---
title: "Desirable Difficulties: How to Use Them in Workplace Training"
description: "Desirable difficulties explained: which techniques work, when challenge backfires, and how to apply them to workplace capability and operational judgment."
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# Desirable Difficulties: How to Use Them in Workplace Training

[Mark Ondash CPTD® MPC™](https://cognistry.co/edge/author/mark-ondash-cptd-mpc)

 Nov 3, 2026, 2:06:27 PM ·  24 min read

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#### About the Author

[Mark Ondash CPTD® MPC™](https://cognistry.co/edge/author/mark-ondash-cptd-mpc) mark.ondash@digitalcommand.co

Mark Ondash, CPTD |MPC | is a co-founder of Cognistry. His work focuses on helping organizations overcome Data Drag and build decision capability in the AI economy through simulation-based capability development

[View all posts](https://cognistry.co/edge/author/mark-ondash-cptd-mpc)

Desirable difficulties are learning conditions that feel harder and slower during practice but produce stronger recall and transfer later. The term comes from cognitive psychologist Robert Bjork, who describes [conditions that may slow acquisition while enhancing post-instruction recall and transfer](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/07/RBjork_inpress.pdf). Spacing, interleaving, varied practice and testing are the best-known examples. The word that matters is “desirable.” Make training harder for its own sake and you only make it worse.

For anyone in enablement, there is a second question that comes before technique. Before you build that course, ask whether learning is the right response at all, and what capability the work actually requires. Difficulty design is powerful, but only once that diagnosis is done.

## TL;DR

- Desirable difficulties slow practice on purpose so that learning lasts and transfers: spacing, interleaving, varied practice, retrieval and generation.
- A difficulty is desirable only when learners have the background to respond to it. Otherwise it becomes noise, and cognitive load does the damage.
- Feeling hard is not proof of benefit. Judge a design by delayed performance and by what happens on the job, not by how much effort learners report.
- At work, transfer depends on the environment as much as the person: peer support, manager reinforcement and realistic practice conditions.
- Diagnose the capability gap first. Then decide whether a learning enablement play is warranted and where difficulty belongs inside it.

## Table of Contents

- [What desirable difficulties actually are](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#what-desirable-difficulties-actually-are)
- [The techniques that create desirable difficulties](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#the-techniques-that-create-desirable-difficulties)
- [When a difficulty stops being desirable](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#when-a-difficulty-stops-being-desirable)
- [Before you build that course: diagnose the work](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#before-you-build-that-course-diagnose-the-work)
- [Designing difficulty for judgment, not recall](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#designing-difficulty-for-judgment-not-recall)
- [Why the workplace changes the answer](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#why-the-workplace-changes-the-answer)
- [Measuring whether the difficulty paid off](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#measuring-whether-the-difficulty-paid-off)
- [How Cognistry fits](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#how-cognistry-fits)
- [A short checklist for your next program](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#a-short-checklist-for-your-next-program)
- [FAQ](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#faq)
- [Sources](https://cognistry.co/edge/desirable-difficulties#sources)

Cognistry

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Cognistry diagnoses the capability work requires, grounds design in organizational evidence, and measures outcomes back to the business.

[Explore Cognistry](https://cognistry.co/)What desirable difficulties actually are

Bjork’s central argument is that instruction should aim for durable and flexible access to what people learn, not for fast performance during practice. Those two goals often pull in opposite directions. Conditions that make practice smooth, such as repeating one task block after block, tend to produce quick gains and an [illusion of learning](https://www.unh.edu/teaching-learning-resource-hub/sites/default/files/media/2023-06/itow-introducing-desirable-difficulties-into-practice-and-instruction-bjork-and-bjork.pdf) that often fails to hold up on delayed retention and transfer.

That gap explains why so much corporate training looks successful on the day. Completion is high, quiz scores are good, and satisfaction surveys are warm. Two weeks later, people cannot do the thing on the job. The training was easy, and the ease was the problem.

