Accelerated learning

Four years since the IRCA course underwent changes to adopt accelerated learning techniques, Bob Scotney looks at the obstacles that had to be overcome and assesses the impact the new courses have had on the industry

In June 2004 IRCA announced fundamental changes to the criteria on courses for training auditors. These included the options for IRCA approved training organisations to adopt either blended or accelerated learning techniques. Courses for the training of auditors of ISO 9000:2000 management systems had to adopt accelerated learning techniques by January 2006 or IRCA approval of the courses would be withdrawn.

Training organizations had to incorporate three ‘new’ aspects in their courses, namely, a positive learning environment, clear learning cycles and a variety of task types all of which had an impact on course design. These necessitated a move away from lengthy tutor presentations to shorter task-based activities to help students learn for themselves about requirements in standards and auditing techniques. There also had to be additional time for students for review and feedback after tasks and practical activities to review what they had learnt and to reinforce learning points. What was more important was that the review and feedback sessions were to be conducted by the students themselves and not be tutor led.

To support the move to accelerated learning, IRCA arranged workshops designed to give training organizations an introduction to accelerated learning and a train-the-trainer course focused on accelerated learning in the auditor training field.

Challenges

The requirement for student reviews to take up 25 per cent of the time allowed for new task-based sessions – in addition to the review and feedback from existing exercise and case study based activities – posed the course designers with some problems, especially when new material had to be developed for some of the tasks. Even courses that already contained interactive practical elements occupying 65 percent of the total course time had to face up to this. At the same time IRCA had new proposals for the calculation of course hours with the aim of shortening the amount of hours worked each day.

'A concern expressed by IRCA over the years was how students learnt the requirements of ISO 9001 and how to apply them in audit situations.'

Jeff Monk, Nina Abassi and Mangesh Chickermane have already written of their experiences in applying accelerated learning to ISO 9000 QMS auditor training and generally GCT Associates and FORCE Technology courses reflect their comments. However there were a number of additional lessons that course providers, their course designers and tutors were to learn.

Course venues, especially hotels, that had proved satisfactory before were now found not to provide the positive learning environment demanded. Training and syndicate rooms that had been suitable before did not always have the equipment or layout capability for a working ‘island’ for each of four groups of students, especially where a full course of 20 delegates was concerned. In the early stages of the changes in the UK, some preferred venues even wanted to charge extra for the additional flipcharts and the use of a LCD projector. In one case, a fee of £120 a day was set for the LCD projector – an exorbitant price for a course being redesigned to use a minimum of powerpoint presentations.

Training the trainers

A two-day course was run for tutors involved in the presentation of IRCA approved occupational health and safety and ISO 9000 QMS auditor training courses to introduce them to accelerated learning techniques. An opportunity was taken to include a ‘control’ group of staff, ie those with little or no experience of presenting courses. Most of the second day of this course was devoted to using and testing redesigned tasks from the first two days of the QMS auditor course. Many valuable design changes arose from this form of validation testing; it was immediately apparent where improvements were necessary in the use of templates related to terminology, concept diagrams and the differences between first, second and third party audits.

Towards the end of 2005 a course with a small number of delegates was run to validate the redesigned QMS auditor course. The course was conducted by two tutors, even though IRCA criteria would have permitted the use of only one. In addition two other tutors, one a lead tutor, sat in throughout the course.

The introduction to the course, and the lead up to the icebreaker, was based on slides of polar bears; this went so well that the bears were used on later courses as a prompt for students to review lessons learnt in each session and to complete individual diaries with the key learning points. What had not been thought through well enough was how the students were to utilize their diaries for the end of course review. Two years on, delegates conduct the review of the course using their diary information and from flipcharts developed at the end of each session; the tutors only contribute to the review if there are important points that have been missed.

Real world application

A concern expressed by IRCA over the years was how students learnt the requirements of ISO 9001 and how to apply them in audit situations. Jeff Monk is absolutely right to refer to the so called ‘graveyard shift’ after lunch on the first day of the course while the requirements of the standard were dealt with, almost one-by-one, by tutors using transparencies, ‘chalk and talk’ or powerpoint presentations.

Before accelerated learning GCT had moved on to over half the time allotted to the standard being task orientated, with students required to identify typical objective evidence they would expect to see in an organisation meeting its requirements. Even with accelerated learning it has not proven possible to switch entirely to task based learning; students attend the courses who have never used ISO 9001 before and have limited or no audit experience. Some tutor introduction to the structure of the standard and its contents is still necessary, but only up to and including Clause 4, quality management system. The students review the rest of the standard using a set of questions designed to facilitate their understanding of its requirements. To review what they have learnt they then compare their work with ‘model’ written answers provided to them. Students definitely prefer this method of learning.

The four learning objectives for the course set by IRCA are supported by 60 so-called enabling objectives, 34 of which are related to knowledge and 25 to auditing skills. Each student is assessed against these objectives throughout the course. Achievement of the skills objectives is judged against how students perform in executing tasks related to the preparation of process based audit plans and checklists, how audit interviews are conducted and on the reporting of results; in the latter case this is mainly by collecting objective evidence in an audit situation and the writing of nonconformity reports.

The basis for these tasks are case studies and exercises related to an actual audit of an organisation such as a hotel or engineering company including role-playing opening and closing meetings and collecting objective evidence by studying scenarios, as well as realistic role-play interviews. There have been few changes to this with accelerated learning except for the students themselves reviewing their own performance of opening and closing meetings and audit interviews.

The results

Students have happily adopted the accelerated learning techniques. The course is less stressful for them, but not necessarily for the tutors. Tutors have to recognize quickly when a technique is not working for a course, a particular group or an individual. Satisfaction rates, which were always good, have improved further since the introduction of accelerated learning. The jury’s out on whether there has been a significant improvement in exam pass rates or an increase in average marks.

Børge Nielsen and Jeannette Hounsgaard, FORCE Technology’s lead tutors, report that before the introduction of accelerated learning delegates not passing the course exam often achieved a mark below 50 per cent; since its introduction this figure has risen to 63 per cent.

FORCE’s experience is that students are much more active both physically and mentally in discussions and feedback sessions. Use of flipcharts means they formulate what they have learnt in their own words. The flipcharts, flashcards, puzzles used open up their minds; they are not able to take it easy, having to focus to understand – their energy levels must be very high.

Course evaluation completed by the students of their participation level typically show 100 per cent for half of them, 75 per cent for a further 40 per cent and 50 per cent for the remainder. Interestingly, there seems to be no link between those that do not pass the exam and the lowest levels of participation. FORCE say that tutors must be fully focused for the five days and concentrate on what needs to be learnt and understood.

The message, ‘I tell you, you forget; I show you, you (may) remember; you do it, you understand’, is undoubtedly true and proven on courses run with accelerated leaning techniques. Even the most sceptical auditor leading a course will accept this now, two years since its introduction.

About the author

Recently retired, former director of GCT Associates Limited Bob Scotney designed their ISO 9000:2000 Lead Auditor Course to include accelerated learning. An IRCA registered lead auditor for over 20 years, he presented auditor courses in the UK and overseas, including those run by FORCE Technology in Denmark. To learn more, visit Force's website at www.force.dk/en

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