Remember Recency?

By Shelley A. Gable

If you haven’t encountered it lately, it’s possible you’ve forgotten about the recency theory of learning.

Recency is the tendency to be more likely to remember information from the end of a sequence. Cognitive theorists believe that as new information enters the working memory, earlier information is pushed out. Since the information entering at the end doesn't get pushed out as quickly, the brain has more time to process and remember the later stuff.

Why does recency matter for eLearning?

I’ve seen many eLearning lessons end with reiterating a lesson’s objectives. This seems to miss the opportunity to take advantage of the recency effect. Instead, we can end eLearning lessons in ways that prompt learners to recall important information or have a meaningful moment of insight.

How can we take advantage of the recency effect?

Consider these simple approaches to concluding lessons in a way that reinforces critical knowledge and/or prompts relevant reflection…

A fill-in-the-blank slide. A really simple approach I’ve seen is to simply end an eLearning lesson with a slide that restates some of the critical information from the training, perhaps with blanks learners must fill in to prompt them to recall (and further process) that knowledge themselves. You could ask learners to fill in blanks in a bulleted list of text. Or, you could have them fill in blanks in a diagram, table, or comparative matrix.

Reflective questions to connect concepts. Another simple approach is to create a slide with a few reflective questions about the content. The questions might challenge participants to make connections between the lesson’s content and related content from earlier in training. Or, you might pose questions that ask learners how the lesson’s content supports the organization’s values (if there is a clear set of values the organization actively promotes). You could also ask learners to list specific situations in which they will apply the lesson’s content to their jobs, or how the content will help them become more successful in their jobs.

Confidence check. You might end an eLearning lesson with a slide that prompts learners to rate their level of confidence in applying newly learned knowledge to their jobs. With this approach, you might follow up with questions that prompt them to list aspects of the content that were especially easy and/or challenging. For lower confidence scores or challenging aspects of the content, you can ask learners to identify ways they can further develop those skills to improve their confidence.

Social accountability. You could take any of the approaches described above and create a sense of social accountability for learners by asking them to share their responses using some form of social media, such as internal wikis or discussion boards. Alternatively, the training might include an expectation to discuss summative learnings and reflections with a manager or trainer within a specified timeframe.

How do you take advantage of recency?

What do you typically put on the final slide of an eLearning lesson? Do you use it to take advantage of the recency effect? If so, please share examples in the comments!