Stop Aiming for Interactivity!!
By Will Thalheimer, PhD.

It's not that interactivity is a bad idea. It's that interactivity is too simplistic to be a useful guide for instructional design. It can even be dangerous. Somewhere back in the 1990's, some wizened specter spoke the fabled words, "Go forth ye instructional designers and be interactive." The logic was sound. Passive learning was known to be deadly-like Salvador Dali's touch, it left learners limp and exhausted. Active learning was the goal, keeping learners awake, keeping them engaged in their learning, making them energized participants. Soon, the scriveners of instructional-design canon wrote in unison: Interactivity, interactivity, interactivity. Consultants chanted, professors taught, clients demanded, and instructional-designers reinforced themselves with critiques of each other's interactivity. Who among us today could doubt that interactivity is a universal truth?

Unfortunately, for all those learners over the years who have been subjected to numbing interactions, the interactivity dragon doesn't fly. Even on the surface of it, the need for interactivity seems a stretch. Don't people learn things from reading books, magazines, and newspapers? Can't a well-designed speech move people to see things from different perspectives? Can't a well-delivered lecture provide people with knowledge they didn't previously have? Haven't generations of people learned about their culture and communities by listening passively to stories?

Interactivity may not be necessary, but maybe it makes learning more effective. Let's examine the evidence, but first, let's look at what we mean by the term interactivity. What is interactivity anyway? Interactivity occurs when some aspect of the instruction prompts learners to respond with an action. In a typical elearning environment, learners are given some information and then are asked a question about that information. The question prompts the learners to respond with an answer. Such is the nature of interactivity. Other forms of interactivity involve similar processes. Small group discussions prompt learners to respond to questions or to the comments of other participants. Simulations provide a series of decision points that prompt learner responses.

Given this description of interactivity, do we know enough to offer sound instructional advice? We know that interactivity tends to improve learning, so why not just prompt lots of learner responses? It makes sense. Learners who are more active are more attentive, and more attentive learners will learn more. Unfortunately, this may be the wrong diagnosis.

If your doctor tells you that you have an ulcer and suggests that you make lifestyle changes to relieve stress, you should sue your doctor for malpractice. Ulcers are caused by a type of bacteria that is easily treatable with antibiotics. Stress is often present in people with ulcers because stress can weaken the immune system, but stress doesn't cause ulcers.

Interactivity is often present in learning designs that improve learning, but it's not the interactivity, per se, that causes the learning improvements. Instead, it's something inherent in the interactivity.

Okay, interactivity must promote attentiveness, and so maybe it's attentiveness that causes learning. Attentiveness is important. Sleeping learners don't learn. But it's more than just keeping learners engaged. How do we know? We know because research psychologists have found that asking questions about some learning points in the instructional message improves memory only for those learning points-it doesn't help learners remember other learning points in the instructional message. So it's not attentiveness in general that promotes learning, it's attention to particular information.

Okay, maybe it's the feedback that learners get after they make an interactive response? Feedback is very powerful in facilitating learning, but researchers have found that even without any feedback whatsoever, asking learners questions and getting them to respond to those questions aids subsequent recall of that information-and such questioning has been found to be more beneficial than giving learners more time studying the material. It's something in the questioning and responding that matters.

Okay, maybe it's the reward or reinforcement that learners get for answering the questions correctly? No, reinforcement does not aid learning. In fact, neither feedback nor rewards have any effect at all on correct answers. Again, it's the information that matters. The information inherent in feedback enables learners to correct their incorrect answers. It has virtually no effect on correct answers. It's not something in the instructional response to the learner that matters-it's something in the learners' response to the questioning.

Well, what is it? What is it about interactivity that makes a difference? The answer is that interactivity prompts learners to retrieve information from memory, and it's this retrieval practice that prompts the learning improvements. The key in thinking about interactivity is to understand the human cognitive system and how it leads to on-the-job performance. When people find themselves in an on-the-job performance situation, the cues in that situation prompt memory retrieval. When Barry Bonds sees a pitch in the strike zone, the cues for that trajectory prompt him to retrieve information suggesting the correct swing of the bat. When a firefighter surveys a burning building, the cues from the flames, heat, and smoke trigger memory retrieval of the appropriate safety procedures.

Every situation elicits memory retrieval. The hope is that appropriate memories are retrieved. When people who have learned how to use Microsoft Word sit in front of a computer screen with an open Word window, they should be able to retrieve information from memory about how to cut and paste, how to insert tables, and how to access the header and footer areas. When managers face their first staff meeting after a management training class, the cues in that environment should prompt them to retrieve information from memory reminding them to involve their direct reports in decision-making.

The best way to insure that the learned information is retrieved from memory in the on-the-job situation is to prompt learners to practice retrieving that information during the learning event. It's not the interactivity that facilitates learning-it's the retrieval practice!

This explains why questions about nonessential information actually hurt learning. They provide practice on retrieving the wrong information. It also explains why feedback is useful, but not always necessary. When the correct retrieval routes are practiced, feedback is redundant. By putting the emphasis on retrieval practice and its relationship to the performance situation, we can correct the dangers of "interactivity for the sake of interactivity." We can stop asking meaningless questions on meaningless material. We can stop taking the attention of our learners away from the central concepts. We can stop creating silly little games that divert the focus away from the key learning points.

By focusing on retrieval practice and not interactivity, we can begin to create interactions that are meaningful to our learners. We can begin to prompt learner responses that will resonate within their real-world performance contexts. We can begin to focus our simulations on situations that have realistic analogs. We can begin to create authentic instruction. Interactivity was perhaps a reasonable prescription in days past. In general, it made the patient better. Overall, it facilitated learning.

But now that we've studied the research and we know more about the human cognitive system, now that we know that it is interactivity's retrieval practice that improves learning, now that we know what to do and what to avoid, let's create learning that really works for our learners. Let's stop aiming for interactivity. Let's give our learners practice on real-world problems set in realistic situations-so that they can prepare themselves with appropriate retrieval practice.

Reprinted from Work-Learning Research

Will Thalheimer, PhD, of Work-Learning Research is the author of the white paper, e-LEARNING: Utilizing research-based considerations to improve learning and performance, a white paper augmented with e-learning components, available on the Work-Learning Research website
(www.work-learning.com). Dr. Thalheimer may be reached at will.thalheimer@work-learning.com