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The Ultimate Guide to Changing People’s Beliefs, Values and Emotional Reactions – The Affective Domain

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The complete guide to changing people’s beliefs, values and emotional reactions.

Affective development: What it is and how to do it – ethically

Probably the most ignored and misunderstood area of development in learning, training and education is that of ‘affective development’ or the affective domain: how to develop peoples values, beliefs and emotional reactions to things. Bloom’s affective domain is at the same time probably the most interesting and the most neglected domain of learning.

Other articles in the series

This article follows on and is connected to the following articles:

The Cognitive Domain – Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong

Psychomotor Domain – The Ultimate Guide to Skills Development – Many Learning and Development ‘professionals’ don’t understand how to develop skills…and,

At what point can you say you have learned something?

Affective

The term affect or affective describes the emotional system that lies behind much of our behaviour and action and comes from the Latin ‘afficere’ meaning to act upon and to influence.

Issues with the other domains of learning

His work on the psychomotor domain was unfinished and subsequent work by others focuses too heavily on physical skills and ignores the development of other skills like cognitive skills (which bizarrely the cognitive domain sort of covers but never really gets to grips with), emotional skills, etc. His work on the cognitive domain mixes psychological and behavioural levels. Further both these domains are levels of learning, they are not the process by which we learn. Unfortunately many people confuse the intention of these domains and assume that they are describing how we learn.

They don’t.

The affective domain is different. It both describes the levels of development and how people develop.

Why the affective domain gets ignored…

The affective domain comes a very poor third in many university curricula training programmes and coaching interventions largely because it is not well understood. Teacher, lecturer and trainer development programmes pay it scant regard, often not mentioning it at all, or if it is mentioned it is a secondary consideration.

So why is the affective domain ignored?

The first set of reasons for this, I suspect, is because it appears difficult and hard to measure, see and test and can, in some cases, take years.

Secondly, it is quite hard to see how to ‘teach’ (preach) it. This is usually because trainers, teachers and lecturers are focused on passing over information rather than on facilitating development.

Thirdly, people just don’t understand it. It all feels a bit ethereal. Just how, for example, do you change someone’s values, beliefs and emotional reactions to things?

Lastly there is an ethical question which stops a few dabbling in this area; should we be engaged in changing people’s values, beliefs and emotions?

More about this later – as you will see this question / issue is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of values, beliefs and emotional (affective) change.

What the affective domain is about

The affective domain describes probably the most neglected and yet the most important aspect of learning, the system that underpins, limits and directs all of our learning.

In effect our affective domain is the system (and it is a system) of:

emotions
values and
beliefs

that are the foundations of and guide our thinking, decisions, behaviour and actions.

Personally I think that of all Bloom’s work, his work on the affective domain is a work of genius.

How the elements work together

Emotions derived from our values and beliefs

There are three primary elements of the affective system:

The emotions
Values
Beliefs

Emotions

Our emotions are the feelings, internal sensations and sentiments we experience or associate with things.

Values

Our values are the weight or importance we place on things as well as the moral principles, standards and ethical codes, rules and formulae we use to evaluate (hence the word e-valu-ate) things we encounter, our own thoughts and behaviour and the actions of others. Our values inform us about how the world should be.

Beliefs

Our beliefs are the sense the something is true. It is an opinion intuition and sense we have about the way things work. Our beliefs are the ideology or framework of thinking that we use to make assumptions about how the world works. For example, the belief that walking under a ladder will bring you bad luck, or that a character with horns on their helmet must be a Viking – There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets at all. A belief can either be true or not. It doesn’t matter because the individual assumes a belief to be true.

All three elements work together dynamically feeding off and informing each other. Together they are the basis of our perceptions and reactions to things. They are also the basis of many of our biases, prejudices, attitudes towards things, including ourselves, and the judgements and decisions we make on a second-by-second basis.

Values, beliefs and emotions are interconnected

Each element informs and changes, and is in turn informed and changed, by each of the other three elements. So our values help to form our beliefs and help to create our emotional response to things. Our beliefs help to develop, strengthen or weaken our values and indicate what our emotions should be in certain situations. Our emotions are directly impacted and created by our values and beliefs and the contact they have with our perception of what is happening around us. Our emotional reactions to things also help to create, strengthen or weaken our values and beliefs. Additionally all three inform and change our thinking and behaviour and are likewise informed and changed by outer cognitions (thinking) and actions (behaviour). Further they are also influenced by our context (the culture we are in or the behaviour and attitudes of others).

Holistic

This informing and being informed by each other element in the system makes this a highly dynamic and complex learning system, involving the cognitive, psychomotor and other skills systems, and the affective system.

This constant interplay between all the elements of the system kind of makes it a nonsense to separate them as they are intimately linked and impact each other.

Dynamic example

Consider the affect (feelings) of boredom. Boredom is a feeling that is driven by our evaluation (values) and beliefs about a situation. If we are in a classroom and lecture theatre our beliefs about the usefulness and the nature of the topic(interesting or not), evaluation of the lecturer or teacher (amazing or a twit), our general mood, whether we understand the topic etc. will all impact our engagement with the knowledge and will inform our behaviour (listening intently or sleeping), for example.

Boredom

Likewise our knowledge of a subject affects (impacts) our engagement with a topic. At a very simple level, if we know more than the lecturer we are likely to find what follows boring, which will impact our engagement. If we don’t like the lecturer or love them, our values, beliefs, emotions and behaviours will all change. Change one aspect the others shift too.

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How our values and beliefs affect our emotions and decisions

Our beliefs are based on our values. So if we have a belief that the best (a value) president of the United States ever was Obama (or anyone else) (a belief) we are likely to have a different emotional reaction to a picture of Obama as opposed to one of Trump or Bush, for example. That emotional reaction strengthens the values and beliefs. What this also does is sets up a bias when dealing with any information about any of the presidents.

No matter how impartial and objective we feel we are there is a world of difference between impartial and objective observation and case building. (Nickerson 1998). What we find is that as soon as we ascribe a value and belief (an evaluation) about an issue or a person, our brain then starts to build a case to support that value and belief. This is then strengthened by our emotional reaction to the issue or person. This is the basis of confirmation bias. As we deepen our belief and strengthen our values about something (or someone) we start to unconsciously look for evidence that supports and makes the beliefs and values more consistent (Kahneman & Tversky, 1996). The more consistent the beliefs and values get, the more consistent (habituated) the emotional response to the situation associated with those values and beliefs will also get. This means that we get into the habit of reacting in a similar way to the same things and the more we convince ourselves we are right, the stronger and faster the reactions get.

Confirmation bias means that we notice and gather any data that supports our values and beliefs and dismiss (often with emotion – anger, for example) and are often even blind to any data that disagrees with our values and beliefs.

