Tech Trends
By Steve Macvicar (August 2006 Issue)
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So much of the smooth-running of an organisation or business relies on harmonious relationships between staff, that personal interaction is rightly perceived as critical to successful leadership, change and project management, supervision, appraisals, recruitment and customer support.
This is more than just bonhomie. Most interpersonal skills also involve cognitive and procedural knowledge; a web, in other words, of related skills that have come to be known as ‘soft skills’.
There is an argument that there is a set of core soft skills centring around establishing rapport, questioning, listening, reading body language and closing techniques, and that these apply to most situations in which soft skills can be said to operate. These basic communication skills then apply whenever one is selling, interviewing, appraising or answering both customer queries and complaints.
The context in which these skills are required is nevertheless important, and soft skills training needs to have relevance to the tasks that the learners face in the real world as sales people, managers, coaches or customer-care advisers, to name but a few. Training soft skills outside the context of such roles is likely to reduce the effectiveness of the transfer of that learning.
In an ideal world of unlimited resources, we would no doubt use one-to-one coaching for soft-skill training, but it is far too costly. In practice, soft skills have traditionally been taught in classrooms using theoretical models backed up by role-playing. There are several problems with this approach. As well as still being a relatively expensive option (especially for large, low-margin organisations), it lacks flexibility, and can make it embarrassing for trainees to act out a variety of convincing roles.
This is where e-learning comes in. A softskills simulator allows an individual to practise privately, and make as many mistakes as it takes to get it right, secure in the knowledge that noone is witnessing the performance. However, it is not just about sparing the learner’s blushes. Simulators are available at all times, and free the trainees from the tyranny of time, people and place. An exercise can also be replicated almost ad infinitum, so scaleability is a further benefit.
A further advantage is the potential to use both video and audio, where pre-shot scenes and interactive encounters can create a body of knowledge that no role-playing experience would ever be able to capture.
Several weaknesses remain in many current performance simulators, however. For a start, learners are still largely limited to choosing from lists of options, usually in the form of decisions or questions. This is clearly different from real life, when one is faced with a huge number of options at a time. Even so, limiting choice can actually be a strength – not a weakness – as it enables the course-developers to channel learning down routes that offer model behaviour.
A second drawback to the use of e-learning in soft-skills training is that feedback is limited to what the designer chooses to provide, which is rarely as precise as real human feedback. There is also the fact that the number of video responses included in interactive interviews and conversations are limited by budgetary constraints.
Lack of realism, finally, remains a real concern, as the tangible presence of people speaking in a room in your real (rather than virtual) presence will always win out.
These drawbacks point to the likely future development of soft-skills e-learning:
• Blended learning will probably become more prevalent as it can provide a better structure, offer ongoing learner support and present opportunities for practice in real contexts.
• Technically, speech recognition should allow many more significant and meaningful forms of interaction within simulations. This is now being implemented in key military projects.
• Another likely technical innovation may be realtime-rendered realistic, animated characters with generated speech. This is some way off, but would offer more flexibility of response and cheaper production costs.
Ultimately, however, e-learning will only grow as a platform for the delivery of soft skills if the quality of the design improves and the costs come down. On the design front, we are now seeing simulations influenced positively by the games industry and informed by good learning theory. We can expect dramatic improvements on this front, especially in the simulations of faceto- face encounters. From a cost point of view, this will mean the use of tools and production techniques that are streamlined and reusable.
This is more than just bonhomie. Most interpersonal skills also involve cognitive and procedural knowledge; a web, in other words, of related skills that have come to be known as ‘soft skills’.
There is an argument that there is a set of core soft skills centring around establishing rapport, questioning, listening, reading body language and closing techniques, and that these apply to most situations in which soft skills can be said to operate. These basic communication skills then apply whenever one is selling, interviewing, appraising or answering both customer queries and complaints.
The context in which these skills are required is nevertheless important, and soft skills training needs to have relevance to the tasks that the learners face in the real world as sales people, managers, coaches or customer-care advisers, to name but a few. Training soft skills outside the context of such roles is likely to reduce the effectiveness of the transfer of that learning.
In an ideal world of unlimited resources, we would no doubt use one-to-one coaching for soft-skill training, but it is far too costly. In practice, soft skills have traditionally been taught in classrooms using theoretical models backed up by role-playing. There are several problems with this approach. As well as still being a relatively expensive option (especially for large, low-margin organisations), it lacks flexibility, and can make it embarrassing for trainees to act out a variety of convincing roles.
This is where e-learning comes in. A softskills simulator allows an individual to practise privately, and make as many mistakes as it takes to get it right, secure in the knowledge that noone is witnessing the performance. However, it is not just about sparing the learner’s blushes. Simulators are available at all times, and free the trainees from the tyranny of time, people and place. An exercise can also be replicated almost ad infinitum, so scaleability is a further benefit.
A further advantage is the potential to use both video and audio, where pre-shot scenes and interactive encounters can create a body of knowledge that no role-playing experience would ever be able to capture.
Several weaknesses remain in many current performance simulators, however. For a start, learners are still largely limited to choosing from lists of options, usually in the form of decisions or questions. This is clearly different from real life, when one is faced with a huge number of options at a time. Even so, limiting choice can actually be a strength – not a weakness – as it enables the course-developers to channel learning down routes that offer model behaviour.
A second drawback to the use of e-learning in soft-skills training is that feedback is limited to what the designer chooses to provide, which is rarely as precise as real human feedback. There is also the fact that the number of video responses included in interactive interviews and conversations are limited by budgetary constraints.
Lack of realism, finally, remains a real concern, as the tangible presence of people speaking in a room in your real (rather than virtual) presence will always win out.
These drawbacks point to the likely future development of soft-skills e-learning:
• Blended learning will probably become more prevalent as it can provide a better structure, offer ongoing learner support and present opportunities for practice in real contexts.
• Technically, speech recognition should allow many more significant and meaningful forms of interaction within simulations. This is now being implemented in key military projects.
• Another likely technical innovation may be realtime-rendered realistic, animated characters with generated speech. This is some way off, but would offer more flexibility of response and cheaper production costs.
Ultimately, however, e-learning will only grow as a platform for the delivery of soft skills if the quality of the design improves and the costs come down. On the design front, we are now seeing simulations influenced positively by the games industry and informed by good learning theory. We can expect dramatic improvements on this front, especially in the simulations of faceto- face encounters. From a cost point of view, this will mean the use of tools and production techniques that are streamlined and reusable.
Steve Macvicar is director of the data and reference division at Dods. he can be contacted at stevem@epic.co.uk
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