Instructional designers are interested in the question “How do
people learn?”. This is not an easy question to answer because
there are so many factors involved in the learning
process—motivation, environment, ability and so on. In this post
I would like to take the question one step further to ask “How
do people retain what they have learnt?”. In particular, I will
look at some ways for eLearning designers to encourage memory
retention. Repetition is not a dirty word We often think
repetition is boring but there are times when it can assist in
learning and memory retention. I recently read a blog post by
Nick Elkins where he paraphrased from Dr Susan Weinschenk’s book
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People: “Repeating
information, and the use of that information, forms new
connections in your brain where memories are stored. Repeat it
enough times, and it sticks. To further build on that, if you
tie newly presented information to already-formed memories or
experiences, then it’s easier for them