The stronger the value, the greater the belief and the stronger the emotional reactions to things we tend to have (Kollmuss & Agyeman 2002)

The affective domain

The affective domain as originally derived by Bloom is both a description of level of affective learning changing emotions, developing values and beliefs. However unlike the other domains, it is also the process of development, which is in part why I think this is genius and way ahead of its time.

The basic elements of the affective domain are:

Receiving
Responding
Valuing
Organising and
Characterisation

Receiving

Receiving refers to the process whereby an individual starts to acquire or realise that their representation of the world may be different than the evidence suggests. In effect they start to receive the message that a change or a shift is needed in their beliefs, values or emotional responses to the situation. This occurs with direct feedback from others (being told) or through a process of realisation.

For example, if you had someone who is sexist and thinks that all male drivers are bad drivers. For ages all they do is confirm their own bias. They filter and every time a male does something wrong on the road they say something like – “there you go, see? All men are bad drivers.” If a woman does something they either ignore it or say something like “That’s just the exception that proves the rule!”

Receiving

Then one day they meet a man they get on with and like. This man is a good driver. When they are out they start to notice that other men are quite good drivers as well. Now they are starting to perceive that maybe not all men are bad drivers. Now they are starting to receive the notion that the world may not be as they had perceived it. That this is a mismatch between their beliefs and the evidence from the world around them…

Responding

Once the door is open and they are starting to notice that their perceptions and the evidence are at odds with each other they are much more likely to notice it more and more, if they are honest and paying attention. If, on the other hand, their ego or an event occurs that prevents this change taking place, then the door will slam shut and they will revert to the old beliefs. This moment is perhaps the most fragile of the entire process. The moment of responding to what they are starting to notice.

Responding

If they continue to test and observe, change is likely to occur. If they snap back, change won’t happen. In order for change to occur they need to respond, emotionally and intellectually to the difference they are noticing between their perceptions and the evidence around them. If they keep looking for or are continually being provided with evidence from multiple sources they are much more likely to respond with acceptance rather than denial.

Valuing

As this process of internal responding to the difference they are noticing progresses, bit by bit they start to place a new weight or value on the new world order they are witnessing being revealed. They start to understand that men and women are equally likely to be good, bad or anywhere in between as drivers. Driving ability is not based on gender rather on skill, knowledge and experience. This process of valuing is a process of value change, where new values are created. Again the value or importance an individual will place on any situation, individual or thing is closely related to the amount of consistent feedback they get about that thing.

Valuing

Organising

Our values don’t exist on their own, in isolation. Our values are connected to each other. Some are more closely connected than others.

One way to think about our values is to use the analogy of bubbles. Imagine a value is a bubble

Imagine a bubble on its own floating. It is spherical.

You will also notice that it isn’t static. It has colours swirling and changing on the surface. It is dynamic and constantly changing whilst still being a bubble.

Now what happens when we place two bubbles ( values or beliefs) side by side?

They need to change to accommodate each other, to fit, and make sense, to align whilst still being distinct and separate.

Values are similar, so if I have two interconnected values, say a standard of courtesy whilst driving, (saying thank you when being allowed through a narrow gap and a general value of politeness) these two values connect like two bubbles. The interesting thing about two connected bubbles is that they are now only semi-spherical. They have a straight line between them. They are connected but separate.

Now imagine a whole handful of soap suds/bubbles (an entire value and belief system)….

There are larger bubbles and smaller bubbles (more important values and less important values). Some values and beliefs are closer together and more connected and some are more distant, less connected and aligned and may actually be opposite each other.

Additionally, from the outside they still look like bubbles, part spherical and part straight lines where they connect with the other bubbles.

But think about this.

Think about the bubbles in the centre of the mass. What shapes are they going to be? Not spherical.

The ethics of changing people’s values, beliefs and emotional responses

In short, deliberately setting out to change someone’s values, attitudes and emotional reactions to values, beliefs and emotional reactions you think they should have is called indoctrination, also known as brain washing. There are a variety of methods of indoctrination that work such as, for example:

Repetition of a consistent message
Reward and punishment (passing v failing)
Hierarchy and authority – this includes having charismatic leaders or role models
Cultural immersion
Requirement of obedience to rules, laws and axioms (with reward and punishment)
Inclusion and ostracising (in-groups and out-groups).

Indoctrination without consent is not considered in many cultures to be unethical as it removes informed content.

Brainwashing and indoctrination – the ethics of value and belief change

Developing awareness

There is, however, a world of difference between indoctrination and helping people to become aware of their values, beliefs and reactions to things, to learn how to identify, inspect and evaluate or re-evaluate their own values and beliefs (and resultant emotional reactions and frames of thinking). This process of critical thinking and evaluation is a process of learning and invites people to consciously understand how they are making decisions and evaluating evidence.

Now you don’t have a general right to do this to people (help people become aware of their values, beliefs and behaviour) , nor are you ethically bound not to attempt to do this. However, there is an implicit consent when people engage in an educational programme. This is the stuff of education. Education is a process of helping people develop autonomy (of being able to make their own choices based on informed understanding, analysis and critical thinking) (Merry 2005).

The ethics of developing awareness

Indoctrination and education are the opposite ends of a continuum that has degrees of freedom as its axis. With indoctrination there are few if any degrees of freedom – we control what we want people to believe by filtering and controlling the information they get. With education we facilitate a process whereby the individual learns the tools of analysis, critique, creativity, emotional control and understanding, particularly of how their values and beliefs are impacting their decisions and choices. They have the ability to know how subjective or biased they are being. At least this way any bias is as conscious as possible. At least they know about it. At that point they can start to respond to it and change it at their direction and will.

Indoctrination v Education – facilitating awareness of values, beliefs and emotional reactions

How to change people’s values and beliefs without indoctrinating them – using the affective domain

From all of this we can discern that one of the main points of an education is to help people to examine their own biases, values, beliefs and emotional reactions to things. How they think and to understand why they think what they do, and importantly to learn to be critical about their own (and others’) subjectivity.

And yet many educational institutions focus on knowledge transfer (particularly up to masters level) and omit this vital step, leaving it instead to culture and society to shape our thinking, emotional responses and beliefs.

As an educator, I am not here to move an individual student’s values, thinking or beliefs in a particular direction, I am instead here to challenge and get them to question their values, beliefs and thinking. To help them learn how to find, view, analyse, evaluate and use evidence. For them to be become evidence-based practitioners in life.

Bloom’s affective domain is, I believe a work of genius, not complicated and very useable. So how to use it?

The five steps to changing people’s values and beliefs: the affective domain in action

5 steps to changing values beliefs and emotional reactions

Engage people in discussion: Get people’s opinions about things (not regurgitating facts but what they think about the evidence). Opinions are the windows to our values and beliefs. The idea is to get them to receive and respond (affective domain).
Challenge people’s opinions (assumptions, beliefs, emotional reactions and thinking) and get them to work out what they are based on. the idea is to provoke a response and develop a weighing of the evidence and their values
Provide the
1. evidence
2. tools and
3. techniques

of challenge and critical thinking. Especially in the context of the situation or using real life cases.

