You've built a highly interactive training programme with plenty of hands-on practice and immediate feedback — an exemplary course by research standards. But here's the bad news: most of your learners won't progress as much as they could. Why? Because you haven't worked on their relationship to learning. That's exactly what this two-part series is about.
A classic training scenario: Thomas and Karen
Let's look at Thomas and Karen. Both are in a training session taking part in a group exercise.
Karen feels the adrenaline rising: while working through the exercise, she keeps an eye on her colleagues to see how they're doing ("Samia has already finished… she's so good!") and compares herself to them rather than focusing entirely on the task. To avoid making mistakes, she discreetly glances at the training materials — even though the trainer asked them not to ("In real life, I wouldn't deliberately avoid looking at them!"). Yet Karen still makes mistakes. She starts by making excuses ("Oops, I'm tired today… and group exercises aren't really my thing"), and when the trainer gives her feedback, she only half-listens. Gradually, she disengages from the exercise, answers somewhat randomly — so that if she gets it wrong, it's because she "wasn't trying her hardest".
Thomas behaves slightly differently. After a painful experience at school, he's convinced that training isn't for him. He only attends when he absolutely has to! From the moment he walks in, he puts himself down ("I know I'm going to fail and look useless", "it's never been my thing, I'd rather learn on the job"). When the exercise starts, he instinctively holds back and lets the others lead. After all, what's the point? They'll know better than him — why take the risk of being wrong!
Even though their behaviours differ, both Karen and Thomas will fail to get the most out of the training on offer. They are both pursuing what researchers call performance goals — and unfortunately they are not alone. You may have recognised yourself in one of these characters. That's perfectly normal: studies show that the vast majority of learners display similar behaviours when learning, whether in face-to-face training or sitting alone at a screen!
Performance goals and their impact on training
When we learn something, we set ourselves immediate goals (watch the whole video, complete module 1 today…) but we also pursue a broader aim. This aim is not always conscious, yet it shapes our behaviour in training. Researchers divide these learning goals into two categories.
The first covers performance goals. When pursuing a performance goal, our objective is to surpass a self-imposed standard — usually to be the best in the group (like Karen)… or to avoid being the worst (like Thomas). During learning, when we pursue such goals, we use part of our cognitive resources (our attention, our memory) to check whether we're meeting that standard: we analyse what we're doing, what others are doing, we compare ourselves — instead of mobilising all our resources to understand the content of the training!
Those who want to avoid being the worst, like Thomas, will have such a low level of engagement that they do indeed learn little: the training information is processed more superficially. But one might assume that learners like Karen, who want to be the best, will be highly motivated and push themselves. Which is true… until they make a mistake!
When an error occurs, things go wrong. Rather than being seen as a natural, unavoidable part of learning, it is perceived as a failure (one is clearly below the standard one wants to surpass) and a sign of incompetence. Research shows that we then deploy various self-protective strategies. Instead of understanding what went wrong and correcting course, we begin by making excuses to protect our image of competence. Feedback and corrections are then perceived as threats and barely attended to. Subsequently, we avoid exercises ("no need to do them, I've already watched the video twice") or, if we can't avoid them, complete them half-heartedly or by clicking at random — so that if we get it wrong, it's not because "I didn't know", but because "I wasn't at my best". Another observed phenomenon: we also tend to cheat more frequently to reduce the chances of making a mistake. And research shows that given the choice between personalised feedback and a leaderboard ranking, most learners will choose the second — even if it means missing out on the first!
So… what can we do?
Unfortunately, any training programme can trigger these self-protective behaviours, which have negative consequences for learning. But remember this: the programmes most at risk are paradoxically the most pedagogically effective — those that ask learners to apply what they know — precisely because they involve a greater risk of making mistakes.
Should we go back to passive training made up of long sequences of videos to absorb? Absolutely not — because the challenge is not to prevent learners from making mistakes, but to change the context in which those mistakes occur. Here, the trainer has many resources at their disposal: changing the way the training is introduced, adjusting the feedback given to learners… It is by modifying these various parameters that you can gradually lead your learners to pursue a different type of goal: progress goals!
And that is exactly what I will explore in the second part of this article!
References
- Sommet, N., Darnon, C., & Butera, F. (2015). To confirm or to conform? Performance goals as a regulator of conflict with more-competent others. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(2), 580.
- Dupeyrat, C., & Mariné, C. (2005). Implicit theories of intelligence, goal orientation, cognitive engagement, and achievement: A test of Dweck's model with returning to school adults. Contemporary educational psychology
- Senko, C., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2005). Achievement goals, task performance, and interest: Why perceived goal difficulty matters. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(12), 1739–1753.
A must-read book:
- L'évaluation, une menace ? by Fabrizio Butera, Céline Darnon and Céline Buchs
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