Questions about developing training material?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Jens Reineking wondered: <<I'm changing fields again and will be  
working on training materials from October on. The topic will be  
project management. So, I've got a couple of questions and I hope you  
will have some answers or can point the way to some useful  
information (courses, books, journals, arcticles, websites, blogs,  
newsletters, forums, ...).>>

The problem with training is that it is a broad and complicated  
field, and you can spend several years in various colleges and  
universities developing the basics. (Though you'll more often hear to  
the subject described as "instructional design" in my somewhat  
shallow experience.) One "shock" for us writers is that we come from  
an entirely different philosophical world from the world of the  
teacher: we focus on one-way dictation of information, whereas  
teachers increasingly recognize that learning is interactive. You can  
cross that mental chasm if you're aware of it, but you have to learn  
to think outside the "writing box".

I've taken a few courses in the subject over the years and have read  
a fair bit on the subject--enough to be an educated amateur, but by  
no means an expert. With that caution firmly in mind:

<<So, who on this list as experience in developing training materials  
and is willing to share some of his/her experience with me? The first  
area of interest is the process (design, execution, review, field  
test).>>

The first thing to do in any instructional design is define the  
learning objectives. If you don't know what the students must learn,  
you can't possibly figure out (other than by chance) how to  
effectively provide that knowledge. Learning objectives fall into  
various categories: skills (e.g., here's how you click the mouse),  
knowledge (e.g., the computer perceives clicking the mouse as a  
command, so if you want to send a command...), behaviors and  
attitudes (e.g., "I now know that I should click the mouse, and I  
plan to do it), and possibly other things, but those are the big three.

The second thing is knowing the audience: their needs, their  
constraints (e.g., fear of computers, illiteracy), their existing  
knowledge, their learning styles (e.g., conceptual vs. experiential),  
and so on. With a few cultural and other exceptions, it doesn't much  
matter how old they are, their income, their sex or gender, and many  
of the other meaningless demographic data we're often told to collect  
in technical writing. These demographic data are often correlated  
with the primary considerations, but only weakly in my experience.  
Audience will tell you, for example, whether your students are  
dispersed around the world and require some form of online training,  
or all work in the same building, in which case classroom training  
becomes a viable option.

Once you know what you're trying to achieve and the audience  
characteristics that provide tools to support or barriers to  
interfere with learning, you can start figuring out how to achieve  
your goals. Methods include lectures (one-way communication),  
dialogues (multiple-way communication), cross-references (fitting new  
knowledge into existing knowledge), examples, exercises, practice,  
more practice, tests, and many more. The tools for supporting those  
methods are less important than the methods themselves: whether you  
use Web-based training or instructor-led training, students must go  
through the same steps in learning. Just as in writing, the concepts  
are the same whether you use a pencil or Framemaker.

Curiously enough, this overview is exactly the same process we should  
go through as writers--but seldom do. There's probably a lesson in  
there somewhere...

<<The second area is theoretical background (psychology of learning  
and perception, ecucational design and writing, ...).>>

Again, the bad news is that there are several different types of  
degree programs that teach this material. Moreover, there are several  
competing theories of how people learn, and the debate often seems to  
revolve more around opinion than science. In short: It's not  
something you can learn in an hour reading of techwr-l replies.

Saul Carliner has written a bunch of books about this subject; he's a  
friend, but is also internationally well-respected in the field, so I  
can recommend that you check out some of his books. If you're an STC  
member, you can find reviews of some of his books (and those of  
others) in _Technical Communication_.

<<The third area is about some practical questions: - Does single  
sourcing work with educational material?>>

Does it work with technical writing? <gdrlh> Less facetiously: It  
works if you design it right. That's not as easy as some would have  
you believe. "Design for reuse" is not a gift we're all born with.  
You need to learn it and practice hard until you "get" it.

<<- What software would you recommend for building the material?>>

Whichever software supports the learners and delivery method you've  
determined in response to my previous suggestions. Until you know  
that, you can't pick an optimal tool. And like so much else in  
technical communication, the tool is usually the least important  
consideration. We're communicators first, tool users second.

<<- Are there special things to be considered when localising  
training material?>>

You can't imagine. There are sometimes impenetrable cultural  
barriers. For example, one dynamic in China is that students don't  
like to challenge a professor or stand out in class by aggressively  
promoting their own opinions, and it can take an enormous amount of  
effort to convince Chinese students to participate the way you'd  
expect Western students to participate. There have been some good  
articles on this over the past decade or so in _Technical  
Communication_ (and even if you don't read journals, these articles  
are easy to read and full of practical advice).

Best bet: if you don't intimately understand a culture, talk to a  
teacher from that culture to find out how they see their students,  
and the cultural conventions related to learning. Then ask them to  
review your proposed plan before you start implementing it.
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Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca

(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)

www.geoff-hart.com

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