Mastery Learning (Acceptable Learning Standard)

ENABLING OBJECTIVES
After reading this handout you will be able to:

1. Define Acceptable Learning Standard.

2. List the need for an acceptable learning standard.
3. Identify influencing factors.

INTRODUCTION
Most of the people for whom you will be designing training are likely to be employed by the client
who is paying you to do it. The whole purpose of the exercise is to achieve success - successful for
the people who will receive the training, and for the client and for you, both for job satisfaction and
future credibility. However, this will only happen if we design for success, and minimise the
possibility of failure. The 'Glossary of Training Terms' defines 'learning' and 'training' as:

Learning

'The process whereby individuals acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes through experience,
reflection, study, or instruction. '

Training

'A planned process to modify attitude, knowledge, or skill behaviour through learning experience to
achieve effective performance in an activity or range of activities. Its purpose, in the work
situation, is to develop the abilities of the individual and to satisfy the current and future manpower
needs of the organisation'.

Two observations that can be made based on the above, are:

 People learn as individuals, each with a unique and highly personal learning process;
 Training is the process of organising an individual's learning to meet performance
requirements. .

Training, and the work of the trainer, is therefore concerned with the design and management of
learning activities or the benefit of the individual to meet clearly defined objectives. The concept of
Mastery Learning proposes that most learners can achieve mastery of an objective, given suitable
learning opportunities.
WHAT IS MASTERY?
Essentially, mastery is the ability to perform a task to a satisfactory standard. A 'satisfactory
standard', however, is not easily defined. Consider:
 The assessment of what is a satisfactory performance tends to be subjective. What is
satisfactory to one assessor, is not to another. .
 Any assessment of performance depends upon the accuracy of1the measurement and the
degree of objectivity being applied.
 A satisfactory standard of performance means precisely that; no more and no less. We
should not be interested in adding adjectives such as 'excellent, or 'the best in the group'.
'Satisfactory' should be quite sufficient. If a person is deemed satisfactory, it means he or
she can perform the task and demonstrate mastery; no other qualifying statements are
needed. In other words, a satisfactory performance is a minimum standard.
  Before a standard of performance can be accepted as satisfactory, all concerned need.to be
consulted.
To clarify what 'we mean by a learner being able to demonstrate mastery of a task, it is worth
considering two important points:
 A clearly derIDed criterion performance should be established. This defines the minimum
standard of performance deemed acceptable. Any person who can perform to this standard
has demonstrated mastery of the task. No further assessment should be required.
 A clearly defined perfonnance objective should be written as aproduct of analysing the task.
The objective should describe, as precisely as possible, what the person will be doing when
demonstrating mastery of the task.
WHY IS MASTERY LEARNING IMPORTANT?
An organisation invests resources of people, money and time, into training activities with the
expectation that it will lead to an improvement in job performance. An individual undertakes
training, or planned learning, activities because of the personal benefits to be obtained.
What really counts for both the organisation and the individual is that such activities lead to
success. Failure to improve performance can result ftom failure to design and manage learning
events appropriately. Let us illustrate some consequences of both success and failure:
Successful learning leads to:
 Learners being able to improve their job performance which- is to the benefit of themselves
and their employing organisation
 Trainers and learners developing a sense of job satisfaction, leading to increased confidence
and commitment to solve further performance problems.
 The trainer gaining credibility in the organisation by demonstrating capability to contribute
to the solution of important performance problems.
On the other hand, failure can lead to:
 Learners becoming demotivated. Why should they undertake further learning when previous
attempts ended in failure?
 The realisation by senior management that their investment in training did not lead to
improvement in performance and the danger that all kinds of training will be discredited in
their eyes. Like any other form of investment, there should be some return on the effort,
money and time invested.
 Reduced trainer credibility. Failure may lead to the expectation of more failure, and to
further proposals from the trainer being less likely to be accepted.
FACTORS INFLUENCING MASTERY LEARNING
Having established what we mean by mastery, let us know look at factors influencing the learner's
ability to achieve it:

2 4
LEARNING TIME
1
EVENT
TRAINING
OBJECTIVE
3
ENTRY
BEHAVIOUR

Fig.l
Referring to Figure 1, we can see the following features - each a major factor to consider:
1. TRAINING OBJECTIVE
This, as already discussed, defines what the learner has to be able to do to demonstrate
mastery of the task, under training conditions.
2. Entry Behaviour
For the learner to achieve mastery, it is important that the learning event is created to suit
the entry behaviour of the learner. Note the emphasis is on the entry behaviour of the
LEARNER, rather than that of the learners. The more a group of learners become
homogeneous, in terms of entry behaviour, the easier it becomes to create optimum
learning conditions.

3. Learning Event

This is something unique to the individual learner. We all learn at our own rate and in our
own style. An optimum learning event is therefore one designed specifically for the
individual, where style and pace of learning have been taken into account
If we are dealing with one learner individually, this is quite possible, but as the size of the
group increases it becomes more difficult to maintain optimum learning conditions for each
member of the group. The difficulties increase again as the group's entry behaviour
becomes more disparate.
A learning curve will be unique to an individual and not a simple, smooth curve. Sometimes
a learner will achieve a great deal in a short time; at other times he or she will struggle to
make progress and take a considerable amount of time. The concept of mastery learning
encourages us to build into the "design provision for these difficulties.

4. Time

Optimum learning conditions require an optimum amount of time. For a single learner it is
possible to extend or contract the learning event to suit the learners' needs. As the size of
the learning group increases, and the difference in entry behaviour widens, time, and its
management becomes probably the most important single factor. At its simplest, the
problem occurs when the slowest learner needs much more time to achieve mastel)' and the
fastest learner needs less time to achieve mastel)' of the same tasks.
Trainers cannot easily predetermine the allocation of time when using learner-centred
methods, especially when provision is made for remedial learning. Therefore, when
designing learning events using learner-centred methods, some time flexibility must be
included. Some key factors to bear in mind are:
 Time to complete the learning process' is unique to the individual learner. Shortening
the period simply means preventing the person achieving the training objective.
 Increasingly demanding tasks require an increasing amount of time: instances may arise
when the time needed by an individual learner approaches infinity. Obviously this is a
situation to avoid suggesting that the learner's entry behaviour is inappropriate to the
task.
 Management of time to learn a task is usually made easier when learner-centred training
methods are used.
GUIDELINES FOR ACHIEVING MASTERY LEARNING
Given optimum learning conditions, all properly selected learners can probably attain mastery of a
task. Whether they do or not depends upon the training designer creating a suitable learning
event. Acceptance of this view leads to the following guidelines for achieving mastery learning:
 Learners undertaking training should be expecting it to be a success.
 A record of success leads to an increase in a learner's motivation and willingness to attempt
further, more demanding, learning. This can be of benefit to both the individual and the
organisation.
 The trainer has to accept responsibility for creating optimum learning conditions.
 The learner relies on the trainer to manage the learning event effectively.
 Remedial learning should be available when it is evident that the learner is failing to
progress to mastery. Such learning should be seen as a normal activity and not of
punishment, or sense of failure.
 Careful consideration has to be given to learners' entry behaviour, both about the number
of learners and the demands being placed upon them.
 Thorough task analysis is needed to determine what has to be learnt and the performance
to be achieved.
 The learning event should stress the comparison between the learner's performance and the
performance or training objective, ,not the comparison between one learner and another. .
 It is the responsibility of trainers to create learning events which will promote the learning
of all, not just some learners.
 Every attempt should be made to determine the learners' entry behaviour before starting
the learning event.
 If remedial training fails to develop the required entry behaviour, then further remedial
training' is necessary because it is essential that the learner has the required entry
behaviour, otherwise failure is likely to occur.
 Some learners probably cannot learn some aspects of a task, however long they have to
learn, because of specific aptitude deficiencies.
 Time to learn is unique to the individual learner and has to be managed as such by the
trainer.