As we all know, training is a well-researched and vetted learning discipline. Well-known theorists have validated the need for, design of, and delivery of training for years now. One of the more misunderstood views of performance support is that it is too new to be justified by similar bodies of work. The good news is that this is simply not true. There are a host of research backed theories supporting the need for, and design of, performance support. In this webinar we will examine the newest and most powerful research found across the Five Moments of Need so you can better sell and position performance support within the organizations you serve.

1. Research Principles
Behind the Need for
Performance Support
Bob Mosher
Chief Learning Evangelist, Ontuitive
Dr. Conrad Gottfredson
Chief Learning Strategist, Ontuitive
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b.mosher@ontuitive.com
@bmosh
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c.gottfredson@ontuitive.com
@congott

2. A fundamental reality:
Real Learning Happens While People are in the
Flow of their Work
Context
Prepare
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3. Research-based principles
 Encoding & Retrieval
 Experiential Learning
 Spaced Learning
Research-based principles
 Managing Cognitive Load
 Adaptive Response
 Automaticity
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4. Encoding & retrieval
Principle
Activity: 1: Design for
the moment of Apply
Consider this:
ahead of Learn New
and More.
Why would it be difficult for you to
recite the letters of the alphabet
How performers encode effects
backwards by every 3rd letter?
how efficiently and effectively
they retrieve and translate to
Enter your reason into chat
action.
See
Hear
Cognitive Load Research, Efficiency in
Learning, Ruth Clarke, Frank Nguyen, John
Sweller, 2006, John Wiley & Sons.
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5. Encoding & retrieval
Principle 2: Use Visual Mental Models to
facilitate the encoding and
retrieval of knowledge and skills.
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6. Encoding & retrieval
Activity: What would be the advantages of using this graphic as
the overarching training approach?
Communicate
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Contact the injured or ill employee
Arrange for a case management meeting
Hold a meeting
Engage in and communicate about your treatment plan
Document ongoing management in the employee health record
Maintain connection with an employee off work (manage/supervisor)
Exchange Information
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Gather case information from the manager/supervisor
Request Medical Documentation
Provide Medical Documentation
Receive Medical Documentation
Document ongoing management in the employee health record
Send reports
Receive reports
Identify a Potential Participant
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify and Report injury, illness, and/or challenges for remaining at work
Identify and Refer potential participants
Receive a referral
Identify and respond to a non-participant
Enroll an Employee
1.
2.
3.
4.
Conduct a triage assessment
Determine the appropriate EDMP stream
Enroll an employee
Make a triage report
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Assess Challenges
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Determine “Own Job” Demands
Identify barriers to returning to/staying at work
Obtain medical assessment and/or treatment
Identify employee limitation and restrictions
Resolve wage and benefit issues
Create and Implement an Initial Case Management Plan
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Assemble the case team
Determine and implement options to address challenges
Refer to health care services
Refer issue(s) to address barriers (non-medical)
Complete application for benefits (Provide application packages for benefits)
Refer to 3rd party insurers
Refer disputes to the working group
Monitor, Maintain & Support Through Program Completion
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Monitor employees in the program
Identify barriers to returning to/staying at work (medical and non medical)
Refer to health care services
Revise the case management plan
Obtain medical assessment and/or treatment
Helping a co-worker transition back to work
Discharge an employee from the program
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7. Experiential learning
Learning is ―the process
whereby knowledge is
created through the
transformation of experience.‖
David A. Kolb
“What we learn in the way of
knowledge and skill in one
situation
New
Experience
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8. Experiential learning
Principle 3: Ground learning in real-life experience.
Interaction with the environment is necessary for learning .
~John Dewey
Testing
implications of
concepts in
new situations
Concrete
experience
Formation of
abstract
concepts and
generalizations
Observations
and reflections
The Lewinian Experiential
Learning Model:
Experiential Learning—Experience as The Source of Learning and Development, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984
http://academic.regis.edu/ed205/kolb.pdf
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9. Spaced learning
Principle 4:
Space learning over time— rather than in one-time events.
• Spaced repetition (distributed practice) is particularly
beneficial if long-term retention is the goal.
 Over 800 experiments demonstrated that spaced
repetition increases long-term retention in individuals
by 200%.
 The optimal time to review information is just before
the forgetting phase.
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10. Managing cognitive load
Principle 5: Employ reference-based Learning to free-up
cognitive loadfor higher-level processing
(e.g., decision
making, problemsolving, innovation.)
Transactive Memory (Betsey Sparrow)
Memory works differently today ―We remember less through knowing
information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.‖
 We forget things we are confident we can immediately find elsewhere
 We are better able to remember where to find something than we are
at remembering the information itself.
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11. Managing cognitive load
Principle 6: Impose consistent structure to facilitate rapid
access and transferal to performance.
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12. Managing cognitive load
Principle 7: Design task-based information to
accommodate learner dispositions and
experience level.
When confronted with an unfamiliar area, serialists tackle
the subject step by step, building from the known to the
unknown with the simplest possible connections between the
items of knowledge.
Holists, on the other hand, seek an overall framework and
then explore areas within it in a more less haphazard way,
until they have filled in the whole.
Read more: Conversational learning theory; Pask and Laurillard
http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/pask.htm#ixzz2WCtwR8s5
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
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13. Managing cognitive load
Principle 7: Design task-based information to
accommodate learner dispositions and
experience level.
Experienced Performers
•
•
Have prior knowledge that allows them to process larger chunks in
their working memory.
Efforts to reduce cognitive load for inexperienced performers can
depress performance for experienced performers.
Inexperienced Performers
•
•
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Need cognitive load kept at a low level for complex information.
When procedural directions are presented visually, cognitive load
becomes equivalent for easier and more complex tasks.
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14. Managing cognitive load
Example:
Serialistic
Experienced
Quick Steps (no visuals)
Quick Steps (with visuals)
Inexperienced
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Holistic
Access to Detail at the step-level
Direct access to Detailed Steps at
the task level
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15. Adaptive Response
Principle 8: Provide moment of need support designed
to ensure successful adaptive
performance.
At the moment of Apply, any object or situation experienced by an
individual is unlikely to recur in exactly the same form and context.

