While I love more complex branching scenarios, a lot of what I create for clients is actually one-question mini scenarios. Mini scenarios are versatile and easy to build in any tool that can handle multiple choice questions. For topics like soft skills or communication training, I can generally come up with plausible distractors (i.e., the wrong answers) that are partially correct. Soft skills tend to have more gray area where you have numerous potential ways to say something. You can create distractors that sound plausible and aren’t obviously wrong, but aren’t the ideal or best answer.
But what about compliance training? In compliance training, there often isn’t gray area. Actions either follow the policy or the law, or they don’t. In that kind of training, the distractors often feel obvious. You have a yes or no question, and that’s it. So how do you make plausible distractors where the choices challenging enough to make people think?
Reader question on policy training
This post was inspired by a question I received from Heather Vogt of Action First Learning about writing mini scenarios for policy training.
I’m struggling with helping my SME’s assemble thought-provoking, “difficult” scenarios. My SME’s are really engaged and excited, so that’s not my problem; instead, the topic (Social Media Policy) is, frankly, very black and white – Don’t post things that give you pause. Here’s an example scenario they gave me:
“You’re wrapping up a meeting and decide to take a fun selfie with a colleague to post on Instagram. Just as you’re about to hit ‘Share,’ something catches your eye – a whiteboard behind you filled with notes. You don’t know what the notes are in reference to but doubt anyone would leave notes on a confidential project. What do you do?”
“a. Move to a neutral background, ensure no internal or confidential material is visible, then take the photo.”“b. Post the original selfie without worrying about the potentially sensitive information in the background. If someone else thought it was safe to leave in shared space, it can’t be that big of a deal.”
See what I mean? It’s obvious which one is correct; you don’t even need to think about it that much! There’s no gray area here…
While I do plan on tweaking the scenario to make it less obvious – maybe have AI create an image for me that has the notes in the background and asking, “You’re wrapping up a meeting and decide to take a fun selfie with a colleague to post on Instagram. Does this one work?” But even that would just be “Yes” or “No”.
And all the scenarios are like this – decent that back up to the policy and are realistic but lack the “oomph” of a thought-provoking, decision-driven scenario.
This was such a great question because I think this sort of problem comes up for a lot of compliance training. It’s a lot of “yes or no” related to policies or requirements, and there isn’t a lot of nuance.
Include the rationale to make yes/no questions require more thought
Part of the problem with a yes/no question is that it’s easy to guess. Even if the choices are well written and you have no idea about the topic, you can get it right about half the time. You might also get the answer right but not really understand why that’s the correct choice.
One strategy for writing better distractors for these yes/no mini scenarios is adding the rationale behind it.
In the example of the selfie with the whiteboard in the background, you could show an image like the one above. Then, you could write a question and choices like this:
You’re wrapping up a meeting and decide to take a quick selfie for Instragram. Should you post this image?
Yes, this provides a personal, informal look at our company and work environment.Yes, sharing selfies with coworkers is encouraged to build team culture.No, something in this image is inappropriate to share.No, sharing selfies is considered unprofessional.
This is still a yes or no question, but it’s much harder to guess. You have to have at least some understanding of the policy to recognize what’s wrong.
In this example, I wouldn’t say “there’s confidential information on the whiteboard” in the choice; I think it would be too obvious. But if someone notices that in the background of an image, they’ll know to pick C. In the feedback for this mini scenario, i, you can point out the text on the whiteboard.
This question still might be too easy; choice C is a hint to look at the image and background more closely. However, I would probably consider getting people to look more closely as a positive, especially for a practice activity.
For training on social media policy, you could create a series of mini scenarios with images or sample posts. Then, participants would decide if they’re appropriate or not. You could do a series of different posts, some that do meet the policies and some that don’t. Having some correct images and posts mixed in would increase the difficulty and require people to think.
Your ideas for plausible distractors?
What ideas do you have for writing plausible distractors? Tell me what has worked for you in the comments.
More on mini scenarios
Check out some of my other posts on mini scenarios.
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