Give constant feedback about their critical thinking and use of the evidence, tools and techniques through the medium of their opinions.
But first become an ‘educated’ critical thinker yourself….about yourself and your own values, beliefs, emotional reactions and opinions…

References

Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl, D.R., Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E., Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., Wittrock, M.C. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Pearson, Allyn & Bacon.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1996). On the reality of cognitive illusions. Psychological Review. Vol 103 (3) 582-591

Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S., Masia, B.B. (1973). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Co., Inc.

Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the gap: why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?. Environmental education research, 8(3), 239-260.

Merry, M. S. (2005). Indoctrination, moral instruction, and nonrational beliefs: A place for autonomy?. Educational Theory, 55(4), 399-420.

Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of general psychology, 2(2), 175.

At what point can you say you have learned something?

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The Ultimate Guide to Skills Development – Many Learning and Development ‘professionals’ don’t understand how to develop skills…

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The Ultimate Guide to Skills Development

There is a bit more to skills development than just practice. This Oxford Review guide to developing skills in organisations will lead you through just about everything you need to know to become an ace at skills development.

Following on from my last post two posts:

Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong

and

At what point can you say you have learned something?

I now want to turn my attention to skills development, the second of the three domains of learning.

As mentioned in Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong Bloom, whose categorisation of learning (called the taxonomy of educational objectives) is the basis of most of the western (higher) educational system, proposed that there are three learning systems.

Cognitive
Psychomotor – This guide
Affective

I covered the traps many educators and development professionals fall into with cognitive development in Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong. The problem lies in in the fact that Bloom was describing levels of learning not how we learn.

Skills development

The essence of skills development is the process of becoming more effective and efficient (faster, more precise, more contextually aware, etc.) at a task or set of tasks. To become more skilful.

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The psychomotor domain

The same issue applies to his psychomotor domain, however there are other deeper issues with skills development that many human development (L&D and educator) professionals don’t really understand.

The point Bloom was trying to make was that learning and teaching/coaching/tutoring in any domain should be aimed at helping the learner to master their abilities with knowledge, thinking, skills and control over their own emotions, beliefs and values. He was trying to get away from the idea of ‘shallow’ learning or a situation where teachers/trainers etc. think they have done their job simply by presenting information.

When you look at many L&D programmes, workshops and even coaching events it makes you wonder, given that this work was done in the 1940’s and 50’s, what progress has actually been made.

The first issue with Bloom’s psychomotor domain was that it was largely only sketched out and was unfinished at his death. As a result it wasn’t very useful. Bloom had arrived at three levels of psychomotor development when he died:

Competency
Proficiency
Mastery

This in itself isn’t that useful beyond describing a progression of skill and the fact that we are aiming for mastery, a place where the skill is instinctual.

Since Bloom a number of people have further developed this domain. Probably the most used framework is what is called the Dave version of the psychomotor domain, named after one of Bloom’s students R.H. Dave. This comprises

Imitation – copying an instructor or other skilled person
Manipulation – reproducing the actions from memory
Precision – Becoming reliable and building speed and precision
Articulation – Being able to adapt and fit the skills to a new context
Naturalisation – This is similar to the process of characterisation I mentioned in At what point can you say you have learned something?. This is the point at which the skill becomes instinctual and you do it without thinking.

Developing Skills

Basically what we have here is a ‘see-try-do’ process.

Other less well known skills taxonomies

Simpson’s psychomotor taxonomy:

Perception – Awareness that something new needs to be done that they haven’t done before
Set – Becoming ready
Guided response – being instructed
Mechanism – learning the basics of the skill
Complex overt response – Becoming more expert
Adaption – learning to adapt the response in new situations
Origination – creating new responses

The issues I have with this is that not all skills development is guided, many of our skills are self taught and that we are often creating new responses (shortcuts) even before we have embedded the original skill.

Harrow’s psychomotor taxonomy

Reflex – instinctual and involuntary reaction to the situation or stimulus/trigger
Basic movements – really simple actions
Perceptual abilities – simple perception of the context and when to do what
Physical abilities – having the skill or fitness to carry out the operation
Skilled movements – More refined and expert actions
Non-discurvie communication – creates and communicates meaning through their actions

I have to say Harrow’s taxonomy feels more like it was done on the back of an envelope.

Now obviously any skills development requires practice, particularly if the individual is to get good (proficient) at the skill. There are however a few problems that these and many other skills development frameworks fail to address like how. How do you move from one state to another? Does practice alone create this movement?

There are a few issues that need to be considered with skills development…

Skills come from 4 things:

Skills are the culmination of four things:

Capability – are they physically, emotionally or intellectually able to do this thing?
Ability – Do they have the expertise and practice required to carry out the task at the level of difficulty or complexity it exists in?
Motivation – Do they want to do the task?
Provocation – Do they know when and how to start doing or active the skill or behaviour. This is the trigger.

Complexity and capability

The first is that there are different levels of complexity of skill that this does not address. Learning to drive and learning to pilot a jet fighter are two very different levels of complexity. And whilst they still follow a ‘see-try-do’ methodology, not everyone will be able to master the skills required. Think for example about the people who pass their driving test first time and with ease and those who have tried twenty and even thirty times and still fail. So at one end of this equation is the level of complexity of the task and at the other is the ability of the individual. Not everyone is capable of everything.

This is an issue of capability and skilfulness vs difficulty and complexity of the task or behaviours the individual is developing.

Context

Context matters. Years ago I was in the Army and then the police. Both services place a lot of emphasis on training (skills development). You aren’t allowed out of training until you have a basic level of competency, because the consequences of failure are severe and frequently fatal. However, formal ‘in school’ training is not enough. In the Army, for example, I witnessed a number of ’trained’ soldiers freeze or do the wrong thing under fire. Likewise, I witnessed ’trained’ police officers ‘losing it’ in a live brawl or a riot situation. For this reason, the services and emergency services place newly trained personnel on probation, in the case of the police in the UK for two years, during which time they are meant to be under the continual tutelage of an experienced tutor officer.

This extended training is for three reasons. The first is the complexity of many of the tasks requires a range of different responses. These are not simple psychomotor tasks but complex shifting tasks that require complex combinations of knowledge, thinking skills, beliefs, judgement, emotion regulation, attitude and contextual sensitivity or the ability to read the situation, often in high stress predicaments.

Whilst many jobs aren’t as acute as the armed services or emergency services, all of these factors still apply in many of them.

Developing the skills in context is vital.

Feedback

The next thing that skills development requires is feedback. Whilst this may appear obvious, there are some issues about feedback that are less obvious and frequently not understood.