Researchers also note why good strategies stay unused. Carpenter, Pan and Butler argue that effective strategies are [underused because of false beliefs, lack of awareness, or their counterintuitive nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-022-00089-1). Learners and designers both prefer what feels fluent. Difficulty feels like failure, so it gets designed out.

## The techniques that create desirable difficulties

Bjork’s list includes [spacing rather than massing, interleaving rather than blocking, varying how material is presented, using tests rather than presentations as learning events, and generation practice](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/07/RBjork_inpress.pdf). A tutorial review of the science of learning by Weinstein, Madan and Sumeracki lands in the same place, identifying [spaced practice, interleaving, retrieval practice, elaboration, concrete examples and dual coding](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5780548/) as strategies with robust support.

Here is how each looks when translated to a workplace setting.

| Technique | What it means | Workplace form |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Spacing | Spread the same practice over time instead of one session | Short practice moments over weeks, not a single workshop day |
| Interleaving | Mix problem types instead of blocking one at a time | Scenario sets that jumble escalation, pricing, compliance and handoff cases |
| Varied practice | Change the conditions and presentation | The same decision in different customers, systems and time pressures |
| Retrieval practice | Use tests as learning events | Low-stakes recall of a procedure or rationale before seeing the answer |
| Generation | Have people produce an answer before being told | Ask for the next step or the decision before showing the model response |
| Intermittent feedback | Delay or thin out feedback | Feedback after a set of decisions, not after every click |

Two of these deserve more detail because they matter most for operational roles.

### Spacing

The same review reports that [spacing the same amount of practice over time produces better long-term retention than massing it in one session](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5780548/). For an enterprise, this changes the shape of a program. A one-day launch event becomes a short sequence of practice moments across weeks. We describe one way to structure that in our [6 to 12 week spaced repetition pilot](https://cognistry.co/edge/spaced-repetition-training), which begins after a capability diagnosis rather than before it.

### Interleaving

Interleaving means mixing ideas or problem types rather than practicing one at a time. In mathematics studies cited in that review, it [improved delayed performance and helped learners choose the right method for a problem](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5780548/). That second benefit is the one operations leaders should notice. Much of real work is not executing a known procedure. It is recognizing which situation you are in. Blocked practice never trains that recognition, because the lesson title already tells you the answer.

## When a difficulty stops being desirable

This is where most articles on the topic stop too early. Bjork and Bjork put it plainly: a difficulty is desirable when it triggers encoding or retrieval processes that support learning, and it [becomes undesirable if learners lack the background knowledge or skills to respond successfully](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf). A scenario that asks a new hire to resolve a conflict between two policies they have never read is not productive struggle. It is a guess.

![New hire weighs two unfamiliar policy manuals](https://media.babylovegrowth.ai/blog-images/organization-48833/1793513436264_New-hire-weighs-two-unfamiliar-policy-manuals.jpeg)

There is a cognitive load argument too. A 2018 review by Chen, Castro-Alonso, Paas and Sweller found that testing, generation and varied practice [do not always produce the expected benefits](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01483/full), and that when material already has high element interactivity, added difficulty can push working memory past its limit. Complex, tightly interconnected content needs support first.

A 2024 comparative analysis by Pyke, Lunau and Javadi reaches a similar conclusion: productive difficulty [requires a balance between challenge and achievability](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12432286/), and prior knowledge, individual differences, corrective feedback and cognitive load decide whether a challenge helps or overwhelms.

And a 2026 review by Binks reports robust support for formative testing, mixed practice, distributed practice and productive failure, while cautioning that [perceived difficulty or disfluency alone is not evidence of educational benefit](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41508718/). Slow, clunky, frustrating training is not rigorous training.

