(from P.A.Wozniak, Economics of Learning)
One of the most fundamental principles in minimizing the complexity of synaptic patterns is to consequently avoid enumerations. Enumerations, especially with respect to sets as opposed to ordered lists, can be shown to result in an ambiguous impact on generating synaptic patterns. This can be observed even at the behavioral level, when at producing the response, the student is likely to stray with his or her thoughts, often producing the elements of the set in different order at each particular repetition. As mentioned earlier, variable synaptic stimulation at repetitions is likely to greatly reduce the effectiveness of memory consolidation; the net result being higher A-factor.
In can be shown that luxury products, novel products or products that have good substitutes show highly negative price elasticity of demand, while the demand for basic necessities or durable goods is rather inelastic. This important observation is an excellent example of knowledge that might most conveniently be represented as an enumeration: "What exemplary goods show highly negative price elasticity?". Naturally, unless combined with some mnemonic way of remembering, the enumeration is bound to cause persistent recall problems. The simplest workaround here is to formulate a collection of questions according to the following pattern:
Q: What is the price elasticity of demand for basic necessities?
A: inelastic demand
Q: What is the price elasticity of demand for novel products?
A: elastic demand
The main difference between the semantic memory image of the proposed collection of questions and the relevant enumeration is the student’s inability to recall all, or even a proportion of goods with elastic, or inelastic demand. However, the analytically more useful understanding of the factors that influence the value of price elasticity of demand is even better served. A partial solution to the noticed shortcoming, which does not bear the negatives of an enumeration might be:
Q: What exemplary goods show inelastic price demand (recall at least two)?
A: basic necessities, durable products, saturative goods, unique products, etc.
The remark in the parentheses plays an important role in ensuring that the student does not treat the above item as an enumeration, and that it clearly specifies the satisfactory degree of recall that can be used to decide when and when not to provide a passing grade.
Another approach can be taken in extending the definition of production discussed earlier and considering various kinds of resource inputs. These can most generally be: raw materials, labor, capital, land and managerial skills. An enumeration of exemplary raw materials might be reversed to a definition of raw materials through an enumerative example:
Q: What is the name of resource inputs such as coal, steel, water, etc.
A: raw materials
Finally, the most universal solution to enumerations are Cloze deletions. For example, instead of asking the student to recall different kinds of production such as unique product production, rigid mass production, flexible mass production and flow production, one might construct a series of Cloze deletion items in the following form:
Q: The types of production are:
- unique-product production (e.g. an office building)
- rigid mass production (e.g. old Ford's cars)
- ... (e.g. new GM cars)
- flow production (e.g. oil refinery)A: flexible mass production
The above approach is universal and, in most cases, highly effective in dispensing with the enumeration problem.