Skills development is not just about getting feedback from experienced practitioners. Rather it is about developing the environmental and contextual sensitivity to notice, get and act on feedback from the environment and context. For example, the reactions of others to their actions is good feedback. Developing this level of adjunct skill is both necessary and usually ignored in the skills development arena.

Flexibility and adaptation – training for failure and change

The next area skills development programmes almost always omit is to help the learner develop the skill of judgement. To know when the skills developed no longer apply, either because of change or because of contextual limitations. Many skills development processes end at developing the skill, rather than helping the learner to plan for failure. At some stage the skills will fail or will not be relevant or applicable as things change. There is no plan for irrelevance. The consequence of this is that people keep applying the same old thinking and skills, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that change has occurred.

Examples of training for failure: In the military a lot of training time is spent on failure training. For example soldiers are taught what to do if their weapon fails or they get a blockage.

In the police, whilst I was undergoing advanced driving instruction, a significant proportion of the police advanced driving course is spent on a skid pan, firstly learning how to correct a skid under numerous conditions, then in different types of vehicles; front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive, automatic, manual etc., as every type of vehicle has different characteristics in a skid and requires different actions.

Not only that, but part of the police advanced driving test is on the skid pan in each type of vehicle and includes car control, anti-skid manoeuvring and finally, to show complete mastery, there is a pursuit chase where you have to stay between half to one and a half car lengths behind another car being driven by an instructor as they try to escape spinning across the skid pan.

Not all skills are psychomotor

Bloom and those that followed him have focused on psychomotor skills by which people assume are physical skills like driving, playing football, operating machinery. However there are many other sets of skills that are not psychomotor. For example:

Olfactory skills (smell)
Auditory skills (hearing)
Tactile skills (touch)
Visual skills (seeing)
Gustatory skills (taste)
Cognitive skills (thinking, reasoning, recognition, discernment, creativity and awareness)
Affective or emotional skills (being able to recognise, identify and change our own and others emotions at will)

Many skilled individuals combine a series of skill sets to do what they do.

Why practice is everything but it isn’t enough

Any skill needs practice. Even simple skills like drinking, walking or talking required continued practice and feedback, often over many years. At the heart of skills development in any area is repeated practice.

Practice on its own, however, does not necessarily mean that an individual will develop and hone their skills. If they keep doing the same thing, don’t learn and don’t adapt to feedback, they are unlikely to progress with skills development.

Skills development is primarily a change issue. As you learn to adapt and change what you are doing, you move from failure to success.

Without feedback, motivation and persistence (particularly in the face of failure) mastery of a skill is not going to occur. As mentioned above, feedback not only needs to come from other skilled practitioners or a skilled coach (think about any sports personality), but the individual or team/group needs to use environmental cues as feedback- what messages are they noticing – and this requires the honing of awareness and perceptual skills. They first have to learn to see the signs, notice the feedback. Then they have to learn how to act on it in ways that are healthy and productive.

Perceiving feedback and learning to act on it and importantly, create and test new methods, is in itself a set of skills that is developed over time.

Motivation and persistence

As noted above not all skills are equal. There are more complicated sets of skills than others. The more complicated or harder the skill set the more motivation or drive will be needed. The harder and more complex the skill is to develop the more likelihood there is of failure and repeated failure. Success in skills development under these conditions requires persistence and good feedback, often with some form of coach or mentor. This often requires resilience and grit, the ability to keep going, keep trying, keep failing and still maintain the drive to succeed.

Triggers

Three things need to come together for a skill to be used or a behaviour to occur (Fogg 2009):

Motivation
Ability, and
A trigger

The trigger tells the skilled practitioner when to do certain things. For example a skilled driver knows when to change gear usually based on the engine noise or level of vibrations (particularly if the driver is deaf. Skills acquisition

Sometimes you can’t imitate

Sometimes you can’t start by imitating someone else who can do the skill. It is ideal if you can, assuming they are good and here’s the rub. If you aren’t skilled yourself how do you know who is good and who isn’t?

If there isn’t anyone around to imitate or coach you then you are down to good old trail and error, to developing your own way. Whilst this can take longer it is also entirely possible that you may invent a new and even better way of doing something. Of course it is also entirely possible that you will invent a worse, less effective and efficient way of doing something as well.

Skills development, behaviour change and habits

Developing skills and changing behaviours and habits are the same thing. For some reason many people separate these two things. If someone isn’t behaving in a way you need them to they either don’t have the skills (motivation, ability or capability) or they are stuck in a habit. Behaviour and habits change is a skills issue. They still need the capability, ability, motivation and provocation to change and do something differently.

The thing with habits is that that they are often largely unconscious, characterised or automatic behaviours. In effect they are an ingrained skill. They may not be the skill you want but they are a skill. Yes smoking, drinking, drugs they all have capability, ability, motivation and provocation.

This brings me to another issue….

Skills, behaviour and habit change or acquisition don’t occur in a vacuum. Firstly there will be pre-existing:

thoughts
perceptions
skills
habits
behaviours and importantly
emotions.

Additionally new thoughts, skills, perceptions, habits, behaviours and emotions will be created during the skills development process. These all have an impact on the speed, accuracy and flow of the development process.

Teams and groups

The idea behind a good team is that a group of people acting in concert can bring a wider range of skills and skills consistency together to bear upon a problem. It is necessary that the skills in a group are coordinated and that the skills represented in the group are pertinent to the task at hand. The intention being that when you have more than one person they cover for each others weaknesses. However rather than being a collective of strengths, if not composed and managed (based on feedback) correctly, it becomes a collective of weaknesses.

Conclusions

There are a number of takeaways from all this:

Skills development is more than practice. You also need:
- Persistence and motivation
- Perception – To build the skills of perception to get feedback from the environment
- A trigger or know when to take what action and in what order
- And practice with feedback
Skills are not just psychomotor. The areas of skills development include and often involve a mixture of development in the following areas:
- Olfactory skills (smell)
- Auditory skills (hearing)
- Tactile skills (touch)
- Visual skills (seeing)
- Gustatory skills (taste)
- Cognitive skills (thinking, reasoning, recognition, discernment, creativity and awareness)
- Affective or emotional skills (being able to recognise, identify and change our own and others emotions at will)
You also need to think about, plan and train for failure and change. What happens when for example the skills you are developing don’t work anymore or the context changes?
Practice makes perfect, but it also locks you in. Train to be adaptable as well.
Practise in the context the skill is needed.
Try new things and create new ways of doing things (unless someone’s life depends on it). You never know.
Skills development and behaviour/habit change are the same things.
Skills development doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Pre-existing and developing thoughts, skills, perceptions, habits, behaviours and emotions can all either slow down skills development or help it. Don’t ignore them.

Next: The Ultimate Guide to Changing People’s Beliefs, Values and Emotional Reactions – The Affective Domain

References

Bennett, N., Dunne, E., & Carré, C. (2000). Skills Development in Higher Education and Employment. Taylor & Francis, Inc., 7625 Empire Dr., Florence, KY 41042.