Performers are adaptive when they effectively respond to a
reoccurring but altered situation. Successful adaptive
performance increases adaptive capacity and self-efficacy
thereby increasing adaptive capacity.
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16. Automaticity
Principle 9: Enable unlearning to relearn in the workflow
Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with
the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic
response pattern or habit.
 More than 70 % of change initiatives fail.
 70% of adult knowledge is fully automated.
 When change strategies fail, one of the important but largely unexamined
causes is the interference caused by the automated and dysfunctional
cognitive behaviors that need to be changed.
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17. Research-based principles
 Encoding & Retrieval
Principle 1: Design for the moment of Apply ahead of Learn New and
More.
Principle 2: Use Visual Mental Models to facilitate the encoding and
retrieval of knowledge and skills.
 Experiential Learning
Principle 3: Ground learning in real-life experience.
 Spaced Learning
Principle 4: Space learning over time— rather than in one-time events.
©Ontuitive® 2013
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18. Research-based principles
 Managing Cognitive Load
Principle 5: Employ reference-based Learning to free-up cognitive load for
higher-level processing (e.g., decision making, problemsolving, innovation.)
Principle 6: Impose consistent structure to facilitate rapid access and
transferal to performance.
Principle 7: Design task-based information to accommodate learner
dispositions and experience level.
 Adaptive Response
Principle 8: Provide moment of need support designed to ensure successful
adaptive performance.
 Automaticity
Principle 9: Enable unlearning to relearn in the workflow
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19. 2013 PS webinar series
December: Performance Support Can Save the World!
Next Steps & Resources
Become a member of our Performance Support Community – if you already are –
invite a friend or colleague! Email us at bobandcon@ontuitive.com for an invite!
In the community you can:
• Discuss the current and future states of performance support in your organization
• Read our blogs, watch past webinars, listen to podcasts
• Network
• Collect business case data
• Find resources to share with stakeholders to increase PS buy-in
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