A practical test before you add any difficulty:

1. **Can the learner respond at all?** If they lack the base knowledge, teach it first.
2. **Does the difficulty force the thinking the job requires?** If it only adds friction, cut it.
3. **Is feedback coming?** Struggle without correction cements errors.
4. **Is the material already heavy?** Reduce load before adding challenge.

## Before you build that course: diagnose the work

Desirable difficulties are a design tool. They tell you how to structure practice once you have decided that practice is what is needed. They do not tell you whether it is.

Most teams that search for techniques like these are about to build something. A course, a refresher, a certification path. Our view is that the build decision comes too early. Poor performance on the job has many causes: unclear priorities, broken tooling, conflicting incentives, missing decision rights, weak feedback from managers. Some are about people. Many are about the environment. Spacing and interleaving will not fix a process that punishes the correct decision.

So the sequence matters:

1. **Diagnose what capability the work requires.** Look at strategy, frontline friction, quality findings and what your subject-matter experts actually do differently.
2. **Decide whether learning is the right response.** Sometimes the right enablement play is a change to a workflow, a tool or a policy.
3. **If learning is warranted, design the practice.** This is where desirable difficulties earn their place.
4. **Measure back to the business,** not to completion.

We lay out the diagnostic habit in [five diagnostic questions L&D should ask about a learning experience](https://cognistry.co/edge/learning-experience), and the build-after-diagnosis logic in our piece on [course authoring for L&D](https://cognistry.co/edge/course-authoring).

## Designing difficulty for judgment, not recall

Most quizzes test whether someone remembers a fact. Operational judgment is different: choosing between imperfect options under time pressure with incomplete information. The same techniques apply, but the target changes.

Kraiger and Ford’s review of workplace instruction links instructional events to transfer and job performance [through learner events and learning outcomes](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-060109). In plain terms: what people do during training has to resemble what you need them to do later. Berkeley Lab’s workplace training guide recommends [repeated practice, simulation, work-relevant problems, reasoned feedback, and practice contexts that resemble the eventual performance context](https://training.lbl.gov/Resources/BLTWhitePaper.pdf), and notes that on-the-job practice keeps building skill after formal training ends.

Put that together with the techniques and you get patterns like these:

- **Decision sets instead of modules.** Present a mixed run of cases, such as a late shipment, a pricing exception and a data-quality flag, and ask the learner to choose and justify before seeing any guidance. That is generation and interleaving in one move.
- **Varied conditions.** Run the same decision type with different constraints: a rushed queue, a missing approval, a conflicting instruction from two leaders.
- **Delayed, reasoned feedback.** Explain why an option was better, in terms of your organization’s own standards and the consequences seen in your own quality findings.
- **Spaced return.** Bring back the hardest decisions a week or two later, in a new context.
- **Retrieval before reference.** Ask people to recall the rule or rationale before they open the job aid.

This is the territory where practice simulations and decision environments do their best work, because they can hold realistic context constant while varying everything else. If you are shaping a path across roles, our guide to [designing learning pathways that build real capability](https://cognistry.co/edge/learning-pathways-design) covers how to sequence it.

A caution about novices. Interleaved, generative practice assumes a foundation. Give brand-new learners worked examples and guided steps first, then fade the support. Difficulty is a dial you turn up as capability grows, and the right setting differs by role and by task.

## Why the workplace changes the answer

Lab studies mostly happen with students and word lists. Your people are in a live system with managers, queues, targets and habits. That system decides whether anything learned gets used.

Blume, Ford, Baldwin and Huang’s meta-analysis of 89 empirical studies found that [transfer relates positively to cognitive ability, conscientiousness, motivation and a supportive work environment](https://jasonhuangatwork.com/papers/Blume%20Ford%20Baldwin%20Huang%202010%20JOM%20-%20Transfer%20Meta.pdf), and that the relationships vary with training objectives and how transfer is measured. A corporate field study reported larger performance improvement after training where [workplace climate was favorable and peer support was stronger](https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=bus_facpub&httpsredir=1), with peer support showing the larger effect (η² = 0.25 against 0.02 for climate). A literature review on soft-skills training likewise groups the influences into [job-related factors, social support and organizational facilitation](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1747938X18302021).