Bloom, B. S., & Committee of College and University Examiners. (1964). Taxonomy of educational objectives (Vol. 2). New York: Longmans, Green.

Dave, R.H. in Armstrong, R. J.(ed) (1970). Developing and Writing Behavioral Objectives. Tucson, Arizona, USA; Educational Innovators Press

Delaney, Y., Pattinson, B., McCarthy, J., & Beecham, S. (2017). Transitioning from traditional to problem-based learning in management education: the case of a frontline manager skills development programme. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 54(3), 214-222.

Fogg, B. J. (2009, April). A behavior model for persuasive design. In Proceedings of the 4th international Conference on Persuasive Technology(p. 40). ACM.

Harrow, Anita J. A taxonomy of the psychomotor domain: A guide for developing behavioral objectives. Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd, 1972.

Hazucha, J. F., Hezlett, S. A., & Schneider, R. J. (1993). The impact of 360‐degree feedback on management skills development. Human Resource Management, 32(2‐3), 325-351.

Simpson, E. (1972). The psychomotor domain. Washington DC: Gryphon House.

Blog Learning

Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong

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Why the Levels of Learning are not saying what many think they are: The levels of learning are not and were never intended to be about ‘how’ we learn…

Many organisations, consultants, institutions and almost all Higher Education (University and Colleges) use Blooms Hierarchy or taxonomy of educational objectives (levels of learning) to describe the learning of their students.

This article looks at what it means and the trap many people, including a lot of L&D people fall into when using it.

Whilst Bloom and colleagues produced three taxonomies, cognitive, psychomotor and affective, many people and educational functions focus almost entirely on the cognitive domain. More about this later.

In effect most organisations only describe levels of learning in the area of cognitive or thinking development. The word cognitive comes from the Medieval Latin Cognoscere, cognit- , cognitivus and finally in the 16th century cognitive to mean known. Today it now means the processes connected with thinking, knowing and perception.

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The fact that that most educational processes, courses, exams and tests etc. focus on and make ‘knowing and thinking’ primary in their curriculum says a lot. There is usually less focus on the psychomotor (physical skills) development unless you are engaged in training, and hardly any in many formal educational courses focussing on or even giving any significant airtime to affective (emotional and values) development. We will come back to this later.

The taxonomy – levels of learning

First let’s look at the taxonomy or hierarchy in the cognitive domain.

The basis of the levels of learning is:

Knowledge
Understanding
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation

In terms of learning, Bloom and his colleagues had pretty precise meanings for each of these areas of the hierarchy:

Knowledge – means just the ability to regurgitate or repeat something. There is no ability at this level of being able to do anything more complex that being able to repeat the content from memory. Connected to my last post in this area, neither is there any consideration of the length of time they can do this for. You are with the the knowledge if you can and without the knowledge is you can’t repeat it.

Understanding or comprehension – this is where this hierarchy first gets into trouble. Comprehension is an internal process. You can’t see it or test it directly. Rather we tend to make an inference of comprehension based on what the person does with the knowledge. If they can use it appropriately for the context we make the assumption they understand it. This is why many universities for example combine knowledge and understanding. Actually comprehension should be combined with application which leads us on to the next level which is

Application. The ability to do something with the knowledge that is appropriate to the context. Again we tend to make an inference of comprehension based on the appropriate application of the knowledge.

Analysis. This refers to two things. The analysis of the application, or being able to see if it is working and work out why or why not.
Secondly analysis refers to the context. Being able to work out if the application of the knowledge is suitable for this context or if it needs to be changed or altered to fit the context. This leads on to the penultimate level of learning which is

Synthesis, or the ability to change or transform the knowledge and application to suit the context or bring in or add new knowledge to create something new.

Finally evaluation. This refers to the ability to be able to make good judgements using the knowledge and to be able to evaluate the worth of the knowledge in different contexts.

All good so far and most people would agree that each level down is a different order of ability and complexity from the one above. A different level of learning. So using this taxonomy to describe levels of ability, learning or complexity of functioning is both useful and makes sense….

However, and it is a big however,

This is not HOW we learn

This does NOT describe, nor what it ever intended to describe, HOW we learn.

Bloom never suggested that the hierarchy was an attempt to state that people learn in a linear way starting with knowing and understanding things first.

Evaluation first

If anything people start their learning journey on any new topic with evaluation first. The moment we come across any new situation or artefact like this post we start evaluating. The fact that you have read this far means that you have formed some opinion of worth. The reason you aren’t reading an article right now on military hardware or java script coding is down to an evaluation or judgement. If you walk into a classroom you start evaluating. You evaluate the teacher, the content the social context and come up with a series of judgements.

All our learners are making evaluations first and continually. They may be informed or ill-informed evaluations, but non-the less they are evaluations. Making judgements and evaluation is how we decide what to engage with and what to learn, and importantly what not to engage with and what not to learn.

This hierarchy is not how we learn it is only about levels of learning, two very very different things. Our ancestors in the caves didn’t start teaching with powerpoint presentations. You went along and learned for observation and evaluation. You decided what was important, hunting and later planting crops over growing flowers. Evaluation and judgement first.

Evaluation and judgement

If our learning does not pass the usability / useful test or evaluation first than we have a problem.

Two issues

There are two issues about knowledge.

The first is that we construct or develop knowledge as we gain experience and learn to think and make better judgement about and using the subject at hand.
Secondly knowledge without context and the ability to think about it is not only hard to retain but is largely meaningless.

Make it relevant, engaging and useful and then they will develop the knowledge. We

In my next post I will look at the psychomotor or skills domain

Also see the post At what point can you say you have learned something?

And the Ultimate Guide to Developing Skills

At what point can you say you have learned something?

The Oxford Review Encyclopaedia of Terms

Absorptive capacity: Definition and explanation

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Absorptive capacity

What is absorptive capacity?

Absorptive capacity is an organisation’s ability to identify, assimilate, transform, and use external knowledge, research and practice. In other words, absorptive capacity is the measure of the rate at which an organisation can learn and use scientific, technological or other knowledge that exists outside of the organisation itself. It is a measure of an organisations ability to learn.

Back to encyclopaedia of terms

References

Cohen and Levinthal (1990), “Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Volume 35, Issue 1 pg. 128-152.

Naqshbandi, MM, Kamel, Y, (2017) Intervening role of realized absorptive capacity in organizational culture–open innovation relationship: Evidence from an emerging market. Journal of General Management 2017, Vol. 42(3) 5–20

What increases innovation capability and general performance in organisations: New research

Blog Observations

At what point can you say you have learned something?

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“I learned something today…” Did you really? Like really learned it?

