How long should be a training session? Is there an optimal learning time?
If you would have to imagine the perfect learning session, how long would that be? Write down your opinion and then come back to hear mine.
Content of the article:
Before presenting the principles that contribute to establishing the length of an effective learning session, I have to draw attention to 3 warnings:
1. the total amount of time to learn the material is proportional to the material to be learned
2. attempts to cover the topic too fast will inhibit the learning and subsequent transfer
3. learning includes also the time needed for processing information
So, learning cannot be rushed. There are no shortcuts to learning, there are some better or more efficient ways than others. Faster doesn’t always mean better, at least not in the case of learning.
How can we still improve our learning? Can we use time in our favor?
How long should be a training session?
How long should we learn to forget less?
Murdock’s experiment helps find the response. He conducted his experiment in 1962 and presented the participants with a list of up to 40 words. He showed each word for a maximum time of 2 seconds, and the participants were asked to memorize as many words as possible. The result of the experiment showed that most people could recall more words at the beginning and at the end of the list. Tendentially, the words from the middle were forgotten.
Reproduced experiment:
The demonstration of a principle increases retention by 30% (according to the pyramid of learning ). For this reason, I recreated Murdok’s experiment in this video. Take part in the experiment and see if the result apply also in your case.
There are two basic principles underlying how the brain stores information: PRIMACY and RECENCY. Those can be used in determining how long a training/learning session should be.
1. The primacy effect
According to the PRIMACY effect, you are more likely to remember the first 10 minutes of a learning session, a lecture, or even a social event. The reason for that is because you have some time to repeat/rehearse this information and by this move it to the long-term memory.
If you took the experiment, you have noticed that you have remembered many words from the beginning of the list. Because until a specific moment you managed to rehearse them mentally.
The time period corresponding to primacy is about 10 to 15 minutes. Then it follows a dip in memorizing, a time frame where we have a leak of information, what I personally call the “dementia phase”.
Have you also noticed that you have remembered fewer words from the middle of the list?
2. The recency effect
According to the RECENCY effect, you are more likely to remember the last minutes or the last things you have learned in a learning session, in a lecture, or a social event. The reason is they are recent and are stored in your short-term memory. According to George Miller in 1956, humans’ short-term memory could hold about 7±2 items. Cowan (2001) suggests that a more realistic figure for our days is 4±1 items. The fact that we rely a lot on nowadays technology, changed the way we use, or don’t use our memory. So it shrank!
Recency is the reason why you have remembered more words from the end of the list.
3.Time to allocate to learning/training session
“The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions ( spaced repetition or spaced presentation) than by massed presentation (“cramming”).” Hermann Ebbinghaus identified the phenomenon and was published in the 1885 book Über das Gedächtnis
According to those two principles: recency and primacy, it is recommended that a learning session shall take something around 30 minutes. Also if you want to achieve the highest return on the invested time when it comes to learning. The theory is also supported by research that shows that our natural ability to concentrate on a task is somewhere between 10 to 40 minutes. It depends also on the type and complexity of the task.
Trying to learn or forcing attention above this time frame, could mean a loss of information and time. The method of learning in short time frames is also known as “ the Pomodoro Technique“. Each learning session shall be followed by a 10 or 15 minutes brain break or a brisk walk. In this article, you find out how to boost and nourish your brain in those brain breaks.
Solution for short training sessions for employees
If you are looking for a method to improve your employees’ learning and to offer them flexible trainings, then video training is the solution. With video trainings, the employees can:
-learn at their pace,
-in time slots that match each one’s attention span,
-can have the information repeated as often as they need, also some months after, when details were forgotten and need to be refreshed.
The presentation of knowledge in video format is more efficient than having the trainer talk, for days in a row, for hours in front of the employees. And not only because the learning time can be adjusted but also because the learning can take place everywhere where the employees are located. For corporates, this flexibility saves also a lot of money. Save money by recording the onboarding video trainings and making them available in all the locations where the company has offices. Save money with the personnel that otherwise would have to teach the same information repeatedly at each location for each new employee.
Why bother to record the information on the video when it can be saved as text and offered to the new employees?
Because videos use images, and due to survival reasons, our brain was designed to remember images (and places). When they use the appropriate exposure methods, they create an impression on the mind and support by this long-lasting memory.
You can test/experiment also this theory! Watch this video that explains the same information but in “a visual way”. Watch it and decide which one was more engaging, which one created memories: the text from this article, or the images of the video? What was more fun and helped you retain more information?
