This article focuses on informal learning and its implications for instructional design and performance improvement. The authors begin by sharing a story of how a novice instructional designer employs informal learning strategies in her professional and personal life. Next, they offer a definition of informal learning that encompasses both…

The primary finding of this study was that performance increments found with whole presentations of instructional objectives could be achieved with part presentation of objectives and text. In fact, the part presentations resulted in ever greater intentional learning than whole presentations. (Author/BJG)

Examination was made of subject-generated as compared to experimenter-provided underlining of sentences that were least or most important to the overall structure of the passage presented. Additionally, some readers were instructed to underline any one sentence per paragraph, while others were asked simply to read the passage. (Author/BJG)

When 40 organically mentally retarded, 33 familial retarded, and 35 nonretarded school-age children were compared on 2 tasks of intentional memory, with mental age being covaried, the nonretarded children performed best, followed by the familial group. The 3 groups did not differ on a task of incidental learning. (Author/JDD)

Experiment was an attempt to explore the use of instructional objectives as directions that describe the relevant instructional content in written discourse to subjects. (Authors)