I’ll Take Learning for 500: Using Game Shows to Engage, Motivate, and Train

More and more trainers are using unique and interactive delivery methods to involve and inform their learners. Game shows are the new generation of training activities that are fun and, yes, they’re incredibly effective!

Why Game Shows?

Question: What can I do to engage my trainees with technical, complex, or sometimes downright boring material?

Answer: Use game shows in your training session.

Let’s face it, not all information that we NEED to know is riveting. One of the biggest challenges for most trainers is engaging their trainees. Often, it’s difficult to present material in a way in which people understand it, it’s tough to make sure that people are interacting with the material, and it’s a great feat to make sure that your content is being retained. In the pharmaceutical industry, there are often extremely strict regulations and very detailed content modules.

Unfortunately, most trainers don’t think about using game shows in the training classroom—training is serious stuff (particularly when those details could mean the difference between getting a sale, passing FDA risk-based inspections, or even knowing filing and registration procedures). We’ve had dozens of trainers tell us that their content is too serious for a game show, or too complex. We believe that it’s a misconception that needs addressing. Game shows work with ANY content—and the more important the content, the more critical it is to present it in a way that engages people.

What some trainers may not realize is that while game shows are a fun shell--they are POWERFUL training tools. Game shows can be used to:

• Review, preview, and prepare for assessments/exams
• Alert trainers to trainees’ learning gaps
• Let trainees know how they’re doing in a training module
• Motivate and energize your trainees
• Promote teamwork and stimulate discussion
• Break down complicated or sensitive material into sizable chunks
• Increase content retention

Game shows are fun at a base level, but they’re also highly effective for motivating, training and engaging people to, ultimately, achieve higher content retention.

Why Game Shows Work

Who was the first man on the moon?

How many states are in the United States?

What qualifies as a biohazard?

How do you perform source verification?

Did you think about or try to answer those questions in your head, or figure out what the questions meant? If you’re like most people, you did. You see, when a question is asked, the mind automatically searches for answers and for context. A game show, at its most elemental level, is an entertaining question-and-answer framework. In the format of a game show, trainees WANT to engage with the material. They interact with the questions and seek answers. Game shows are the perfect complement to any training material for several reasons.

• Game shows appeal to trainees’ sense of competition. Most people love to have the opportunity to show off their knowledge and engage in friendly competition. Friendly competition inspires some of the greatest learning—it encourages people to gather more information and, in the case of training, make an effort to retain more information for the purpose of winning the competition.
• Game shows have a short learning curve and appeal to persons of all ages. Game shows have been internationally popular for years. In fact, most trainees—be they 25 or 65—have a reference to at least one popular game show. Because they’re such a part of modern global culture it’s easy for trainees to grasp the rules of a basic game show without a lot of explanation and tutorial.
• Game shows engage multiple senses; they allow trainees to get out of their seats, interact with material, hear questions, see information, ring in, and even cheer. They also provide trainees with a significant experience. People tend to remember positive and negative experiences, and game shows create a positive learning environment that cements content retention.

“Positive emotions allow the brain to make better perceptual maps,” says Eric Jensen in his book The Learning Brain. (Turning Point Publishing, 1995) “That means that when we are feeling positive, we are better able to sort out our experiences and recall with clarity.”

• Game shows are ultimately flexible. Trainers add their own material into a game show, expound upon answers, add additional information, and change the rules to suit their needs. They’re tools to deliver your content in an engaging way—but you can customize any game show to work the way you’d like them to.
• Using game shows in a training classroom increases content retention. One trainer, who uses game shows, did an independent study to gauge the effectiveness of the game show as a training review tool. They found that when trainees were given an oral review with questions and answers, 54% of the trainees passed a final, job-critical exam. When the same questions and answers were used in a game show format and the trainees played through a game, 88% of the trainees passed the same exam. That’s over 60% more passing scores.

We’ve talked with hundreds of trainers who use game shows every day. No matter what the age range, material, or technical complexity of the training, trainees love that the game shows are fun, and trainers love that the game shows are effective.

Which Game Shows Work Best?