The design lesson: if a technique produces better encoding but the team lead punishes the new approach, you will not see the benefit. Build the reinforcement into the plan. Brief managers, give peers a shared language for the decisions, and remove environmental blockers that the diagnosis surfaced.

## Measuring whether the difficulty paid off

Because difficulty lowers performance during practice, early scores can look worse. That is expected, and it is also why measuring only completion or end-of-module scores misleads. Look instead at:

- **Delayed performance.** Re-check the same decisions after a gap of weeks, not minutes.
- **Transfer.** Look for the behavior in work products, quality findings and observed decisions, not in the course.
- **Business measures the diagnosis named.** Rework, escalations, cycle time, error types. Pick them before the program starts.
- **Qualitative follow-up.** Numbers alone can mislead. A study of a U.S.-based airline found that [quantitative peer assessments alone did not accurately capture tacit knowledge transfer or behavior change](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7645890/), with observer and peer ratings differing and qualitative follow-up needed.

No technique guarantees an outcome, and we would be wary of anyone who promises one. What you can do is set the measures at the start and read the results honestly.

> ## Our perspective
> 
> We see the same pattern across enterprises. A team learns that spacing and retrieval work, so it asks for a better course. Six weeks later the course ships, and the on-the-job problem is still there. The technique was fine. The starting point was wrong.
> 
> Desirable difficulties answer “how should practice be structured?” They cannot answer “what capability does this work require?” or “is learning even the right response?” Those questions come first, and they are answered from your own source material: strategy, frontline friction, quality findings and what your experts know. Sometimes the answer is a workflow change, and no amount of well-spaced practice would have fixed it.
> 
> When learning is the answer, we want difficulty aimed at judgment. Mixed cases. Varied conditions. Decisions made before guidance appears. Practice that looks like the job, measured against the business problem the diagnosis named. Not completion. Not recall. Capability.
> 
> That is the shift we help organizations make: diagnose. Decide. Then build.

## How Cognistry fits

Cognistry is a capability engineering platform: diagnosis, evidence and assurance for enterprise enablement. It starts by working out what capability the work requires and whether learning is the right response, grounded in your own organizational material. From there it structures the response, including courses, practice simulations and decision environments built to develop operational judgment, and links outcomes back to the business.

If you already know learning is needed and want to see how decision practice works, look at [Sim](https://cognistry.co/sim). To see how the diagnosis step works, start with [Signal](https://cognistry.co/signal). The whole system is on the [Cognistry Platform](https://cognistry.co/platform) page.

![Cognistry](https://csuxjmfbwmkxiegfpljm.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/blog-images/organization-48833/1785714030894_cognistry.jpg)

We are not a slide authoring tool or an AI course generator, and we are not an LMS. If your team is weighing those categories, our pieces on [why a learning design tool does not build capability](https://cognistry.co/edge/why-your-learning-design-tool-doesnt-build-capability) and [AI course creators versus capability systems](https://cognistry.co/edge/ai-course-creator-vs-capability-systems) explain the difference.

## A short checklist for your next program

1. Name the business problem and the capability the work requires, using your own quality and frontline data.
2. Rule out environment causes: tools, process, incentives, decision rights.
3. Confirm learners have the prerequisite knowledge. If not, support first.
4. Choose the difficulty that matches the task: interleave mixed cases for recognition, vary conditions for flexibility, generate before guidance for decisions.
5. Space the practice over weeks and bring hard cases back.
6. Give reasoned feedback tied to your own standards.
7. Brief managers and peers so the workplace reinforces the behavior.
8. Measure delayed performance and business measures, with qualitative follow-up.

