Does anyone know of academic research that demonstrates that repeated follow up makes training stick?

There is indeed research showing that some followup does increase the likelihood of some training retention. I emphasize "SOME" because there is no research that shows that repeating (or doing followup) increases the likelihood of success of most training. That's because you need to be sure that the training is indeed an appropriate fix, that the circumstances support it, and that a significant reason for the failure of the initial training is a lack of repetition.

To use analogy, it's like asking the question: "is there research that shows that if I remind you how harmful cigarettes are, that you'll quit smoking?" There is research that shows that such messages do work for some people (and not for others) so it's highly situation and not something you can generalize across all training and all populations.

Mary Broad's book (Transfer of Training) has more details on this.

One can almost always find scholarly research (and not-so-scholarly research) to support all kinds of hypotheses. I think an important question to ask, though, is whether one's hypothesis is complete.

Sure - follow-up is one of many things that can be a factor in what helps someone retain and use what he/she learned...but ultimately, there are far more powerful, more important aspects of the design and facilitation of learning that address the stickiness of training. Follow-up is about management and coaching. If you want to talk about making training stick, you'll want to focus on who is designing, developing and facilitating it and how they are doing that. I mean to say - if you're specifically interested in improving the training itself, then follow-up is not the factor you want to look at.

Just my two cents. I hope I've given you some things to think about.

Stephen,

This might help:

http://www.2020insight.net/Doc...0710-READ%20ONLY.PDF

I believe the Ebbinghaus Effect is the most commonly used example of this type of research. His most famous 'discovery' was referred to as the learning curve and is pretty well known now.

You can find out more about him and his research here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Ebbinghaus