The Ranschburg phenomen (also known as Inhibition by Similarity or Ranschburg inhibition or some other nouns) describes the inhibition of reproduction of learning material when one object of scope is not well differentiated from the others by name, subject or time. This effect was found by Pál Ranschburg, a hungarian Psychologist and Psychiatrist who did mostly experimental work. This inhibition is definitely not a problem of disabilities or intellectual deficit. Unfortunately this problem is not very well known, but after having done some observation of causes for bad learning results we found the Ranschburg effect in about 1/5 or 1/4 of all cases we studied! The main reason is, that many teachers and trainers are not really good in using their language. It is a question of personality as well as of stress, rhetoric training, active set of available vocabulary and some other factors. Teachers who give about 8 or 10 lectures a day have difficulties in finding the right word or synonym to create the required difference.
How do we find this effect? Observe your own work or that of a colleague under the following aspects:
- are explanation in their language profile different enough even if the same thing is explained?
- are explanations given in a way the learners get active help to differentiate exactly between the things they have to learn?
- is the timing constructed in a way that enables students to find a difference by time when learning very similar things?
- are your learning steps too small?
- is there a big picture students can associate details with, to get differentiation from this positioning in the contextual frame?
If one or more questions deliver problems, try some of the following things:
- distribute learning content in another way, try to mix things better thus bring some differences between the facts you teach
- make sure that students with disabilities possibly suffer from effects like Ranschburg effect, that needs to be separated consequently from the effects resulting from their disabilities; thus students suffering from dyslexia normally need little larger distance between similar learning contents because words and sentences are much too similar for them even if they are quite different for a normal student
- make sure to find an optimal size for the teaching chunks you give to the kids; often too small parts are given to avoid problems and not to overburden the students even if they have some disabilities
- don't deal with details too much in one lesson; distribute details of one learning content on different lectures and win many things:
- more attention because students know they will learn the next detail anywhere (growing anticipation in your lectures)
- more fun and satisfaction for your students because they always change between the big picture and the details
- fast and stable learning progress because the students don't get bored, instead have success they are aware of immediately
Finally an example: Don't teach words in one context that are not to be differentiated by the students like where and were or their and there or in Chinese wu and whu or yin and jing. Students will have serious problems in differentiating these words. A Ranschburg inhibition will prevent them from the learning success they want to reach.
