[Ice and Water Photo by Lanju Fotografie on Unsplash. See article for metaphorical relevance…]
Dr Jarlath O’Donohoe, instructor and educator and retired paediatrician, muses on whether learning is the same as performance and whether performance straight after a Neonatal Care Course can equal performance over time. This short essay forms part of his long term preoccupation with skills decay and how best to mitigate for that.
These thoughts are based on the ideas in a favourite essay of mine, written by Stephen J Gould: “What, if anything , is a zebra?“ and it is worth mentioning that his thoughts were based on one of his own favourite essays: “What, if anything, is a rabbit?”. Neither of these essays seek to deny the existence of black and white horse-like animals, nor indeed rabbits. Rather, they are about the issue of technical terms (types of zebra) and how they relate to intuitive day to day understanding (stripey horse) and whether these differences matter.
So, to learning……
In the case of learning a large number of definitions have been suggested1. The shortest definition is probably: “Learning is the process of acquiring new information.” This would seem to correspond to one’s intuitive understanding of learning and to be at the core of the understanding of undergraduate students for example2. It defines the process.
Definitions which correspond more closely to what is meant by the term “learning” in educational psychology include: “The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information, behaviour patterns or abilities“. It adds the idea of outcome to the above definition and, by inference, long term changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes.
And now to performance:
The term “performance” is used in many situations where learning has been studied, to identify behaviours that can be observed during training3. The need for this term is based on the observation – in both animals and humans – that learning can occur even when there is no change in performance.
The term “performance” has been suggested to refer to what is seen during (or soon after) the training session. When contrasted with learning as a long term change it turns out that the two processes are not the same and one may not lead to the other3. Disappointingly, Soderstrom and Bjork remark that “there appears to be a lack of understanding on the part of instructors and learners alike that performance during acquisition is a highly imperfect index of long-term learning“.
Does the learning v. performance dichotomy matter? Possibly not if the learner returns to an environment where there is ongoing supervision and practice. However, if there is no appropriate supervision, it may do. Re-reading course material is no substitute for on-going practising of skills. The aim of the NCC is a long term change in knowledge, skills and attitudes. Which is why the current distribution of manikins to facilities all over Cameroon where there is at least one trained Neonatal Care Course instructor is so important.
The rapid decline in knowledge and skills after resuscitation training courses may, in part, be related to using performance as the target for training courses rather than long term learning. In countries where certificates of achievement and the MCQ exam results still mean so much it is a challenge for NICHE International to facilitate a programme which takes long term learning into account. A full adaptation of the Neonatal Care Course needs to take into account the possibility that relying on end of course assessment (performance) as a proxy index of learning (long term availability of knowledge and skills) is inadequate.
Part of the reason why the idea of performance versus learning has not taken hold widely may be that performance in this sense is intuitively a form of learning. Like a zebra is intuitively a type of horse.
I wonder if we need a new metaphor. Performance might be referred to as “water learning”, the implication being that it can trickle through your fingers quickly. Long term learning could be referred to as “ice learning” – more solid and long lasting, but both just different aspects of the same thing.
1: (Andrew B. Barron,1* Eileen A. Hebets,2* Thomas A. Cleland,3 Courtney L. Fitzpatrick,4 Mark E. Hauber,5 and Jeffrey R. Stevens6,7 Embracing multiple definitions of learning Trends in Neurosciences, July 2015, Vol. 38, No. 7, pp 405–407. doi 10.1016/j.tins.2015.04.008).
2: An early exploration of undergraduate student definitions of learning, memorizing, studying, and understanding Advances in Physiology Education doi:10.1152/advan.00082.2020 http://advan.physiology.org
3: Nicholas C. Soderstrom and Robert A. Bjork Learning Versus Performance: An Integrative Review Perspectives on Psychological Science 2015, Vol. 10(2) 176 –199