When are personality tests useful?

I met a few training professionals who use DISC, a personality assessment to analyze people. They observe the person for sometime and then come to a conclusion about which personality traits (combination of D, I, S, and/or C) they portray. I asked one of them how this information helps them. He explained that knowing a personality helps me deal with the person at work. As a trainer, I answer a query/response based on the personality that my learner depicts. I also know that I need to have a high 'I' for my audience to 'like' me. They have to like me to want to listen to me. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it.

How are personality tests useful in learning? When can they be used? Here are my thoughts:

• Personality tests are extremely useful when you want the learner to reflect on his/her own personality.
  
• These tests are useful when you need to bring about a behavioral change. For example: For a salesperson, there are a list of attributes that he must have and others that are undesirable. We can use personality tests to check where the learner is, deliver learning, and check where the learner to identify if a behavioral change has taken place.
• These tests will definitely help us understand the learner profile better. We can design courses keeping the dominant characteristics in mind.
  

Some thoughts that follow these points:

• Does a behavioral change mean a personality change? Do we understand the deficiencies in our personality and consciously work on them? I guess, personalities are also outcomes of a person's socio-historic context (the environment). This would mean that our personalities are constantly changing based on our experiences.
  
• Will the audience show a specific personality pattern? This could happen. If we take the salesperson's example again. When a company hires their sales executives, they look specific characteristics features. How confident is this person? Will he/she be able to hold my attention for long? Will he/she be able to convince/persuade me? So, they may show a specific pattern. (If anyone knows for sure, please share.)
  
• Would it be more useful in classroom training? You interact with the learner directly. Based on how they behave, you quickly categorize them and respond accordingly. It sounds like a tough job.
  

Myth about eLearning and Interactivity

At a social gathering, I explained that I work as an ID at Kern Communications. A person (Rajeev's idol cum mentor from the training fraternity) said you are more into elearning. Elearning is not that interactive, it is very forced.

These words have been ringing in my head. Why did do people think elearning is not interactive and forced? Here are my guesses:

1. Learners do not interact with other learners.
   
2. Some really bad elearning courses have ruined elearning's reputation.
   
3. The learner has to complete the course.
   

(Can't think of any more. Please add if you remember more.)

Now, coming to point 1. Interactivity can be cognitive, social, and clicks (motor if you wish to call it that). If the training is poorly designed, cognitive interaction is not going to happen anyway. The person (I was referring to earlier) meant that elearning lacked social interactivity (learners interacting with learners). My response was to point out how web 2.0 fills that gap. But, I was still not satisfied with my response. With eLearning, social interactivity has been always a part of the learning process in the form of informal learning.

• After you take the course (or even as you take the course), the learners share/exchange notes with other learners.
• Some courses provide access to other learners and experts via chat rooms, forums, emails, and so on.

Can't do much about point 2, but pray that people start doing things right. I hope they begin to understand that click interactivity does not help people learn. Having text box or a fancy tabbed presentation is not sufficient. A click is just a click.

Coming to point 3, if elearning is forced because the learner has to complete the course, so is any other form of training (especially if the learner motivation is low). Like Tony Karrer mentioned in his blog post, at least the learner can click next and finish the course.

Read more on interactivity here.

Using Game Elements in eLearning

The typical mindset regarding use of game elements in elearning is "We don't have that kind of budget!" But, are we trying to design a high end graphic game? You can use game elements in a modest budget. How you ask? Let us think about the elements that make a game and which of these can be used for an elearning application.

• Rewards and punishments
• Goals and sub goals
• Learner control
• Decision making
• Experiential learning
• feel good factors (encouragement, sense of achievement/victory)
• Challenges
• Storyline/theme/drama
• Environment/context
• Characters and their personalities
• Highly visual depiction of events

We had designed an elearning application for counselors in an English training institute. We designed a decision tree with branching stories. Given below is the description of how we included game elements in elearning.

• Rewards and punishments were displayed in terms of the reaction of the customer to a particular action taken by the learner and points gained. The reaction of customer is unpleasant for the least appropriate answer and the points gained is zero. The reaction of the customer is positive for the most appropriate answer and the points gained is maximum. The learner is given the opportunity to recover from unpleasant situation.
  
• The main goal of the course was to make a successful sale. The sub goals were successful application of the steps of the counseling process.
  
