After studying psychology at East China Normal University, I taught psychology and mathematics for four years. Students could follow a lesson and still struggle to apply it in a different situation.
At first I worked on explaining things more clearly. I gradually paid more attention to the cues in a task, time pressure, and feedback after a mistake.
The same question appeared in research
A participant could describe a function yet fail to find it during a task. Someone could know an instruction mattered and still miss it in use. Their account alone did not show where the difficulty occurred.
I like to watch the sequence: what they encountered, what they did, what feedback they received, and what happened next. I try to establish that before explaining why.
It changed what I look for in a handover
A clear report, training session, or tool still needs someone to use it. Can the next person start? Do they know what to do with an exception? Where do they still need an explanation?
Teaching did not supply an answer for every industry. It left me with a question: after someone says they understand, what actually happens?