## FAQ

### What is an example of a desirable difficulty?

Spacing is the simplest. Practicing the same material across several short sessions feels less productive than one long session, yet [spaced practice produces better long-term retention](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5780548/) for the same total time. Retrieval practice, where you try to recall before looking, is another common one.

### Who coined the term desirable difficulties?

Robert Bjork introduced it in 1994. Bjork and his collaborators have since refined it in work on [spacing, interleaving, varied presentation, intermittent feedback and tests as learning events](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/07/RBjork_inpress.pdf). It is a framework for learning conditions, not a general call for harder training.

### How do I know if a difficulty is too hard?

Check whether learners have the background to respond. If they lack the knowledge or skills, the difficulty is [undesirable](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf). Signs include random guessing, rising errors without improvement after feedback, and high frustration. Add worked examples or guidance, then raise the challenge as people improve.

### Do desirable difficulties work for workplace training?

The techniques have been applied to professional learning, for example in a [medical education review](https://asmepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/medu.14916) that covers retrieval, spacing and interleaving. At work, results also depend on the environment, since supportive climates and peers influence whether learning transfers. Treat the techniques as one part of a wider plan.

### Should we add difficulty to every course?

No. First decide whether training is the right response to the problem. If it is, add difficulty where the job requires judgment and where learners are ready for it. For routine, high-load or brand-new material, reduce load and support first.

## Sources

- [Desirable Difficulties Perspective on Learning (Bjork, 2016)](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/07/RBjork_inpress.pdf)
- [Bjork and Bjork, 2011 chapter on desirable difficulties](https://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2016/04/EBjork_RBjork_2011.pdf)
- [Introducing Desirable Difficulties Into Practice and Instruction (Bjork and Bjork, 2023)](https://www.unh.edu/teaching-learning-resource-hub/sites/default/files/media/2023-06/itow-introducing-desirable-difficulties-into-practice-and-instruction-bjork-and-bjork.pdf)
- [The science of effective learning with spacing and retrieval practice (Carpenter, Pan and Butler, 2022)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-022-00089-1)
- [Teaching the science of learning (Weinstein, Madan and Sumeracki, 2018)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5780548/)
- [Undesirable Difficulty Effects in the Learning Process (Chen et al., 2018)](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01483/full)
- [Does difficulty moderate learning? (Pyke, Lunau and Javadi, 2024)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12432286/)
- [Why Desirable Difficulties Work: A Review of the Evidence (Binks, 2026)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41508718/)
- [Desirable Difficulty: Theory and application of intentionally challenging learning (Nelson and Eliasz)](https://asmepublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/medu.14916)
- [The Science of Workplace Instruction (Kraiger and Ford, 2021)](https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-060109)
- [Berkeley Lab Training white paper](https://training.lbl.gov/Resources/BLTWhitePaper.pdf)
- [Transfer of Training: A Meta-Analytic Review (Blume et al., 2010)](https://jasonhuangatwork.com/papers/Blume%20Ford%20Baldwin%20Huang%202010%20JOM%20-%20Transfer%20Meta.pdf)
- [Corporate field study on training transfer, workplace climate and peer support (2010)](https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=bus_facpub&httpsredir=1)
- [Work factors influencing the transfer stages of soft skills training (2018)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1747938X18302021)
- [Tacit knowledge transfer in training and the inherent challenges of measurement (2020)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7645890/)

## Recommended

- [Scenario-Based Training: L&D Design and Implementation Guide](https://cognistry.co/edge/scenario-based-training)
- [HR & L&D: Diagnose First to Cut Time to Proficiency, Not Courses](https://cognistry.co/edge/time-to-proficiency)
- [Start With Evidence: Deliberate Practice Training for Clinicians, L&D](https://cognistry.co/edge/deliberate-practice-training)
- [Diagnose in One Week: L&D and Operations Fix Environment Before Training](https://cognistry.co/edge/we-know-what-to-do-but-it-isnt-happening)

[Develop People](https://cognistry.co/edge/tag/develop-people)

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```