Trainers can really flex their powers of innovation when creating game shows. We’ve seen everything from the very-adaptable TV standards: Jeopardy!, Family Feud, College Bowl, Wheel of Fortune, to the simple-but-flexible format game shows: Tic Tac Toe, Concentration, Beat the Clock, and more modern game show additions such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Different games have different strengths and weaknesses for your training session. While many of the game shows listed above can pull double-duty (having strengths for multiple types of content or questions) we’ve listed only one suggestion for use for each game show mentioned:

• Large quantities of fact-based information (e.g. a product feature quiz) is complimented by a Jeopardy!-style game where trainees can answer multiple choice or short-answer questions quickly.
• Content with multiple answers, or sequences (e.g. laboratory safety procedures) fits well in a Family Feud-style game show where trainees have to uncover multiple steps or answers.
• Complex content with additional information fits well into a College Bowl-style game where you can ask a team follow-up bonus questions.
• Wheel of Fortune-style games are great for fact-based information, but also add a fun element of chance (the spinning of the wheel) that many trainees really enjoy.
• Longer answer or discussion questions work well with Tic Tac Toe-style games, because trainees have a longer period of time to answer, and can be used for demonstration and role play
• Matching product features with benefits, interactions and effects is a perfect match (no pun intended) for a Concentration-style game show.
• Beat the Clock-style game shows allow trainees to act out scenarios and “physical” challenges (e.g. writing an example of a properly-modelled medical document on a flip chart).
• Who Wants to be a Millionaire?-style game shows allow you to structure your content from relatively easy to harder as trainees advance up the game show ladder. Millionaire also allows trainees to answer true/false questions.

We’ve seen trainers use both hand-made paper-and-sticky-pad game shows AND software-based game shows to great success. Personally, we prefer the use of software because you can create multiple games quickly, add multi-media, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to create a game show. However, either method (software or no software) has been equally effective in the classroom.

In order for game shows to be an effective training tool in your classroom, you need to modify them to suit your specific training needs.

Winning With Game Shows

Every training session is different. Trainers may have to train on manufacturing standards, lab safety, administration, product knowledge, FDA standards, or even sales skills on any given day. It makes sense that game shows have to be modified to fit training needs. There are several ways to do this.

First, training game shows should be different from TV game shows:

• Trainers should encourage trainees instead of berating or mocking wrong answers.
• Decrease competition by eliminating (or minimizing) prizes. You want the focus to be on the content, not on who’s winning.
• Put your trainees into teams instead of having them play as individual contestants. People learn best in a collaborative environment, and playing on a team will allow trainees to learn from their peers. Team play also takes the pressure off of shy or nervous trainees that don’t necessarily want to be in front of a group, but still want to play the game.
• Modify the rules. Just because something is a certain way in a TV game show (for example: Jeopardy! contestants must ring in and answer in the form of a question) doesn’t mean that you have to—or that it’s best—to play with those rules. You may want to have people take turns answering questions, or not take away points for wrong answers, etc. Any rule changes that you make should be communicated before the game begins.

The Host with the Most

The trainer makes the game show, because a trainer isn’t just a game show host—they’re also educating the trainees while playing the game. Some things that a trainer should do to increase the effectiveness of the game show:

• Add extra information before and after the questions. You’ve got their attention, now is the perfect time to go into more detail about the answer and the content at hand.
• Explain incorrect answers. Tell your trainees why their answer is incorrect, and what the correct answer is.
• Debrief after the game show. You may find that your trainees didn’t catch a particular concept or group of information. After the game show is a perfect time to reflect on the competition and the information, as well as do a little brush-up review to catch anything that fell through the cracks.
• Involve the entire audience. Everyone should either be on a team or cheering for a team. If you have too many people, or want to do a quick game show, divide the room in half and have a select group answer a question while the rest of their half cheers them on. If your contestants are stumped by a question, you can also throw it out to the audience.

Have fun. A game show is a great opportunity to do something different and exciting in a training session. Most trainers we speak to enjoy the game shows almost as much—if not more—than their trainees because it’s a change of pace from training as usual. The most successful game show users are those that play around with the game show, constantly improve their technique, find out what question and answer format is best for them, and truly enjoy the role of being a host/trainer.

By: Dan Yaman, CEO, and Missy Covington, Communications, of LearningWare Inc. and authors of the book, “I’ll Take Learning for 500: Using Game Shows to Engage, Motivate and Train.”

More Information

LearningWare is the creator of Gameshow Pro, a popular game show template software already in use in over 35,000 corporate, government and school training classrooms. For a complimentary demo of Gameshow Pro, visit www.learningware.com/ngp2. For more information on how to energize your training, contact Training Specialist, Carrie Klauer, at 800-457-5661 extension 245 or carrie@learningware.com. Our book; I’ll Take Learning for 500: Using Game Shows to Engage, Motivate, and Train; is available on Amazon.com and you can find more game show training tips in our monthly Game Show Espresso e-newsletter (email carrie@learningware.com to subscribe today).