“Why do you want to use scenarios?” your client asks. “Why can’t we use the quizzes that we’ve always used?”
Sometimes the best way to convince a client is to show them through examples. Present one of their quiz questions three ways, so the client can see for themselves the deeper thought required by a scenario-style question.
Here’s an example. What kind of thinking is required by each type of question?
1. Quiz question
Which of the following is the most secure way to carry sensitive data?
A. On a laptop
B. On a USB drive chained to your wrist
C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”
Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.
2. Mini-scenario with correct/incorrect feedback
Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?
A. On his laptop
B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist
C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”
Feedback for incorrect answer: Incorrect. Try again.
3. Mini-scenario with “showing” feedback
Bob wants to work on the salary data at home. He has a long commute on a train. How should he carry the data with him?
A. On his laptop
B. On a USB drive chained to his wrist
C. On a CD titled “The Chipmunks Sing Disco Duck”
Feedback for A: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals his laptop and sells the data. Try again.
Feedback for B: Bob falls asleep during the commute. A thief sits next to him, plugs his USB drive into his laptop while Bob is unconscious, and later sells the data. Try again.
Feedback for C: Bob falls asleep during the commute, and a thief steals all his belongings. The thief breaks the CD into pieces in disgust and no one ever sees the data. This is the best choice.
Version 1, the quiz question, asks learners to regurgitate a fact with no context.
Version 2 puts the facts into a realistic context but directly tells the learner when they’ve made an incorrect choice.
Version 3 includes context and lets learners conclude on their own from the results that they’ve made an incorrect choice. The results also show why that choice wasn’t the best one.
We could include “telling” explanation in the feedback for version 2, such as, “Incorrect. A laptop is appealing to thieves and is likely to be stolen.” But that type of feedback abandons Bob on the train and drags the learner into the bland world of abstraction, plus it directly tells the learner that they screwed up.
Instead, the “showing” feedback of version 3 both keeps the feedback in the context of the question and requires slightly more thinking from the learner. It also emulates the way we learn in the real world — from experience, not from a disembodied voice that immediately tells us “incorrect.”
But quizzy questions take less time to write!
Yes, it’s quicker to crank out a bunch of abstract fact checks. Writing any type of scenario takes a little longer and requires you to work closely with your subject matter experts to make sure everything is accurate and realistic.
However, as I hope you can see from our silly example, a scenario-style question that puts the challenge into context and shows the result of each decision requires learners to think a little more deeply and independently. This at least makes your elearning more engaging and could lead to better transfer on the job.
New forum and resources
I’ve added a forum to the blog, to give everyone a space to talk about corporate instructional design without being tied to specific blog posts. It includes a section for critiques and kicks off with a discussion about a strong scenario for families of veterans. Please join the first critique discussion or post any questions or ideas you have in the general forum.
If you’ve been to one of my longer workshops, you’ve seen that I work from an HTML menu that links to lots of illustrations and examples. Now you can play with the menu from a two-day workshop in the resources section of the blog. It poses questions to get you thinking and links to many examples of elearning.
Image © iStockPhoto: Menno van Dijk
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