Learning & Development is a vocabulary unit before it is anything else. The BASK gives four key-concept lists, and almost every miss here is putting a real term in the wrong list.
The definition
- The BASK defines Learning & Development as activities aimed at enhancing the KSAOs and competencies of the workforce to meet the organization's current and future business needs.
- The near-miss definitions are all real BASK definitions from neighbouring areas: retaining talent and solidifying the employee-organization relationship is Employee Engagement & Retention; developing, implementing, managing and evaluating strategic direction is HR Strategy; designing compensation systems and benefit packages is Total Rewards.
The four lists
- Needs analysis types: person, organization, training, cost-benefit. Four types, and only these four.
- Instructional design models: ADDIE, the successive approximation model (SAM), action mapping, Bloom's taxonomy, generative AI and other technological tools.
- Adult learning theories: the learning everywhere model, VAK learning styles, the 70-20-10 model.
- Goal-setting best practices: individual development plans, SMART goals.
The acronyms, in BASK wording
- ADDIE = analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation. Not assessment, not delivery, not integration, and the middle phases are not reordered.
- SMART = specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based. The BASK does not use strategic, aligned, realistic, agreed or time-bound.
The traps
- Bloom's taxonomy is an instructional design model, not a needs analysis type and not an adult learning theory.
- 70-20-10 and VAK are adult learning theories, not design models.
- The BASK never names Knowles or andragogy. A full-text search returns nothing. Andragogy is the most tempting wrong answer in the adult learning item precisely because it is the best-known label outside the BASK.
Carry this in: when a choice pairs a real term with a list, check the list, not the term.