• The learner makes decisions and experiences the consequences of his/her own actions. They get an opportunity to reflect on the events.
• Each customer was given a distinct personality. The learner had to understand the customers' personalities and respond accordingly.
• Customers' personalities helped decide what their typical response to a situation would be. Therefore, the situations were also clearly defined.
  

While using game elements in an elearning process, there are certain points that you must remember:

1. Avoid time-based tasks unless the skill to be mastered requires the learner to complete a particular taks within a specified time. For example: A call center executive has put the customer on hold to retreive some information the syste, The executive has to ensure that he/she informs the customer about how much time it might take and retreive the relevant information within this time.
   
2. Ensure that you do not have a parallel story. Invariably, the game/story aspect takes precedence over the learning. For example: Have you seen the demo on Peter Packet? This is a perfect example of this. The main aim of the game is to teach the learner about how the Internet functions. This demo begins with a story about how an Indian girl is unable to go to school. Peter has carry a packet to help the mail reach this girl in time. Peter then has to make his way through by jumping over other packets, avoiding viruses, going through a router, acquiring a key and finally completing the message. When I first played the game, I thought the main intention of the demo was to convey a social message. The information about Internet is displayed in pop up boxes that I can close if I am more involved in the game.
   
3. Ensure that you tie the loose ends, especially for branching stories. You do not want your learner to get stuck during the learning program.
   
4. The storyline should have sufficient information so that the learner can make an informed decision.
   
5. Feedback should be designed very carefully. It must have the desired impact. If you are not displaying a 'that's correct or incorrect' message, ensure that the learner understands clearly when he/she got it right and vice versa.
   

Siftables

I came across this really cool and thought provoking video on siftables on the Simply Speaking blog. I just had to share it here. How interesting would it be to use this to teach?

Blog Personality Type

The analysis indicates that the author of http://archiespeaksout.blogspot.com/ is of the type:

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers

The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever. The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work int heir own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it.

I am not sure if I agree. My blog personality for my other blog, Mum's the Word, is different. Can that be possible? Do I have a dual personality? :) Anyway, check out your blog personality at Typealyzer.

When should we use pre tests?

I am hooked to Clark Quinn's blog posts on ID. When reading one such post, I came across another article, The Case Against Pre Testing for Online Courses by the same author. This had me thinking, when do I use pre-tests in courses?

• When there is a discrepancy between what the learner knows and what he/she thinks he knows. It is a dangerous situation when the learner thinks he/she already knows what you are about to teach him/her but from your research you know otherwise.
  
• If the learners' profile shows discrepancy in prior knowledge, pre tests help identify which path will be best suitable for the learner. For example, the pre test shows that the learner is good at communication skills but poor in active listening, he/she will be directly taken to active listening.
  
• To help the learner understand which areas need more focus.
  
• To help the learner understand more about themselves. For example: You have a personality test to help the learner understand his/her personality type.
  

This being said its not necessary to have a pre test in all courses. Pre test should not be used for the following:

• To judge where the learner is; we should have already done our research to identify this
• When motivation to learn is high; it may be demotivating to continue with the course if the feedback is not encouraging
• To set expectations; your objectives screen and gain attention screen should be sufficient to set expectations

Pre tests are effective tools when used correctly. Pre tests should be designed carefully. These are very useful for soft skills such as communication, personality types, and so on. Well designed pre tests are non-judgemental and encouraging.

Micky Mouse Club House

When surfing through channels, I paused at Disney channel (mostly because my one year old son was fascinated by the colors). Micky Mouse Club House was playing. If you have seen this show, you'd realize that the main objective of this program is to teach the children. Micky and gang did several tasks. For example: One of the characters needed a bow to go to the circus. A device named toodle is summoned. This device visually shows several tools that can be selected to carry out a particular task. Micky encourages the children to identify which tool can be used to make a bow. Ribbon is one such option. They select this and demonstrate how a bow can be made from a ribbon. There are two more tasks similar to this.

The strategies used:

• An interesting storyline with heroes and a villain
  
• Three set of objectives
• Visual multiple choice exercises (with distractors) directly linked to the objectives
  
• Small fun demonstrations (dance steps, how to march and so on)
• Visual recap toward the end of the program

I think it is a very effective way to teach and entertain. What I loved about it is that it is all very visual. Catch it sometime if you can.