The Mandela Effect in Your Learning

Let’s startby taking a short quiz. Write down your answers to the following questions.We’ll take up the answers at the end of this article.

• Inthe movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,what does the wicked queen say to the mirror?
• InStar Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,what does Darth Vader say to Luke when he reveals that he is Luke’s father?
• Whatis the last line in the song “We Are the Champions” by Queen?

While theseask you for quotes from two movies and a famous song, they also effectivelydemonstrate the Mandela Effect.

The name ofthis effect comes from the time of Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Many people around the worldthought he had already passed away. Prior to hearing about his death, theydidn’t realize he was still alive. The basic definition of the Mandela Effect is“collective misremembering.” To scale it down from “collective,” youcould also think of it as whena person has a clear memory of something that didn’t happen. Does this concept happenin today’s training? Do a significant number of your learners have some wronginformation? If so, you may be fighting the Mandela Effect.

While theMandela Effect primarily focuses on large-scale events or scenarios, it is alsoeffective in pointing to the gaps in people’s knowledge and understanding. The Institute of Medicine published a book in 2000 called To Err is Human (see References). Itlooked at the costs of mistakes in the healthcare system. While there were avariety of errors recorded, gaps in training were instrumental in many of thetreatment and diagnostic errors. The costs of these errors are estimated torange between $17 billion and $29 billion a year. Of greater concern are theestimated preventable deaths, which range between 44,000 and 98,000 a year.When people work with knowledge gaps, bad things can happen.

Priorto the Mandela Effect

NelsonMandela passed away in December 2013. The term “Mandela Effect” is fairly new,but the definition is not. As educators, we know this effect has been around aslong as training has been around. So what preceded the Mandela Effect? There area number of theories written about knowledge and skill gaps that have some similaritiesto the Mandela Effect. The key point is the missing skills or knowledge of thelearner.

In the1970s, Noel Burch developed the “Four Stages for Learning Any New Skill.” Hismodel has now been changed to the “Four Stages of Competence”or “Conscious Competence” learning model. Figure 1 shows the competence stages.

Figure 1: Four Stages of Competence

Here is abrief outline of each of the stages.

• Unconscious incompetence: Learners are unaware of the skillgap or what is required to do the job. They also have no knowledge orexperience, leading them not to be proficient at the task. Learners new to atopic will often start here.
• Conscious incompetence: They are aware of the missing skills and alsoknow they don’t have the ability to be proficient at the task. It’s importantto outline to learners what skills they need to acquire and why.
• Conscious competence: Learners have acquired the skill or knowledgeneeded to complete a task. However, it takes effort and may require somementoring through the process. Often, the stages to complete something will bebroken down into smaller steps.
• Unconscious competence: After much practice, learners have a thoroughunderstanding of the skill and can perform the tasks as if they were secondnature. It requires very little mental effort. A word of caution: Over time,this could lead to a Mandela Effect where the learner is confident aboutknowing the information, but it could be wrong. Memories do fail.

Now thatyou have a brief understanding of the Mandela Effect and the Four Stages ofLearning Competence, let’s look at bringing these two models together.

Fixingthe Mandela Effect

How do youcombat the Mandela Effect in your training? One method is to find out what thelearners know, or think they know, and then address the gaps. In the past wecalled this “test ’n’ tell.” The learners are tested on the content todetermine what they know. Then, only the content that the learners didn’t know ispresented. So rather than taking the same mandated compliance training everyyear, which may take an hour, they now get trained only on content that theydidn’t know, which may take 15 minutes. The more modern name for this is “adaptivelearning.”

When the“tell” portion happens is dependent on the type of adaptive learning you design(expert, student, or instructional model). Most of the time, I find the instructionalmodel works well when trying to fill in the missing gaps or incorrectinformation. After testing a learner, a custom page will appear with links tocontent that the learner needs to learn. Once the learning is complete, learnerswill then take a final test to ensure they have learned all the material. Thatincludes questions on content they already knew and didn’t have to review.

Isthat enough?

While thisis a good method, it can make some managers nervous when content that is knownis left out. Maybe the learner just got lucky when answering the questions.That’s where “confidence-based learning”comes in. After asking learners a question, ask how confident they are in theiranswer. They can be “very confident,” “confident,” or “not confident.” If they’revery confident, that’s a high-risk, high-reward answer. If they’re notconfident, that’s a low-risk, low-reward response. After taking a test, notonly do you have the test scores, you also have the learners’ confidence scores.It’s possible that they can pass the test but have a low confidence score in aspecific area. If the confidence score is low, it can lead you to believe that learnershave some incorrect information or just weren’t sure if the information wascorrect. Now you can adapt your training to meet the specific needs of thelearners.

By keepingthe test score and the confidence score separate, you can estimate where thelearner fits within the Four Stages of Competence. Table 1 provides a breakoutof the learner’s score and confidence mark and the different stages.

It shouldbe noted that adaptive learning is best suited to learners who have someknowledge of or experience with the topics being taught. Confidence-basedlearning can be applied to most training plans and is not only locked into adaptivelearning methods.

Thetraining plan

Anytraining plan needs to have a beginning and an end. The plan should alsooutline how to move learners through the process. Applying the Four Stages ofCompetence, you can create a plan to get from one stage to another. Your planshould also document which level the learner is to reach. For example, an aerospaceauditor doesn’t need to know how to torque a specific bolt (unconsciouscompetence) but needs to know what the torque value is (consciousincompetence). The editor doesn’t need the skill but does need the knowledge.

Afterevaluating your learner through adaptive learning, you’ll get a good idea of whichstage of competence the learner is in. From there, you can apply a plan to movethe learner to the identified stage of competence.

Moving forward

Aspreviously mentioned, the term that indicates general-population knowledge gapsis called the Mandela Effect. As trainers and developers, we know that effectcan also impact our training. The goal of training is to eliminate the gaps so learnerscan perform better and be effective in meeting compliance training.Understanding the Four Stages of Competence will help you to identify the stagethe learner needs to master. Using adaptive learning, it is possible to shortenthe training time. By also applying confidence-based learning, you can measurethe level of confidence learners have in their understanding. The mark and theconfidence score help you identify the stage where the learner is. From there,they can follow your path to reach the desired level of competence.

Now, gettingback to the questions from the beginning of this article, the answers are:

• Thewicked queen does NOT say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall” but rather, “Magicmirror on the wall.”
• DarthVader does not say, “Luke, I am your father” but says, “No, I am your father.” 
• Queenends the song with “’Cause we are the champions.” Most people think “of theworld” is added—but it’s not.

How did youdo?

References