My Thoughts On The Explanation Effect
I came across the following article on Medium (my favourite site for learning new information – and for publishing stories and haiku that I write), and it struck a chord with me:
(If that link no longer works, maybe because the article has been removed for some reason, then you download a PDF version of it here.)
I would disagree with the graphic at the top of the article – to a degree, at least.
Specifically, for me, I would not place audiovisual where it’s shown, because I find reading to be generally more effective.
The problem with audio and video is that people tend to talk far too slowly, which gives your brain time to be distracted (e.g. by anything else that’s going on, or by thoughts, of course).
I seem to recall a training course I took in 1979 saying that the brain can hear seven times faster than the mouth can talk (as a general rule), which would explain that phenomenon.
These days, it can be less of an issue because many videos can be played at a faster speed than usual – up to a point. Personally 1.25x is the speed that works best in most cases, with some being OK at 1.5x, but any faster than that and the voice is too fast for me (I’ve always had a problem distinguishing individual words) and starts to sound a bit like Mickey Mouse.
I’m not sure whether my wanting to put reading below audiovisual is just me, or a more common trait. I would have to assume, I suppose, that if the graphic is based on studies, then maybe I’m unusual in this respect.
Other than that, I agree with the rest of the graphic.
Moving on, the matter of writing things down is also interesting.
Too many people try to act like court stenographers, writing pretty much everything they hear – and that is, to me, a big mistake.
You need to use your brain to select the key points, and then write those and only those down in as succinct a manner as possible – because if you spend too much time writing notes, you’ll not be able to focus on what you’re being told.
And, of course, you shouldn’t be too brief either, otherwise you’ll not remember what the note was about.
On the plus side, the advent of devices such as Amazon’s Kindle make this a bit easier, now that there are features built in that allow you to highlight passages and add your own notes in the book (which are then viewable on other devices, thanks to the syncing ability of Kindle).
But as the author of that article says, if you take notes based on teaching others what you are learning, you will almost automatically be focused on the key points, because you’ll be listening differently to how you usually would.
And, of course, what’s important here is that learning should be active, not passive.
Watching television is, largely, passive, which is why so many people watch it, because they’re tired and it requires minimal effort.
Unfortunately, I think too many people treat learning the same way – they don’t want to be there, in many cases (e.g. school), the subject matter may be of no immediate use or interest to them, and so whatever learning that does take place is more by a process of osmosis than a deliberate attempt to gain new knowledge.
Back to writing, though.
I’ve written elsewhere about the therapeutic benefits of journalling, and as the above article says, using a journal to record details of what you learned that day is another great reason to write every day.
Although I’ve never used an actual journal (i.e. a physical book), I have long been a fan of making notes of useful snippets of information, such as how-to’s and links to websites that teach you something useful.
Back when I had a “real” job, working in IT, I maintained documents specifically for that purpose, and since I have been working from home for the past 15 years, I have a huge file now (simply called stuff.txt) that serves the same purpose.
What I have never consciously done is make notes based on my having to teach that material to anybody else – but I certainly would if the need arose these days (which seems unlikely).
At work, I was a long-time fan of sharing knowledge rather than hoarding it for personal gain, and near the end of my career at the second company I worked for, I did in fact have occasion to turn some of my own notes in a couple of short training sessions for some of the directors’ secretaries.
And that showed me, unequivocally, the importance of making good notes, because some of mine weren’t, which meant I had to re-research the information to understand it well enough to tell others about it.
I would also recommend joining the Facebook group he recommends – something I did when I first read this article a few weeks ago, although I have to say I’ve been remiss in not posting anything to that group yet. Having said that, there are some gems posted by other members.
Conclusion
In the situations I mentioned above, and on many other occasions, I have found that teaching something to others does two things:
- It soon shows whether you really understand something or not, partly because you may be asked questions that stray outside of your prepared script.
- You have the opportunity to learn more yourself, again, partly, by having to find the answer to questions others ask.
All in all though, I found the above article to be really useful – well, it would be if I were younger and leading a traditional life where I have a job and interact with other people. 🙂
But for somebody who has long had an issue with retention, of anything (whether it’s something I read or hear), I think the information is probably still of use, given that I like to learn something new every single day, however small it may be.
I’ll leave you with this quote by Albert Einstein (who also said that if you cannot explain something to a six-year old then you don’t really understand it yourself):
Additional Resources
These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:
