Select all the organizations in which you are currently a member:

ASTD -- Am Soc for Training & Dev
ISPI -- Int'l Soc for Performance Imprv
AECT -- Assoc for Educ'l Comm & Tech
SALT -- Soc for Applied Learning Tech
SHRM -- Soc for Human Resource Mngt
ODN -- Organiz'l Development Netwk
ALP -- Assoc for Learning and Perform
HRPS -- Human Resource Planning Soc
AHRD -- Acad of Human Resource Dev
APA -- American Psychological Assoc
APS -- American Psychological Society
SIOP -- Soc for Industrial/Org'l Psych
SARMAC -- Soc Appl Resrch Mem Cog
AERA -- Am Educ'l Research Assoc
None, I'm not a member in any of these.

 

Select your educational background:

Ph.D. in psychology, learning, etc.
Ph.D. in other discipline
Masters in psychology, learning, etc.
Masters in other discipline
Bachelors
Other

 

Select your age:

Under 21
21-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
56-65
66-75
76 and up

 

Select your occupation:

Trainer
Instructional Designer
Performance Consultant
Human Performance Technologist
E-Learning Specialist
Learning Technology Developer
Teacher
Professor (with little research activity)
Learning Researcher (professors too)
Manager of Instructional Development
Manager of Training
Manager of Learning Research
Student
Other

 

The 15 quiz questions now begin:

1. An instructional design team wants to create a coherent set of performance objectives to help it design and develop a new e-learning course on how to build a website using Microsoft FrontPage. Three instructional designers develop different formats for these instructional objectives. Which format (as exemplified in the examples below) will produce the best course?

A. “Learners will understand that a web page designed in FrontPage may look vastly different in Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, so each web page must be tested using both of these web browsers.”
B. “As each web page is developed, and after the full website is developed, each web page should be tested in both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer.”
C. Same as B, with the addition of the following: “One month after completing the training, learners should test each web page during its development at least twice 90 percent of the time, and test each web page once after the whole website is complete at least 98 percent of the time.”

 

2. Imagine that you are preparing for your company's senior-consultant qualifying exam, a full day of exercises plus a paper-and-pencil test of your knowledge of network systems. The test will be given in the meeting room of the San Francisco office. Which preparation method will enable you to pass the test with the best score?

A. Prepare in the San Francisco meeting room.
B. Prepare in the quiet of your parents' vacation home.
C. Prepare at your office in Boston.
D. The place where you study is unlikely to affect your performance.

 

3. Intrude Industries, Inc., is developing a multimedia course for its investigator trainees. It wants each course segment to take half an hour, and it wants the course to run for a total of 3 to 5 hours. Intrude's learning architects expect trainees to work with the course for half an hour each morning and half an hour each evening for 3 to 5 days. Several designs have been suggested. Which one will produce the best long-term retention of the key learning points?

A. Each 30-minute session includes 10 minutes of review and exploration of previous topics.
B. Each 30-minute session includes 5 minutes of review and exploration of previous topics.
C. Each 30-minute session focuses exclusively and extensively on that session’s learning points.
D. All three options will produce similar learning results.

 

4. NASA is preparing a space-shuttle crew to perform a complex repair of the space-station antennae. The launch is scheduled for the first week in October. The two spacewalkers need to be able to perform the task in zero gravity and so must train in a zero-gravity environment. Because rich businessmen have reserved most of the time in the zero-gravity simulator, the astronauts have only 40 hours to practice for their mission. They need to practice 8 hours per session, so they’ll have 5 practice sessions. Which schedule of training will enable them to do the best job possible?

A. Practice on September 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. 
B. Practice on August 3, 4, and 5, and on September 4 and 5.
C. Practice on April 5, June 5, July 5, August 5, and September 5.
D. All three schedules will produce similar results.

 

5. At the Buzzy Watch Company, a group of trainers has designed a new leadership course entitled Championing Change. They hope to present learning objectives to the learners but can't decide which type will work best. Which type of learning objective (as exemplified in the examples below), when presented to participants at the beginning of a lesson, will generate the best learning performance?

A. “After the boss gives the go-ahead for a change effort, the change champion will spend at least 20 minutes on 3 separate occasions educating the boss about how the change process works.”
B. Same as A, with the addition of the following: “Specifically, this includes telling the boss that he or she should expect people to resist the change, that commitment to the effort may falter, and that perseverance will be needed to bring the change effort to a successful completion.”
C. Same as B, with the addition of the following: “During his or her first change effort, the learner (the change champion) will spend at least 20 minutes on 2 separate occasions educating the boss.”
D. Same as B, with the addition of the following: “Learners should understand that change champions don’t work in a vacuum and that the success of their change efforts depends upon the support of lots of people, including their boss. They should also realize that bosses often don’t understand the change process and thus sometimes prematurely kill change efforts when resistance arises.”
E. Choices B, C, and D will be equally effective.

 

6. The PlayDoh Learning Company has developed its multimedia courseware to work as a modular system. Each lesson contains (a) a presentation of the learning material, (b) exercises, and (c) testing. Typically, their courses utilize 40% presentation, 40% exercises, and 20% testing, but they’re reconsidering this ratio. What ratio would create the best long-term performance for their learners?

A. 50% presentation, 50% exercises, 0% testing.
B. 40% presentation, 40% exercises, 20% testing.
C. 30% presentation, 30% exercises, 40% testing.
D. All will produce about the same levels of retention and performance.

 

7. SDI, Inc., a maker of anti-ballistic missiles, is teaching a four-day course on the effects of acceleration on chemical reactions. Every half-day, a computer-based quiz is given on the material—one at 11:30 AM and the other at 4:30 PM. Feedback can be delivered to the learners at any time. Which schedule of feedback is likely to promote the greatest long-term retention of the material?

A. Providing feedback as each question is answered.
B. Providing feedback after a wait of one-half of a day.
C. Providing feedback after a wait of one full day.
D. Providing feedback after a wait of one full week.
E. Choices A and B will produce equally superior results.
F. Choices B and C will produce equally superior results.

 

8. Some guy calls you out of the blue and wants to know which learning strategy will be more effective. He offers to pay you $100 for the answer. You need the money, so you agree to help. It turns out that he’s a motivational speaker and he wants to become a trainer. He’s a very entertaining guy, he tells you, but he’s worried that he might tell too many stories for a training audience. He’s also concerned about holding people’s interest for longer than an hour. Although his previous experience has involved 60 and 90-minute sessions, his training classes will be 4 hours long, they’ll be taught in a rather austere training room, and learners will be provided with three 15-minute breaks. Obviously, he has to be somewhat energizing for a training audience, but he needs specific answers. Which style should he use to create the best long-term learning for his trainees?

A. In an engaging way, stick to the main points of the training, without adding stories.
B. In an engaging way, stick to the main points of the training, but add entertaining stories that aren’t directly relevant to the learning points.
C. In an engaging way, stick to the main points of the training, but add some stories that are entertaining and some that are illustrative of the learning points.
D. In an engaging way, stick to the main points of the training, but add stories that directly illustrate the learning points.
E. Choices C and D are likely to produce similar superior results.

 

9. The Make-‘Em-Shine Car Wash Company is developing a video-based course for its car washers. The company’s president is especially concerned about how well the cars are waxed, so the course includes prequestions on Waxing but not on any other topics. No feedback is given on the prequestions. What is the likely result of these prequestions?

A. The prequestions will have little if any effect.
B. After the course, the information on Waxing will be better recalled than if no prequestions had been provided.
C. After the course, the information on Waxing will be better recalled than the information on Soaping, Drying, and Polishing.
D. After the course, the information on Soaping, Drying, and Polishing will be recalled at a lesser level than if no prequestions had been asked.
E. Choices B and C are correct.
F. Choices B, C, and D are correct.

 

10. A group of performance consultants is designing a training course for electrical engineers. After months of intense study, they determine that the engineers will need to use the training-course skills in 148 different situations. They attempt to categorize the situations into a neat array of 5 to 9 categories, but they can’t agree on the categories. How should they design the course?

A. Provide training that includes 3 to 5 of the most important situations, and use 1 instructor for the course.
B. Provide training that includes 3 to 5 of the most important situations, and use 4 instructors for the course.
C. Provide training that includes 10 to 15 diverse situations, and use 1 instructor for the course.
D. Provide training that includes 10 to 15 diverse situations, and use 4 instructors for the course.
E. The number of situations doesn’t matter, but use 1 instructor.
F. The number of instructors doesn’t matter, but use 10-15 situations.
G. Neither the number of situations nor the number of instructors matters. Just get on with it.

 

11. Shark Learning Company recently merged with Anchovy Limited and thus acquired their e-learning products. Shark’s instructional designers are in the process of evaluating Anchovy’s courses with an eye toward improving them. Anchovy’s courses use well-designed multiple-choice tests, but they only provide feedback on incorrect answers. Each question has five multiple-choice answer alternatives. Typically, test-takers score about 60 percent correct the first time they take the test and 80 percent on a second test given a week later. Shark must decide whether to add a mechanism to provide feedback on correct answers. The costs would be substantial, so they want to be sure that the feedback would produce significantly more learning. What is the likely result if they add the feedback on correct answers?

A. Scores on the second test will exceed 87%.
B. Scores on the second test will increase to about 85%.
C. Scores on the second test will stay about the same.
D. Scores on the second test will decline below 77%.

 

12. Learners attending an intensive 5-day workshop are given evening reading assignments to augment their classroom learning. The reading assignments are well written and explore the same learning points discussed in the day's lectures and discussions. For those who do the reading assignments, what is the likely result?

A. Their learning will improve more on the least important points than on the most important points.
B. Their learning will improve more on the most important points than on the least important points.
C. Their learning will improve equally on all the learning points.

 

13. A Human Performance Technologist is called into the Gee-Whiz Sales Company and is asked to design a methodology that will help new sales recruits remember what to say in overcoming sales resistance. Twenty customer objections are highlighted, put in a conversational format, and a script is written for each one that illustrates how to overcome the objection. At the beginning of the training, the objections and the responses will be presented together, but as the training proceeds the objections will be presented and the sales trainees will be asked to respond with the appropriate words and phrases. The President of Gee-Whiz believes in immediate repetitions and can’t be persuaded against using this strategy. How should the Human Performance Technologist design the first part of the training?

A. Keep the wording and delivery of the objections and the responses exactly the same each time they are repeated.
B. Vary the wording and delivery of the objections and the responses so that there are slight variations for each repetition.
C. Vary the wording and delivery of the objections slightly, but keep the responses the same for each repetition.
D. Vary the wording and delivery of the responses slightly, but keep the objections the same for each repetition.
E. No differences will be found regardless of whether there are slight variations or not.

 

14. Fantabulush, an online wine retailer, is developing an e-learning course on how to choose wine to complement different types of food. The company calls in an instructional design guru to design the course. The guru develops a series of tests to keep learners’ interest and to provide interactivity. One question asks the learners to name the region in France famous for red wines. Another asks the learners the advantages and disadvantages of a dry grape-growing season. Still another question asks the learners to select the foods that have a high percentage of complex carbohydrates. The tests will be given once, with feedback provided immediately after each question if learners request it. Unfortunately, the marketing folks for Fantabulush don’t like testing of any kind—something to do with bad high-school experiences. The instructional guru recommends that they develop two tests, one with questions and one without, and see which one works best. The marketing folks agree. Which group will be more likely to reach the learning goals?

A. The group for which testing is included.
B. The group for which testing is not included.
C. Both groups will perform about the same.
 

15. An instructional designer develops the same course using two different media. One version delivers the instruction via video in a classroom seminar and the other uses an e-learning video-based course. Both versions are well designed and are intended to prepare the learners equally, utilizing the same learning methods with only minor differences. Which course will produce the best long-term retention and performance?

A. The e-learning course.
B. The video-based seminar.
C. Both courses will produce roughly equivalent results.