e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

11.4. Mirror the Job

Design interactions that require learners to respond in a job-realistic context. Questions that ask the learner to merely recognize or recall information presented in the training will not promote learning that transfers to the job.

Begin with a job and task analysis in order to define the specific cognitive and physical processing required in the work environment. Then create transfer appropriate interactions—activities that require learners to respond in similar ways during the training as they would in the work environment. In Chapter 10 we described the encoding specificity principle that tells us that the cues of transfer must be encoded at the time of learning. The more the features of the job environment are integrated ...