt. Is it the best approach? No, tell us the results of cognitive science, at least if you want your learners to really be able to detect situations of conflict of interest at the end of the training.

Thanks to research, we know that Recovering what has been transmitted makes it possible to better anchor learning. : this is even more the case when you put your learners in difficulty. The need for Calibrate an adequate level of difficulty for your learners is in fact one of pillars of learning the most firmly established in the literature. When you choose an appropriate level of difficulty, the learner will have to make an effort, and it is precisely this effort that will reinforce the trace of what he has learned in his memory. This is especially why it is better to answer multiple choice questions than to read your course several times. Effortless, no consolidation.

In search of the “small step further”: the Proximal Development Zone

As we understand, the difficulty and the effort it requires on the part of the learner is essential for learning. It remains to find the right level of difficulty: how to proceed? Too weak, the learner makes no effort and doesn't learn anything; too high, the learner is in a situation of mental overload and ends up getting discouraged.

Several studies suggest that the optimal level of difficulty is a slightly higher level than the subject is capable of dealing with without outside assistance. It is necessary to propose to the learner The small step up from where he is now. Concretely, the next step for an actor who knows how to recite his text without error may be to recite the same text with emotion in his voice; for a salesperson who knows how to sell his product to a receptive customer, it may be to present the same product to a recalcitrant customer.

These types of challenges are said to be located in the Proximal Development ZoneT : learning is most beneficial for the learner when the activities offered in your course or training are in this zone.

To reach for sure the Proximal Development Zone, you need to be able to control the level of difficulty on command, which means understanding where learning difficulties come from. The main difficulty factor is the gap between the learner's current state of mastery and the task at hand. : so, if you have detailed data on the initial level of your learner (in particular thanks to Feedback), you can adjust the task in order to modulate the level of challenge of your training, for example by removing access to certain clues, by integrating notions seen previously or by adding a limited response time to your questions.

Alternating concepts, an example of desirable difficulty

One of the most effective ways to modulate difficulties is toAlternate the concepts to be learned : to take the case of tennis, it is better to learn by regularly alternating forehand and backhand (intertwined learning) only by training in series of one hundred forehands, then one hundred backhands (block-based learning). In the same way, if you want to be able to recognize a Van Gogh painting from a Cézanne painting, it is better to alternate between the works of each painter from time to time.

Alternating learning forces the learner to Recall concepts he has seen before (“What did Van Gogh look like?”). In addition, in the meantime, he will have had to work on another concept, which creates”interferences contextual” with what he is trying to remember (“Am I not confusing myself with Manet?”). Overcoming these interferences requires greater effort on the part of the learner., a desirable difficulty which reinforces the lasting anchoring of learning in memory.

Chase oblivion, path by path

Why do we learn better by alternating even though we make more mistakes at the beginning? In reality, The effort the learner had to make to overcome the interference caused by the alternation of made it possible to unclutter the path to the notions contained in his memory.

Let's imagine that our memory is like a forest crossed by numerous trails. These paths are the mental traces of our learning that vegetation - oblivion - covers gradually.

Let's assume that we walk only and for long periods on the trail that corresponds to a single concept: in the meantime, the trails that correspond to other similar notions will have been entirely covered by vegetation, and our mental traces to access them will be less robust. On the other hand, in alternating learning, you walk regularly on each path, which removes vegetation as soon as it appears.

Practical tips for teachers and trainers

• Suggest memory retrieval exercises : these are all opportunities to offer challenges to your learners and to identify their Proximal Development Zone.
  
  
• Alternate the concepts to be learned: it is a simple solution that allows you to modulate the difficulty without having to create additional exercises.
  
  
• Alternate at a sustainable pace : the learner must have a minimum amount of time to be able to correctly represent the concept in question.
  
  
• Reconcile effort and the pleasure of learning : effort and pleasure are far from being incompatible. Think of the pleasure we get after passing a difficult test... Video games, in particular, tend to offer challenges located in the Proximal Development Zone, which does not prevent them from being successful, on the contrary.
  
  
• Wait until you have enough information on the level of proficiency of your learners to adjust the difficulty to the level of each one : if you do not have a clear vision of the level of your learners, the adjustment will necessarily be imperfect. It is better to let your learners adjust the difficulty of the exercises themselves: they will naturally converge on the exercises they need.
  
  

REFERENCES

(1) W.F. Battig. Facilitation and Interference. In: Bilodeau, E.A. (Ed.), Acquisition of Skill, Academic Press, New York (1966), pp. 215-244
(2) Taylor, K., & Rohrer, D. (2010). The Effects of Interleaved Practice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(6), 837-848.
(3) Guadagnoli, M.A., & Lee, T.D. (2004). Challenge Point: a framework for conceptualizing the effects of various practice conditions in motor learning. Journal of Motor Behavior, 36(2), 212-24.
(4) Vygotsky, L.S. (1980). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Harvard University Press.
(5) Baranes, A.F., Oudeyer, P.Y., & Gottlieb, J. (2014). The Effects of Task Difficulty, Novelty and the Size of the Search Space on Intrinsically Motivated Exploration. Frontiers in neuroscience, 8, 317.