The Drive To Learn « Forio Business Simulations

The Drive To Learn

Written by wglass on Feb 09, 2003

A few weeks ago I was watching my 5 month old son, Jonah, lie on his belly and reach for a colored block just out of reach to his right. He reached for the block and kicked his legs, successfully moving sideways a small amount, but unfortunately away from the block. He kicked and rotated another inch, again in the wrong direction. With an intent look on his face, Jonah kept straining to reach that block, moving a little more away from it each time. This affair reached its logical conclusion 10 minutes later, when he’d rotated almost 180 degrees, couldn’t see the block anymore, and erupted in loud howls of frustration. (At which point I picked him up and gave him the block).

Motivation as a Catalyst to Learning

This incident made me think about the connections between learning, frustration, and motivation. (also about the nature of unintended consequences to one’s actions (PDF), but that’s another article). Most learning involves significant challenges that can pose intellectual and emotional obstacles to learning. To surpass these difficulties, a learner must have the drive to stay engaged, reflect on the experience, and try again. In Baby Jonah’s case, he kept trying to grab distant objects repeatedly over the next few weeks. This persistence led him to the point where he became a real pro at those important baby mobility skills of rolling around, scooting sideways, and in general, being able to explore his immediate environment.

Admittedly, my son’s motivation is usually the urgent desire to grab anything colorful and put it in his mouth. However, adults have a complex (and often hidden), set of motivating factors.

As an example, last year we held a contest involving PDA Sim, a simulation on our web site. One of the participants, Mike Flanagan, wrote an article about the experience in Online Learning. He described his motivation as based on the classic human drivers of Greed (to win the prize), Impatience (the games were short, so he got quick feedback), and Pride (a public “high score list” motivated him to do well in the simulation).

With simulations, the need to understand motivation is particularly important. Much of the learning that comes from a simulation experience is self-driven. A user who sits in front of a computer and runs a simulation must actively go through the learning cycle: reflect on the business issues, choose a strategy; make decisions, and observe the consequences of those decisions. Without this self-directed effort (and it is a significant effort) the simulation becomes little more than a video game. In the worst case, it becomes a frustrating exercise in which the user gets farther and farther away from the goal, much like Jonah and his blocks.

Motivation in Organizations

In an organizational setting, people may take part in a learning experience for a variety of reasons.

They may participate in workshops and web content related to an organizational-wide initiative (e.g. a focus on building customer loyalty).
They may start a new project or position that requires a particular skill (e.g. a course for new managers).
They may be legally required to attend a workshop (e.g. sexual harassment).

In each of these cases, learners will range from highly enthused to barely interested, depending on their background and experience.

An extreme case of organizationally-induced motivation occurred a few years ago, when I helped develop a simulation for large manufacturing firm undergoing major restructuring. The simulation was used by the top 100 managers during a week workshop covering a variety of issues all present in both the real business and the simulation. In the first session, the CEO introduced the new organizational chart, with one major slot (head of North America) unfilled, announcing he would temporarily take that role. A new compensation scheme was unveiled, in which Economic Value Added (EVA) played a major role. Not coincidentally, we’d designed the simulation so that the key indicator of success for each team was the EVA of their simulated business. To add to the tension, all the senior executives rotated around the teams, observing the discussion and decision-making process. The result was a highly competitive simulation game in which some key issues of competitive strategy were highlighted in a manner unlikely to be forgotten by any of the managers. The winners invested early in key markets and held a strong lead throughout the simulation. At the end all the team members received a medal. The losers lost market share in the third round and found themselves strapped for cash, unable to invest. They received… a copy of the winning team’s strategy.

Designing Simulations to Engage Users

Without necessarily instilling the same level of stress in the users, how can we design a simulation to be a engaging and learning experience?

The number one rule is:

1. Consider the audience.

To answer this, consider who the intended users of the sim are. What’s their professional and educational background? What’s important to them, both in business and personal life?

The corollary for this rule is: build the simulation with the audience in mind. Ensure the simulation covers the business issues at the right level for the audience. Make sure the look and feel is something they expect. Include an appropriate amount of explanation and help files.

For example, a simulation for senior executives should focus on the major strategy issues of the company. It should look business-like, with lots of spreadsheet-type reports and graphs. It should be easy to use, but without unnecessary clutter.

As a contrast, a simulation designed for mid-level sales and marketing managers attending a conference might have a fun look and feel, with multimedia snippets highlighting key trouble-spots or successes. It could include features that encourage communication of ideas during the conference (such as a page to post strategies and scores), and provide easy-to-use guidelines and tools that the managers can take back to their jobs after the conference.

Users who run a simulation relevant to their needs will almost automatically be more engaged than those who encounter a simulation designed for someone else.

Another rule is:

2. Ask yourself, why are the users running the simulation?

It’s useful to know the particulars of how a typical user ended up in the driver seat of a simulation. Were they told by their boss to take an online course? Was the simulation promoted in a particular manner? Are they facing new challenges in their jobs and looking for a particular insight? Is the simulation a main focus for them during the time they run it, or will they constantly be distracted by the daily routine of their work life?

This information will help you understand both how intrinsically motivated a user is, what’s on the top of their mind as they run it, and also what content needs to go into the simulation.

3. Add some friendly competition to the simulation.

Competition can add significant excitement and energy to a simulation. In Forio simulations like PDA Sim, and Leadership In Action, we’ve had tens of thousands of people play the simulation and post their high score with a description of the strategies they tried to employ. In some cases, a group of people kept playing, leapfrogging each other up the list. The key thing to remember is that competition is only a means to an end; the objective of getting the high score should not overshadow the goal of learning itself.

4. Investigate: What do users click? Where do users drop out?

An oft-ignored aspect of simulation design is the gap between developer expectations and user reality. In part, this is the nature of e-learning; users operate the simulation in a location far removed from the developer and instructor.

Forio’s subscription simulation service, Forio Broadcast Pro, automatically tracks every page viewed by every user, click by click. This is a useful way of checking assumptions on usage. In one simulation, we included some fancy reports, but later discovered no one was viewing them. As a result, we made sure that they only included extra background information and not critical data on those pages. (We could have also redesigned the navigation to make the links to those pages more prominent). In another simulation, we discovered that users started the simulations, viewed the initial graphs and reports, then quit without stepping the simulation. It turned out that the target audience didn’t understand they were supposed to click “Advance Time”. We added explicit help instructions that told users to go step by step: viewing results, entering decisions, and advancing time.

5. Remove barriers by making the simulation accessible.

Michael Bean has written a great paper on this available elsewhere on the site. More users will play the simulation and will be successful in learning from the simulation if they don’t encounter user interface obstacles. A few guidelines: the simulation should load quickly, start without many extra pages, avoid incompatible software/hardware issues, and help the user remove/ignore environmental distractions.

6. Make it fun.

This rule is obvious to some and ignored by others.

Michael Bean describes both Fun and Accessibility as two of the four critical elements of F.A.C.E. value (fun, accessible, clear, educational) that make a successful simulation.

Create a simulation that is fun, and users will play it again and again. They’ll recommend it to their friends and colleagues, who will go to the web page or sign up for the course. As Michael says:

“Fun simulations are memorable experiences. People play and learn from them without being compelled to. A community of players spontaneously forms around the simulation. Without realizing it, they develop and internalize rules for success that they can intuitively apply in the real-world.”

To conclude, I have to go back to my champion scooter. By staying focused on the task at hand despite his frustration, he eventually reached his objective. His excitement at accomplishing this task and sharing it with his community (his parents) was matched only by his determination to go after his next challenge… standing up.

Again, the guidelines on motivating simulation learners: