How to Engage Learners with Scenario-based Learning

The demand for scenariobased-learning (SBL) is growing rapidly. SBL is now the most requested type of eLearning among our customers. This is partof the trend to use eLearning more and more for skill training and not just forknowledge transfer.

In this article, wedive into the theory that explains why SBL can be effective, and we give someguidance on how to develop effective SBL.

What is SBL? An overview

SBL is a great way topresent more interactive and compelling skill-based training. In our designs, weuse video and an attractive storyline. Learners gather information throughout anSBL and create solutions based upon their preexisting knowledge and theinformation they find. Until recently it was not possible to create this typeof SBL without expensive custom development, but this changed with the latest generationof authoring tools that make it very easy to create and edit even the mostintricate SBL designs.

In our opinion, the learninggoal for an organization is to increase both the employees’ and the company’s productivity—aninvestment that has to pay off. In order to go from learning to a higherproductivity the learner has to learnand apply his new knowledge andskills. So how do we get that to happen?

Learning begins withmotivation

For starters, thelearner has to be motivated to even begin studying the course at hand. How dopeople get motivated? What is motivation?

Motivation, in short,is what makes a human being act to achieve a goal. There are two types ofmotivation: intrinsic, in whichmotivation emerges from the desire tolearn, to master a task, or to prove oneself, and extrinsic, in which motivation emerges from the rewards gained whencompleting a task in the right way. At first, most learners will beextrinsically motivated. They take the training because it is mandatory, especiallywhen the course is of the “compliance training” type. We find however, that SBLmakes it possible to address the intrinsic motivation of a learner. How?

In his flow theory,Csikszentmihalyi (see References) states that intrinsic motivation occurs whenthere is a balance between a learner’s present skills and the challenges he orshe faces. A learner possessing low problem solving skills will only be able tosolve problems with a low challenge. Solving problems will increase the learner’sskills. To keep the learner motivated, the challenge has to increase as thelearner’s skills increase. If the learner’s skills are higher than needed forthe challenge, the learner will get bored quickly, or get frustrated if thechallenge is larger than the current skills can meet. The area of perfectbalance between skills and challenge is called the “flow channel” (Figure 1),which Csikszentmihalyi defines as the state in which a person is fully immersedin an activity. He calls the state of flow a state of maximal intrinsicmotivation. When you present a person with a problem that resides within theflow channel, he or she will be intrinsically motivated to solve that problem.

So you must designscenario-based learning with this theory in mind. You must balance thescenario’s challenges with the skills you can expect of your target audience insuch a way that, in most cases, the problems that need solving reside withinthe flow channel, sometimes even on the edge of it.

Figure 1: Theflow channel

Make it real with emotion

We find it importantthat the learners be able to identify with the scenario and the challengesimmediately, at the start of the scenario. To do this, make the scenarios asreal as possible by using short videos with actors performing real lifesituations. Video makes it possible to use specific emotions as a response todecisions made by a learner.

For instance, in anSBL program that we designed about breast feeding, the learner (in this case, anurse) can suggest that the mother should stop breast feeding and start feedingher baby using a bottle. The mother in the SBL strongly opposes that, becauseshe feels that breast feeding is the absolute best way to feed her newbornbaby. She gives a few reasons in the video. Our goal was to show how strongly amother can react when a learner makes a decision that is emotionally unacceptable.

We found that the mother’sstrong emotion was much more recognizable, even familiar, when using video ratherthan text or images. The learner is able to connect to this real person and therealistic emotions they display (in this case the mother was not an actor, buta real client).

This connection has apositive effect on the learning process. From brain researchers, we havelearned that it is easier to remember things when strong emotions accompanythem. So if you tell a story using a video in which a character shows strongemotions, it will make the story more realistic and familiar and the learnerwill remember its content better.

Getting to application

That is motivation,and it’s how you can improve retention of what is learned. We have the learnerright in the flow channel. But how can we get learners to apply what theylearned? We do this by allowing the learner to “create” within the SBL. Andersonand Krathwohl suggest six levels of learning objectives, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy(Figure 2). The lowest level objective is toremember what is learned and the highest-level objective is to create with what is learned.

Fig 2: Krathwohl’slearning levels

With scenario-basedlearning, facilitation helps the learner use preexisting knowledge, understandit in the context of the training, apply the knowledge, analyze new situations,evaluate, and create new outcomes. In one of our SBL programs, we let sales peopleplay the role of a physician. They all meet a patient (on video) and can askquestions and perform medical tests. With their available medical knowledge,and the knowledge they collect through analysis (questioning the patients,doing medical tests), they must be able to createa plan to help their patients by prescribing the correct treatment and medication.

SBL design uses allpreviously mentioned approaches. The balance between the skill level and thechallenge motivates learners. Learners hear a storyline with support fromvideos, in which actors use emotion and the learners have an opportunity to usetheir knowledge to analyze and evaluate, and finally to create a solution.These methods seem sufficient to let a learner not only learn but also rememberthe content and the way to use it to create solutions.

Prove it!

How do we know that someonelearned something? Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so if learnerscan apply it, they have learned it. It is learning by doing.

Before entering a scenario-basedlearning event, however, a learner needs basic knowledge of the topics in the scenario-basedlearning. With our preferred authoring tool, we can easily create adaptivecourses that pre-test learners to find out how much they already know. Based onthe outcome of that test, only those parts of the adaptive course that thelearner is not sufficiently familiar with are mandatory. After completing thisadaptive course, the learner may enter the SBL.

There are numerousways to design an SBL, and how you design it depends on a number of factors.The educational level, the learning topic, and of course the available budgetare important variables. But no matter how you design scenario-based learning, youcan use it for situations that include medical training, sales training, andcompliance training.

References

Anderson, L. W. and Krathwohl, D. R., et al(Eds.) (2001.) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: ARevision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Allyn & Bacon.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly& Nakamura, Jeanne (2002). “The Concept of Flow.” The Handbook of PositivePsychology. Oxford University Press.