We often take the idea of learning and having learned for granted and frequently make a series of rather large and unquestioned assumptions about at what point we can actually say someone has learned something. The evaluation of learning in many organisations, including our universities and colleges, is frequently inadequate and does not really measure or describe what many certifications and records of learning suggest they are certifying. This critical article looks at what it actually means to have ‘learned’.

What does having learned mean?

One of the questions I often ask my students (who are usually university lecturing staff) is:

“At what point can you say you have learned something?”

The answers are always revealing. They tend to include:

“When you can repeat it”
“When you understand it”
“When you can explain it others”
“When you can do something with it”

At what point have you learned?

This question is one that is not asked enough, especially in organisations. I see “learning events” (workshops, training events, coaching, seminars, online learning etc.) being provided with little or no idea about what the aim is in terms of learning beyond some vague exposure to content.

Sure the ‘learning’ events all have outcomes or objectives, but deeper than that.

Just what are your objectives or learning outcomes actually saying?

What are we trying to achieve here with learning?

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Deeper than that

When you look at most learning systems (and I include school and university as learning systems) they don’t appear to be set up with an idea of what having learned means.

There appears to be a broad set of assumptions behind the way much learning and development is carried out in organisations, that if you expose people to something they will ‘learn’ it. I see this particularly in some of the workshops I witness and I am frequently asked for in many organisations.

The exposure to content = learning myth

When you look at many learning events there is an implicit assumption that attendance = learning. Beyond the ubiquitous happy sheet type evaluation at the end of an event there is usually no real effort to find out if ‘learning’ has actually taken place, if they have learned.

Workshops can be ineffective for creating learning

However, before we start looking at describing/measuring learning it might be an idea that we answer the initial question. At what point can we say we have learned something?

There are a number of issues we need to answer in order to arrive at the answer to the core question.

Permanence of learning

The first issue is to do with permanence. How long should they retain the learning?

Is an hour enough?

Well if it is just a ‘copy and paste’ exercise of remembering a phone number while you dial it and you won’t need it again then possibly yes. But could you really say you had ‘learned’ the number?

If we do accept (in part at least) that the answer to when we have learned something is to do with retention, i.e.we have learned something if we can remember it, then the next question is surely yes but for how long?

An interesting study a few years ago¹ found that students on an introductory psychology course knew only 8% more than a control group, four months after the course. Further research² has found similar worrying figures. Think about any exams you have sat in your life. Unless you have just finished revising for that exam or have a photographic memory, would you pass that exam now? Most people realise the answer is no, and certainly if I was put in front of many of the exams I have qualifications for, I would struggle to get even elementary pass marks.

Learnt

Old school

Not so long ago I found some of my old school books. The French and maths exercise books were particularly revealing. Not only could I not remember the material, but I have no memory of ever having being that proficient in those subjects!

Given this can I really say I had learned the material?

It kind of makes you wonder what many exams are actually for.

One answer is to the question at what point can you say you have learned something?, is therefore – it depends. It depends on the context and purpose of the learning³. If I just need to retain the information for a day and thats all I do, then I suppose given that context, I have learned it and then forgotten it. That is fine as that was the purpose. You just need to be clear that was the purpose. Clarity of learning outcome is something most organisations shy away from.

And yet I have never seen a time frame put on exams and training courses, workshops and coaching. Just an assumption of learning at the point of the test or exam is made with no thought or interest in the process afterwards.

The learning something and forgetting it makes later learning easier myth

The next comment I frequently get is, ah but you may not remember but it makes learning it later a lot easier. Even if you don’t remember the detail you will have the structure in there.

Sounds plausible but is it true?

Not only is there no evidence for this assertion at all⁴, we are actually inherently biased when we think about what we have retained and forgotten anyway⁵.

The Forgetting Bias Effect

The forgetting bias effect^4,5,6, a bias where we assume that what we have forgotten is unimportant and is largely the material we haven’t activated and used. The secondary assumption of the forgetting bias effect is that what we remember is what we use the most and is therefore the useful and important stuff. This feeling we have that we only forget the unimportant and unused stuff is, it appears, largely what the scientists call a meta cognitive illusion⁶. It isn’t true.

Exams, what are they actually testing?

Use it or lose it – not quite

Now obviously, things that we work on frequently are much more likely to be retained … or so we think. It turns out that what we actually retain are our unique, individual and very changeable memories. A series of studies⁶ in the 1990’s with 148 university students found that the retrieval process in examinations for example, itself causes long-lasting forgetting, not strengthening of the memories as we would expect.

What actually happens is that we construct a version of what we use, including all the short cuts and (bad) habits we create. From there we build a personal version of what do do and practice.

A series of new studies are showing that when we learn something cognitive (memory) the context of that memory is stored with the memory and that recall is more difficult in a different context. So if we learn in a classroom or a library (remember those?) recall is significantly better and more complete in that context and more difficult in a different context like in a work context for example ⁷. In effect classroom based learning does not automatically transfer to the workplace. Our recall tends to be heavily dependent on the context within which the learning took place. This is one factor for the poor transfer to workplace of most learning and coaching events.

Learning = retrieval hypothesis

Its not looking good for the retrieval hypothesis that we have learned when / if we can remember the item if

a) we are likely to forget it in a short space of time,
b) the recalling stuff for an exam actually speeds up forgetting, and
c) learning out of the context it needs to be remembered in, makes remembering it much harder.

Learning to forget?

No I think having learned something only to forget it isn’t a very satisfactory definition of having learned. Unless that was part of the initial plan. At best we can say that it was incomplete learning. It didn’t stand the test of time.

What I am hinting at here (and a not very subtle hint at that) is that to have truely said to have learned something we need to have access to it a bit longer than a few days or weeks.

Some level of permanence therefore is a requirement of having learned.

Learning to walk – characterisation

Different modes of learning – more than just cognitive

So far we have just been looking at one system of learning, the cognitive memory system. Human learning is however much more than cognitive recall. We now know that we have a number of different learning systems.

There is certainly very good evidence that each of the 5 major senses:

Sight (vision),
Hearing (audition),
Taste (gustation),
Smell (olfaction), and
Touch (somatosensation)

each have their own learning systems.

However we also know that there are many other senses each with their own systems of learning, for example

Temperature or thermoception,
Kinesthetic sense or physical Psychomotor skills known as proprioception,
Pain or nociception,
Balance or equilibrioception,
Vibration or mechanoreception,

and various internal stimuli (e.g. the different chemoreceptors for detecting salt and carbon dioxide concentrations in the blood) for example, all have effective learning and memory systems, and that all of these systems have what is known as plasticity or adaptability. They can learn, unlearn and change.

Affective learning

Not only that but there are also affective or emotional systems that appear to connect to our values and belief systems that also learn, adapt, and change. Affective learning, I would argue, is the big untapped and most powerful learning process, however more of that later.

Thinking like this helps

This may feel / look / sound like it is all getting a bit complicated but actually thinking like this helps.

