1. HOW TO IDENTIFY AND REMEDIATE
THE DANGEROUS FALSE KNOWLEDGE
THAT IS NEGATIVELY AFFECTING
YOUR ORGANIZATION
MISINFORMATION

2. 1
INTRODUCTION
The ability of employees to accurately apply what they
know based on their knowledge and training is the
underlying driver of all successful organizations—from
the smallest non-profit to the Fortune-100 giant.
But in most organizations, there is a lot to learn
and remember.
The term “Information Overload,” popularized by futurist
Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock, portrays
a future so overly laden with information that making
decisions and acting skillfully becomes increasingly
difficult. This narrative is no longer future state—it is a
story that is all too familiar in today’s workforces.
THE PROLIFERATION
OF MISINFORMATION
According to a LexisNexis survey1
, 52% of U.S. workers
say that the quality of their work suffers because they can’t sort through
the information they need fast enough. One corollary of this phenomenon
is misinformation – information that employees strongly believe to be
correct, but that is actually wrong.
Studies of more than 600 million
learning events over 5 million hours of
learning show that even the most well-
trained workforces hold an average of
25% misinformation2
.
Additional studies demonstrate
that misinformation grows within a
workforce over time. New employees
generally have lower levels of
misinformation—hovering around
12%—but as they accumulate more
years on the job, they also accumulate
more inaccurate, outdated and false
knowledge. Employees with 1-5 years
of work experience hold an average of
21% misinformation and employees with
5-10 years of experience demonstrate
an average of 25% misinformation3
.
info@knowledgefactor.com |
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Between the dawn of civilization and 2003,
there was an estimated total of 5 exabytes
of information created. As of 2010, that
much information was created every
2 days.1
RAPID ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE
The half-life of a learned skill is 5 years –
meaning what you learned 10 years ago
is obsolete and half of what you learned 5
years ago is irrelevant 1
SUFFERING WORKFORCES
52% of U.S. workers say the quality of
their work suffers because they can’t
sort through the information they need
fast enough. 1
“Changes in the media landscape, including the arrival of the
Internet, have fundamentally influenced the ways in which
information is communicated and misinformation is spread.”
-Dr. Lewandowsky Misinformation and Its Correction
Illustrated in the graph are levels of misinformation for new employees
vs. those with years of work experience. These results were generated
from a study of more than 700 nurses across a major national
healthcare network.

3. 2
THE DANGER OF MISINFORMATION
Misinformation is so dangerous to organizations because
the confidence with which an employee holds
information is directly tied to behavior. Research by
Dr. James Bruno (UCLA)4
indicates that a learner who
is confident in his/her knowledge is more likely to act
upon it than one who has doubt or does not know
the information at all. In the case of misinformation,
even though the information is incorrect, employees
still hold it with deep confidence and believe it to be
true. This means that they’re more likely to act upon
that information without second-guessing or double-
checking for accuracy. In the most benign cases, this
might lead to corporate waste or financial loss, but in
the worst cases, misinformation can result in injury,
harm and even death.
IDENTIFYING MISINFORMATION
For example, while research demonstrates the
connection between knowledge confidence and
behavior, the majority of workplace testing is conducted
through traditional methodologies that don’t assess this
critical measure. These methodologies cannot discern
what learners really know (they are confident and
correct), where they are guessing (they are unconfident
but correct) or where they are misinformed (they are
confident but incorrect).
Traditional assessments, which are typically in a multiple-
choice format, have few safeguards against guesswork
and no way to root out and identify misinformation. As
a result, most well-trained workforces, when subjected
to an assessment that measures both confidence and
correctness, demonstrate up to a 20% rate of guesswork
(unconfident but correct) and an average of 25%
misinformation (confident but incorrect). This means
that learners can receive passing scores of 70% but only
know as little as 50% of the information.
info@knowledgefactor.com |
CORPORATE WASTE & FINANCIAL LOSS
• A worldwide food manufacturer was
losing nearly $10 million per year
in product waste, with 51% of the
waste directly attributed to employee
errors. By proactively identifying
misinformation, this organization
reduced employee errors from 18.1% to
1.7% and saved $4M annually
• A national cable company saved more
than $7 million per year by identifying
misinformation that was resulting in
additional, unnecessary truck rolls.
INJURY, HARM & DEATH
• 400,000 patients die in hospitals each
year as a result of human error in
patient care and safety
• Almost 13 construction workers die
each day in job-related accidents
regulated by OSHA
• Human error accounts for 90 percent
of road accidents, killing an estimated
30,000 people per year in the United
States alone
FEELINGS OF KNOWING
Only recently have psychologists begun
to consider the “feeling of knowing” as
an emotion as fundamental to human
experience as love, fear, sadness and hate.
Researchers, like neuroscientist Dr. John
Gabrieli , are using cutting-edge fMRI
technology to examine the regions of the
brain activated when learners directly
perceive their “feelings of knowing” and the
implications of the parallel processing that
occurs when the memory and judgment

