Learn more in less time

Is there an optimal learning time? And if yes, does it apply to all people or each one has to find its own value??

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.

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 that has 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

Knowing that “learning cannot be rushed, there are no shortcuts to learning, there are some better or more efficient ways than the others” and faster doesn’t always mean better, at least not in the case of learning, how can we still improve our learning? How can we use time in our favor?

How long should we learn to forget less??

Murdock’s?experiment:

Murdock’s experiment?was conducted in 1962 presented the participants with a list of up to 40 words, the words were shown 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 in the?beginning?and about the same number of words at the?end?of the list.?The words from the middle were tendentially forgotten.?

Reproduced experiment:

Because the demonstration of a principle increases retention by 30%, I recreated Murdok’s?experiment in?this video.?Take part in the experiment yourself and see if?the result of Murdok’s?experiment apply also in your case.

There are two principles underlying how the brain stores information. I will introduce two terms that might be new for you: PRIMACY and RECENCY.

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 this information and by this to move it 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.

After the time period corresponding to primacy, 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 10 minutes or the last things you have learned in a learning session, in a lecture, or a social event, because they are recent and they are stored in your short-term memory. According to George Miller at 1956,?humans’ short-term memory could hold?about 7±2 items. Cowan (2001) suggests that a more realistic figure is 4±1 items. So recency is the reason why you have remembered more words from the end of the list.

3. Learning time should be approx. 30 min

"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, also known as?spaced repetition?or?spaced presentation, than by massed presentation (“cramming”)." The phenomenon was first identified by?Hermann Ebbinghaus, and his detailed study of it was published in the 1885 book?über das Ged?chtnis

According to those two principles, in order to achieve the highest return on the invested time when it comes to learning, it is recommended that a learning session shall take something around 30 minutes. On the other side, the research shows that our natural ability to concentrate on a task is somewhere between 10 to 40 minutes, depending on the task and anything above this could go lost. 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.

The primacy and recency effect in employee training

If you are looking for a method to improve your employees’ learning and to offer them trainings that implement the primacy and recency effect, 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.?

Video training is more efficient?than having the trainer talking 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. By recording the onboarding video trainings and making them available in all the locations where the company has offices, it saves money with the personnel that otherwise would have to teach the same information repeatedly at each location for each new employee.

You will say why bother to record the information on video when it can be saved as text and offered to the new employees? Because videos are engaging. Because videos create an impression upon the mind that will support the creation of memory. If you don’t believe me, please watch also?this video?that explains the same information as this article but in “a visual way”. Watch it and decide what was more engaging, the text from this article or the images of the video??What helped you retain more information: the article or the video?