What we are really talking here, when we are thinking about learning is really one thing – change.

Learning, regardless of the system is about change.

If learning means change then having learned must mean having changed, or stability. It has happened and it is now stable.

Change and stability

Learning suggests change and having learned suggests no change, the learning has happened therefore the change has taken place.

Maybe, just maybe, all these evaluations that go on after a course should be evaluating change. What are people doing, thinking, feeling that is different than before the learning process (note I say process not event). Learning is rarely a single event, rather a series of events strung together in a process.

Characterisation

One of the great thinkers in this area, Benjamin Bloom⁹ referred to the having learned as characterisation ¹⁰. What this means is that the learning is now part of who we are.

We just do whatever it was that we were learning but now we don’t need to think about it, with no attention needing to be paid to it. It is just part of who I am.

It is in effect a habit.

Habit stacking

It’s how we learn. We take novel actions and adaptations and turn them into habits so that we can then stack the habits and free up valuable attenuational resources. Just consider the complex set of tasks and learning involved in learning to drive. At first you are taken somewhere safe like an airfield or car park as you learn the basic controls, as these become habituated you then move on to more complex manovers like negotiating city traffic for example. Pretty soon you drive around without thinking about it too much until something out of the ordinary occurs.

Up to the point of characterisations habituation, the point at which it just becomes part of who we are, we are still learning, we are still bringing it in and making it a habit.

Learning = Change

Characterised or habituated change

This idea of characterised change as being the definition of having learned fits in with a wide range of thinking about learning. Often in organisations and even universities (not all though) the intention is not create change as opposed to a feat of memory long enough to regurgitate it an exam or test, or to produce a good feeling after a day out of work.

The idea of learning being about creating characterised change, building and forming new habits, habits of thinking, habits of doing and behaving and habits of feeling certainly makes evaluating many of the learning events that occur in organisations interesting.

How much change do these ‘learning’ events really create?

And not just any change but relatively stable fairly permanent change?

Now obviously there is an issue about creating permanent change. By perminant what do we mean? For all time? That wouldn’t be very desirable, useful, nor very adaptable in the face of external change.

So it appears we want stable permanent change, until that is, things change and then we want it not to be permanent.

At that point we want new change, we need to unlearn the old habits, the old ways of thinking, reacting and feeling, and learn new things or adapt and change the old stuff. That requires what is termed as reversal learning or unlearning the stuff of a different article.

The problem with understanding

The problem with using understanding as the definition of learning (someone has learned when they understand it) is what does it mean?

How can you tell when someone understands something? The issue here is that understanding is

An internal process that you can’t see
Subjective, and
Referential

The first issue is that you can’t see an understanding. Its almost impossible to identify when someone understands something without the individual doing something like applying the learning from which we then make an inference of understanding. At best understanding is an inference or an assumption based on observations of other attributes like being able to do something. We would be better using that attribute rather than the inference.

The second issue with understanding is that it is usually subjective. Can you say a climate change denier doesn’t understand the issue? May be they do. They may just have a different understanding to someone who believes in climate change. This is a central issue about understanding. To say someone understands something has no direction. If however you are saying I want them to have my understanding then we may be in the territory of indoctrination.

A professors view of your understanding

Lastly understanding is pretty vague and referential. We ascribe understanding based on our own perspective. From one individual’s perspective they may say their colleague understands something, but from a professor’s point of view for instance they may well be seen as having a rudimentary understanding or a poor or even wrong understanding of the topic.

Understanding then is not a very useful term when considering learning or the point at which we have learned something.

Conclusion

So the answer to the question ‘at what point can we say someone has learned something appears to have a number of answers:

The classical definition is characterisation – the point at which the learning has become part of the individual, it is just part of who they are.
A secondary definition of having learned is change. Someoe has learned something new when they have changed the intended behaviour, thinking or feelings in the way that was intended or is useful for the new context.
Finally however, more transitory definitions of learning revolve around the purpose the learning has. If the purpose is to remember something for 10 minutes and they do that then they have learned for that purpose.

The purpose I suspect, most evaluations of learning focus and stop at the self-reported happy sheet is that little real change actually occurs as a result of most learning programmes and to describe or measure that would just be too embarrassing and would highlight the ineffectiveness of almost every learning event.

Why many people’s idea about how we learn is just plain wrong

References

Rickard, H. C., Rogers, R., Ellis, N. R., & Beidleman, W. B. (1988). Some retention, but not enough. Teaching of Psychology, 15(3), 151-152.
VanderStoep, S. W., Fagerlin, A., & Feenstra, J. S. (2000). What do students remember from introductory psychology?. Teaching of Psychology, 27(2), 89-92.
Landrum, R. E., & Gurung, R. A. (2013). The memorability of introductory psychology revisited. Teaching of Psychology, 40(3), 222-227.
Castel, A. D., Rhodes, M. G., McCabe, D. P., Soderstrom, N. C., & Loaiza, V. M. (2012). The fate of being forgotten: Information that is initially forgotten is judged as less important. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65(12), 2281-2287.
Rhodes, M. G., Witherby, A. E., Castel, A. D., & Murayama, K. (2017). Explaining the forgetting bias effect on value judgments: The influence of memory for a past test. Memory & cognition, 45(3), 362.
Anderson, M. C., Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1994). Remembering can cause forgetting: retrieval dynamics in long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(5), 1063.
Burgess, N., Hockley, W. E., & Hourihan, K. L. (2017). The effects of context in item-based directed forgetting: Evidence for” one-shot” context storage. Memory & cognition.
James, K. H., Vinci-Booher, S., & Munoz-Rubke, F. (2017, April). The impact of multimodal-multisensory learning on human performance and brain activation patterns. In The Handbook of Multimodal-Multisensor Interfaces(pp. 51-94). Association for Computing Machinery and Morgan & Claypool.
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook I: The cognitive domain (Vol. 19, p. 56). New York: David McKay Co Inc.
Krathwohl, D. R., Bloom, B. S., & Masia, B. B. (1964). Handbook II: affective domain. New York: David McKay.

Why you really need to align your learning and knowledge management

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What is known about learning and development – a synthesis

The American Institutes for Research have just published a summary of what is currently known, and what needs to be researched further, about human development. The AIR (American Institutes for Research) have produced a large and comprehensive review of research, however what follows is a summary of the 13 main influences on learning.

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Challenges of the 70: 20: 10 learning ecosystem

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Coaching to free people

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Do workplace resilience programmes work?

During times of significant change in organisations, for example during downsizing and mergers, many companies around the world have instituted workplace resilience programmes to guide their employees through the turbulent times of change. There has been a number of evaluations and papers published about the success of these programmes but much of it has been heavily criticised for its methodology, bias/ lack of objectivity and poor measurement.