4. 3
But recent advances in the cognitive sciences have unearthed methods for assessing learner
confidence to identify and correct misinformation before it costs valuable company time and money.
Here are just three examples:
1. Measuring Metacognition
One way to proactively identify
misinformation is by analyzing
metacognition. Asking learners
to indicate their confidence in
their knowledge on a question-
by-question basis quickly and
effectively reveals what they
really know, versus where they
have doubt or high confidence in
incorrect information.
Additionally, directly perceiving
and considering “feelings of
knowing6
” improves encoding,
storage, and recall of memory.
In fact, research out of UCLA’s
Bjork Forgetting Lab has proven
the positive connection between
confidence-based testing (CBT) and
knowledge retention7
.
2. Embracing the
Hyper-Correction Effect
New research demonstrates the instructional power of misinformation. When confidently held
misinformation is corrected with prompt, intelligent, and directed feedback, the new information
is retrieved and recalled in the future with higher fidelity. Researchers call this the hyper-
correction effect8
.
Big data analysis can help determine which questions
are most likely to activate the hyper-correction effect.
Presenting these questions in the proper ratio engages
student attention and curiosity early in learning, and leads
to faster learning and longer memory.
3. Leveraging Forgetting Curves to Predict Resurgence
of Misinformation
Analysis of more than a half-billion learning events has revealed multiple forgetting curves that
predict forgetting and the resurgence of misinformation. For one-time learning events, forgetting
happens at a fairly rapid rate. As time passes, newly learned information reverts, and misinformation
that was corrected during training creeps back. In fact, in as few as two weeks, 28% of misinformation
reappears, even though it was previously corrected9
.
info@knowledgefactor.com |
“ The empirical data indicate that high-
confidence errors are the easiest, rather than the
most difficult, to change.”
- Janet Metcalf, Metacognition and Memory Lab
The graph above is a heat map representation of where mastery, doubt
and misinformation exist in a workforce.

5. 4
Understanding where misinformation
exists for each learner, and
algorithmically reinforcing training at
the precise moment when knowledge
regresses, arrests the forgetting curve,
improves long-term knowledge
retention and gives misinformation
no quarter.
CONCLUSION
Misinformation is a knowledge state
that is dangerous and difficult to
identify. It often results in workplace
errors and mistakes with a wide range
of negative consequences—from loss
of capitol to loss of life. But recent
advances in the cognitive sciences have
identified metacognitive techniques
that make identifying and remediating
misinformation much easier.
While most of the testing
methodologies at work in today’s
corporate training environments have
yet to incorporate these techniques,
there are emerging technologies that are embracing this science to great effect.
One of the most promising solutions is amplifire. amplifire’s patented methodology is built on a
confidence-based testing model and combines hyper-adaptive intelligence with metacognitive
techniques to effectively identify and remediate misinformation and reinforce mastery. The software
partners with category leaders across a wide range of industries to proactively identify misinformation
within their workforces and student populations, which, in turn, leads to reduced instances of human
error, decreased organizational risk and liability and an improved bottom line.
It’s true that we’re only human and mistakes will happen within the workforce, no matter how
effective the training. That acknowledgement doesn’t mean that eLearning technologies have a free
pass to ignore misinformation. Proactively identifying this type of dangerous knowledge through
(sometimes counterintuitive) metacognitive learning techniques is the most effective way to forestall
the chief architects of workplace error—forgetting and false knowledge.
info@knowledgefactor.com |
This graph shows two examples of multiple forgetting curves discovered
through the analysis of over 500-million learner experience. These
curves accurately predict forgetting using multiple variables, such
as initial encoding, accuracy and time to mastery. They are used to
optimize memory retention by algorithmically reinforcing learning at
precise moments for each learner.

6. 5
1. http://www.multivu.com/players/English/46619-LexisNexis-International-Workplace-Productivity-Survey/flexSwf/impAsset/document/34ef8
4f1-beaa-4a48-98c5-0ea93ceae0cb.pdf
2. Study of more than 600 million learning events across Knowledge Factor system
3. Study of more than 700 nurses within a major national healthcare provider
4. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-58033-8_16
5. Study of more than 600 million learning events across Knowledge Factor system
6. http://www.rburton.com/_i_on_being_certain_i___believing_you_are_right_even_when_you_re_not_63166.htm
7.http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.2.0229?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
8. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/metcalfe/PDFs/MetcalfeFinn2011.pdf
9. Study of more than 500 million learning events across Knowledge Factor system
CITATIONS
ABOUT THE SPONSOR
Co-founded in 2001 by UCLA Professor, James Bruno, who discovered and patented the notion of
Information Reference Testing (commonly known as Confidence-Based Learning), amplifire is the only
learning platform founded, built and continually improved by the world’s leading pedagogical scientists.
Today, amplifire continues to nurture its deep roots in science with the support and guidance of a leading
science advisory board, including former Chairs of Psychology from schools like Harvard, Washington
University in St. Louis and UCLA.
amplifire leverages its patented methodology, robust analytics and deep business insights to help client
organizations save millions of dollars and transform their businesses—reducing training times, eliminating risk
and error, improving user knowledge levels, and identifying and pursuing new go-to- market strategies. Since
2001, amplifire has helped enhance the offerings, products and outcomes of education industry leaders
like Barbri, The Princeton Review, Pearson Higher Education and CompTIA, and of corporate leaders like
GE, Oceaneering and the world’s largest consulting firm. For more information about amplifire, visit: www.
knowledgefactor.com.