Speaker 1: Assessments, surveys, quizzes, tests, and exams do so much more than determine whether or not a learner passed a training course. In this video, we'll take a look at the variety and importance of the roles played by assessments before, during, and after a learning experience. We live in a 70-20-10 world, which is explained by Charles Jennings this way. About 70% of organizational learning takes place on the job, through problem solving and through special assignments and other day-to-day activities. Another 20% occurs through drawing on the knowledge of others in the workplace, from informal learning, from coaching and mentoring, and from support and direction from managers and colleagues. Only 10% occurs through formal learning, whether classroom, workshop, or, more recently, e-learning. Assessments play an important role in the learning process, regardless of how learning takes place. Assessments are used before, during, and after the learning experience to prepare for learning, to increase the effectiveness of the learning, and to assess or certify the learning. Assessments can also be used to diagnose general training and education needs. A job task analysis, which determines which tasks are performed as part of a job, how often they're performed, how hard they are to perform, and how important a task is to the job itself, can then be used to create a competency model for a job. The competency model can then be combined with a needs analysis to help a learning organization determine the training and education that they need to provide. Another use for assessments is to evaluate a learning event or experience. This information can be used to help ensure that the learning environment does not interfere with the transfer of knowledge. And once knowledge is acquired, assessments can be used to help retain that knowledge and slow the forgetting curve. We'll talk about that some more in just a couple of minutes. But for the moment, let's focus on the uses of assessments most directly related to learning, and we'll start with preparing for learning. A quiz or test taken prior to a learning experience shows the learner what they do, and more importantly, what they do not know. This creates intrigue for the learner and focuses their attention on the learning material targeted by the questions. It also provides information that can be used to determine the learning path, the courses, classes, and experiences the learner should take. Pre-learning assessments also create a benchmark that can be used after the learning experience to help determine how much knowledge was transferred during the learning experience. If the learning includes an instructor-led class in a classroom or over the web, a pre-learning assessment can help the instructor tailor the learning event to the learners by determining which topics might need to be covered in more depth and which topics only need to be covered at a higher level. During the learning process, questions and quizzes can improve learning by 150% or more. According to Dr. Will Talheimer, well-designed questions are particularly effective because they, one, provide learners with practice retrieving information from memory, two, give learners feedback about their misconceptions, three, focus learners' attention on the most important learning material, and four, repeat core concepts, giving learners a second chance to learn, relearn, or reinforce what they previously learned or tried to learn. So as you can see, a question is a powerful thing. Learning requires committing information to memory, and memory is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised to be strengthened and improved. A question provides a stimulus that exercises the learner's memory by requiring the learner to recall the appropriate response. So if I use pre-learning assessments to determine what needs to be learned, and I use questions and quizzes during the learning experience to direct and reinforce the learning, what else is there? Well, in a perfect world, everything taught during a learning event would make it into the learner's brain and be retained. But in the real world, sometimes information gets dropped and other times it goes over the learner's head, so only some of the information actually makes it into the learner's brain. We need to figure out what made it and what didn't. That's where the third use of assessments comes in. Post-learning assessments can be used to assess whether or not knowledge transfer took place, especially when used in conjunction with benchmarking information from a pre-learning assessment. They also provide learners with more practice retrieving information from memory, which in turn strengthens their cognitive skills. Pre-learning assessments are another opportunity to provide learners with feedback to correct any misconceptions. And regardless of whether the learner acquired knowledge from the 70, 20, or 10 learning space, criterion-based assessments can be used for certification purposes. We've seen how assessments are used before, during, and after the learning experience to help increase the knowledge and skills acquired by the learner. Assessments can determine what the learner needs to learn and create intrigue before the learning experience, reinforce learning through recall and feedback during the learning experience, and determine how much knowledge was actually transferred to the learner immediately after the learning experience. But there's one more thing that happens a little later after the learning experience where questions can be useful. You see, over time, the learner will begin to forget. Asking questions at regular intervals after the learning experience allows the learner to further exercise their memory muscle. Retrieving information from memory strengthens memory recall and reduces the forgetting curve. The human cognitive system is definitely a use-it-or-lose-it proposition, and assessments provide a means for the learner to use it so they don't lose it. Now, according to the forgetting curve, you've already forgotten some of what you've learned from this video, so let's go through a quick summary. The 70-20-10 theory shows us that in addition to formal learning settings, learning, and more precisely, the majority of learning, is informal in nature. Regardless of the type of learning experience, assessments play a role throughout the entire learning process. Prior to learning, diagnostic assessments provide information on what needs to be learned, whether in general through job task analysis and needs analysis, or for a specific learner as he or she prepares for learning. During the learning experience, formative assessments guide and reinforce the learning process and increase the learner's cognitive skills through repetition, feedback, and memory recall. After the learning experience, summative assessments provide information on the amount of knowledge transfer that took place, and again provide retrieval practice and feedback for the learner. Reaction assessments help ensure that the learning environment did not interfere with the learning process, and over time, the repeated use of assessments helps to slow the learner's forgetting curve. QuestionMark technologies provide the necessary tools to build and deliver all these assessments throughout the learning process, and supply the means for collecting trustable data and providing trustable reports every step of the way. For more information, please visit questionmark.com. www.questionmark.com