When learning is too easy to work

I came across an interesting article this week in the Telegraph, - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/amazon/8256899/E-readers-too-easy-to-read.html -, citing research which shows that e-books, especially when read on handy devices like the Amazon Kindle, actually impede learning. The crux of the matter is that these devices are very easy to read; even easier than a book is, especially in poor light conditions. They have very crisp displays, well chosen fonts, and thanks to technology, are readable no matter what the light (perfect if you're a 10 year old reading under the covers after lights out!).

The problem is that there is a positive correlation between having to work hard to read something, and retaining it, and so the ease of reading these devices actually means you retain less of what you've read. This is not too much of a problem for the Kindle, which is marketed mainly at the leisure reading market; after all, does it matter whether or not you can remember chapter 2 of the latest Maeve Binchy? It does pose an interesting dilemma for those of us involved in the world of learning, however.

For the learning and development professional, particularly offering their services in from outside an organisation, what we night call "face validity" is very important, in other words, if we don't look right, then it doesn't matter how right we actually are, our contributions will be rejected. This is particularly true for e-learning, which is often unsupervised, and doesn't have the advantage that in-person facilitators have of being able to build rapport with the learner. Organisational learning is, sadly, often resented or undervalued by the participants, and so we make it as engaging, interesting, and easy to get to grips with as possible.

The trouble is, this research suggests that our efforts to make learning accessible actually reduce it's "stickability", and make it more likely that what we bring will be forgotten. Imagine, if you will, than an e-learning provider were to attempt to take this on board, and made their materials more difficult to read, challenging the user to work harder to get through it. Certainly, those who did would learn more, but many would simply reject it out of hand.

There's no simple answer to this dichotomy; getting our learning in the door probably means inevitably compromising its effectiveness in some ways. The sad truth is that it's much easier for internal learning providers to really break the mould, as Reg Revans did when he developed Action Learning for the Coal Board. Maybe there's a silver lining to this though; my handwriting is not the neatest, and no matter how hard I try, my flipcharts are never as neat and legible as those of my colleagues. Perhaps I can start charging extra for my services?