{"id":5457,"date":"2020-09-16T10:06:22","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T10:06:22","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-10-27T10:25:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T10:25:49","slug":"flattening-the-forgetting-curve-with-engaging-content-and-spaced-repetition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capytech.com\/en\/blog\/flattening-the-forgetting-curve-with-engaging-content-and-spaced-repetition\/","title":{"rendered":"Flattening the Forgetting Curve with Engaging Content and Spaced Repetition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flattening the Forgetting Curve with Engaging Content and Spaced Repetition<\/span><\/h2>\n

In the corporate and business world, staff training initiatives can have a range of different objectives. Effectively and efficiently onboarding new employees is one example. Ensuring compliance with regulations is another. However, one of the most important objectives of training initiatives and strategies is to change long-term employee behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n

In your efforts to change employee behaviour to help the company achieve its goals, the Forgetting Curve is your opponent, working against what you are trying to achieve. This applies whether you use e-learning to deliver training to your team, or you use another training delivery method.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, overcoming the Forgetting Curve, or flattening it, is essential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Forgetful Learners<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before going into techniques to flatten the Forgetting Curve, let\u2019s first explore what it means.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have all had experiences where we learn something but then forget it very soon afterwards. In some situations, it only takes a few minutes for the memory to fade.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can experience this natural forgetfulness during day-to-day activities, such as learning a person\u2019s name and then almost immediately forgetting it. This experience of forgetting newly learned information also applies in formal learning situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can be demoralising when planning new training courses, strategies, and initiatives when you think about how easy it is to forget things we have just learned. Viewed from the most pessimistic of perspectives, what\u2019s the point of doing the training if most of your learners are going to forget most of the information in a short period of time anyway?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Forgetting Curve is not fixed, however, which means it can be flattened. In other words, there are techniques you can use to improve knowledge retention to make your training courses more effective at changing the long-term behaviour of employees.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, there is a point in creating new training for employees, particularly if you are using e-learning as the delivery method.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s explore the Forgetting Curve further as well as the steps you can take to mitigate it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Forgetting Curve<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Forgetting Curve is a concept developed in the mid-1880s by Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist who specialised in memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Forgetting Curve, the more time that passes where we don’t use or have cause to recall something we have learned, the more likely we are to forget it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plus, the curve doesn\u2019t drop down gradually, either. Instead, it is a steep and rapid decline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This steep reduction in memory demonstrated by the Forgetting Curve shows that many learners will forget about 90 percent of what they have learned within one month of learning it, if they have no reason to recall the information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, the rate that learners forget information varies from person to person and situation to situation. That said, the overall idea that people forget a lot of what they learn very soon after learning it holds true.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Ebbinghaus was as interested in solving the problems of memory as he was about explaining them. So, he also outlined methods to improve memory and knowledge retention to flatten the Forgetting Curve. These concepts, which are highlighted and expanded below, remain true today:<\/span><\/p>\n