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Game theory shows why teams do better than groups

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How our view of our social status impacts on how we work in teams

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How digital storytelling can empower those without other means of expression

New research is showing how digital storytelling is giving people a new channel to express themselves, and thereby gives them a voice particularly in social and organisational justice issues faced by them. This is an interesting tool that organisations might want to consider to gauge what is really happening in their organisations.

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How suppressing your emotions makes it harder for you to achieve your goals

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How you cope with uncertainty predicts how you see the world

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Is the annual performance appraisal dead?

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Who are the people most willing to learn in an organisation?

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Making evidence-based practice work: Two solutions

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New mobile learning and teaching methods developing

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Play and organisational creativity

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Podcasting as an organisational learning tool

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The role of IT in Human Resources Development (L&D)

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Salutogenic coaching in times of change

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Simulation based education

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Six steps to a pragmatic approach for talent development

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How verbal communication within organisations help create learning and change

In a study just published in Organization Science by researchers from the universities of Zurich and Lausanne in Switzerland a year-long study was conducted to see how talk within organisations helps to change routines. Essentially this is a study about how verbal communication within organisations helps create learning and change.

Teaching ethical decision making

How do we know what the right decision for a given complex situation is? We have all been in a position where we have made a snap decision and several hours or days later we start to wonder whether what appeared to be the correct decision might in fact actually be more of a problem. There are ways of making systematic and thorough decisions that are based on sound, methodological, ethical practice.

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The ‘polythink syndrome’ and elite decision-making

How do governments make big decisions? How does any professional group or board actually make important decisions? What happens to the big decisions when you have a group of people who have to make them? What we often find is that such groups either make suboptimal decisions or become frozen with inaction and indecision, frequently putting off such decisions.

Using Pinterest on Management Courses

Social media is ubiquitous. Most of my university students are actively engaged in social media on an almost continual basis throughout the day. Regardless of our thoughts on this, this is the situation. Some of my lecturing colleagues ignore it and a few embrace it in their lecturing. It is noticeable that those that who do make use of social media tend to get better engagement ratings from their students.

What motivates people to engage with Continuing Professional Development?

The continuing professional development (CPD) of any professional is crucial to maintaining both a capable, competent and up-to-date workforce and keeping professional standards as high as possible.

What is the difference between coping, adapting and self-management?

In a paper shortly to be published, researchers from universities in Sweden and Canada completed a literature review to look at that what the development and latest thinking was for the concepts of: 1. Coping 2. Adapting and 3. Self-management. Whilst much of the paper has neurological underpinning, the definitions they arrive at are useful in organisations.

Who and why are some people more likely to see new business opportunities?

One of the big questions in research into entrepreneurial behaviour is who and why are some people more likely to see and pursue more opportunities than others?

Why knowing things is less important than creativity and planning

Success usually comes down to how you alter things each time to get over or around those obstacles. It is this ability to reinvent and solve problems and take different directions (pivot) that dictates ultimate success or failure. A newly published research paper in the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research looked at 198 small and medium sized enterprises and illustrates this fact by looking at the three elements of driving a business forward.

Why you have to get learning and knowledge management sorted in your company

Collective knowledge and the ability to learn and unlearn in an organization are critical assets in improving organizational performance, increasing profitability, and ultimately creating and maintaining a competitive advantage.

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How leaders lead organisational learning – Research Briefing

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The Oxford Review Encyclopaedia of Terms

Informal learning: Definition and application.

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What is informal learning?

Research definition of informal learning: Informal learning is defined as “learning from experience that takes place outside formally structured, institutionally sponsored, class-room based activities” (Macià & García, 2016).

In 2016 a review of informal learning found that online networks and communities are a good method of professional development.

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Reference

Macià, M., & García, I. (2016). Informal online communities and networks as a source of teacher professional development: A review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55, 291-307.

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Why you really need to align your learning and knowledge management

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A new research study shows why you have to get learning and knowledge management aligned in your organisation.

Learning and unlearning

Collective knowledge and the ability to learn and unlearn in an organisation are critical assets in improving organisational performance, increasing profitability, and ultimately creating and maintaining a competitive advantage.

However, uncertainty over how exactly learning and knowledge management affects organisational performance creates a problem. A paper just published in the Journal of Industrial Management & Data Systems has found that this uncertainty creates a situation where leaders in both the public and private sectors don’t understand how best to allocate resources to capitalise and develop knowledge management processes. The issue is that for continued support and investment, knowledge management initiatives must demonstrate clear and direct value to stakeholders.

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Learning and Knowledge Management Strategy

Previous Research

Previous research has shown quite clearly that organizational learning culture, a specific type of organizational culture that integrates organizational learning, is a critical success factor in the success of knowledge management.

The connections between organisational learning cultures and the use of knowledge management systems

This paper looks at the connections between organisational learning cultures and the use of knowledge management systems.

Whether focusing on cost cutting and efficiencies or moving product development in the most effective way through a supply chain, the knowledge behind these movements and transformations are key to the success of the operations. The management of this knowledge in all organizations is a key asset to improving these processes and gaining or developing a competitive advantage.

Organisational competencies

Alongside its resources and products, the capabilities and competencies an organization maintains, retains and develops are critical to its success. The researchers from Auburn University in the US and the US Air Force Institute of Technology found that overall there are four sets of competencies which are required for effective knowledge management. The researchers make an interesting point in that they view competencies as repeatable and non random ability to render competitive output. This gives competencies a wholly strategic focus.

The 3 Major issues for knowledge based competencies

The paper highlights three major issue surrounding the knowledge based competencies organisations need to develop:

1. Managerial competencies. These are the general leadership and management competencies most organizations prize. However, they also need to include the competencies of leadership and management of learning and knowledge management. An area not often dealt with in organizational L&D programmes.

2. Organisational learning and knowledge management issues at a strategic level. This includes information flows and feedback mechanisms.

3. The ability of the employees to use and contribute to the learning / knowledge management systems of the organisation.

These, according to the authors of the paper, “include all assets, knowledge, skills, and capabilities embedded in the organisation’s structure, technology, processes, and interpersonal relationships. These organisational competencies have the potential to yield sustained competitive advantage.”

Learning

Knowledge management

An organization’s competitive advantage is increasingly being recognised as direct product of their ability to learn, unlearn and develop and manage knowledge in sub-optimal and rapidly changing market conditions.

As the authors of the paper point out, “The importance of knowledge management has been equated to the importance of natural resources in previous generations wherein strategies that companies once devoted to optimizing capital and labor are now being applied to maximize the productivity of knowledge resources.”

Where management should know how to lead an organization, they cannot know the whole business in all its intricacies to the very bottom. This is why learning should be promoted throughout the organization. The paper stats, “The results provide evidence that organizations enhance performance when they foster and promote learning.”

The paper concludes, “This research showed that knowledge management and learning culture are capabilities that can evoke organizational performance and play a positive role in the development of human capital.”

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