Yes, e-learning does work!
But it depends what you mean by 'work'...
A couple of weeks ago, I was scoping an e-learning project with a new client, when a subject-matter expert asked me: ‘Does e-learning actually work?’
The question came in the middle of a discussion about success metrics for the project, most of which involved progress against gnarly organizational problems.
My response at the time was: ‘Yes, but it depends what you mean by “work”.’ As is my wont, I delivered this response with a knowing glint in my eye. 😉
Before digging into what I meant, I want to take a step back and explore why the SME asked this question in the first place.
The short answer is that most people think e-learning sucks! Not the kind we develop here at Mind Tools, naturally, just the kind every other vendor is peddling. (There’s that glint again 😜)
The other reason the SME asked this question was that, as I mentioned, we were discussing success metrics for the course in the context of long-standing problems within the business.
Given the nature of these problems, the SME was rightly skeptical that a 20-minute e-learning would move the needle.
So, what does the research tell us?
In a 2017 report, examining findings from several meta-analyses on the effectiveness of e-learning, Dr Will Thalheimer concludes:
1. When learning methods are held constant between e-learning and classroom instruction, both produce equal results.
2. When no special efforts are made to hold learning methods constant, e-learning tends to outperform traditional classroom instruction.
3. A great deal of variability is evident in the research. E-learning often produces better results than classroom instruction, often produces worse results, often similar results.
4. What matters, in terms of learning effectiveness, is NOT the learning modality (e-learning vs. classroom); it’s the learning methods that matter, including such factors as realistic practice, spaced repetition, real-world contexts, and feedback.
5. Blended learning (using e-learning with classroom instruction) tends to outperform classroom learning by relatively large magnitudes, probably because the e-learning used in blended learning often uses more effective learning methods.
From these conclusions, we can confidently claim that e-learning ‘works’ as a learning modality.
But I don’t think this is really what the SME was asking. What they really wanted to know was: ‘Can e-learning solve business problems?’
And the answer to that question is more complicated.
This is because learning isn’t the only driver of behavior and performance.
If an employee completes a short e-learning module but there’s no follow-up, no resources to support performance on the job, or no incentives for the employee to apply what they’ve learned, then of course it’s not going to address those thorny organizational issues. And that assumes ‘learning’ was even the root of the problem to begin with.
What I went on to tell the SME was that all learning interventions should be seen as part of a much bigger picture, not as a silver bullet.
We shouldn’t kid ourselves that one e-learning module will cure all that ails our organizations. But we also shouldn’t kick ourselves, or conclude that the e-learning didn’t ‘work’, if everything doesn’t miraculously change overnight.
Interested in working with the Mind Tools Custom Team? Want to share your thoughts on this week’s Dispatch? Then get in touch by emailing custom@mindtools.com or reply to this newsletter from your inbox.
🎧 On the podcast
As Ross G wrote last week, the team here on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast (formerly The GoodPractice Podcast) have now been chatting work, performance and learning for over eight years.
To celebrate the release of our 400th episode, our friends Phil Willcox from Emotion at Work and Ady Howes from Digital Skills People have pulled together a tribute episode for us. We discuss: the Mind Tools team’s favorite episodes; what we learned from 400 episodes of podcasting; what others think of the show.
Check out the episode below. 👇
You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or the podcast page of our website. Want to share your thoughts? Get in touch @RossDickieMT, @RossGarnerMT or #MindToolsPodcast
📖 Deep dive
Since the pandemic, online learning through multimedia instructional videos has continued to shape education.
In a recent study, researchers from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University explore how the presence of an onscreen instructor affect visual attention, neural synchrony, and learning outcomes.
Using fMRI to record brain activity and eye-tracking to measure visual attention, the study presented college students with four video lectures accompanied by a human instructor, an animated instructor, or no onscreen instructor.
The results showed that the presence of an onscreen instructor, whether human or animated, significantly improved students' post-test performance.
Interestingly, students who watched one of the instructor-led videos paid less visual attention to the on-screen slides overall, but their eye movements were also more correlated.
In other words, while the image of the instructor was visually distracting, it helped guide students to relevant information through socio-emotional cues.
Chanyuan Gu et al, 2024. ‘Onscreen presence of instructors in video lectures affects learners' neural synchrony and visual attention during multimedia learning’. PNAS.
👹 Missing links
⌚ The Strange Journey of John Lennon’s Stolen Patek Philippe Watch
To mark John Lennon’s fortieth birthday, Yoko Ono gifted him a Patek Philippe 2499. Following Lennon’s death, the watch was locked away in a room of his apartment in New York’s Dakota building, where it remained until 2005, when it was apparently stolen. From there, it moved around Europe and two prominent auction houses, before becoming the subject of a lawsuit to determine its rightful owner - Ono, or a mysterious ‘Mr A’.
📖 10 Insights from Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn
In this newsletter and on the The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, we’ve often referenced Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn. The book has had a significant influence on our approach to learning design, and it’s assigned reading for anyone who joins our team. While I’d strongly encourage you to read it for yourself, our former colleague David Sharkey has created an infographic capturing ten key insights from the book.
🧟 The owner of Toys ‘R’ Us just used OpenAI’s Sora to animate the zombie brand
Last week, WHP Global - the company that owns and licences the Toys ‘R’ Us brand - released a commercial that many news outlets described as the first ad to be created with OpenAI’s ‘Sora’. But according to the agency that produced the video, the AI tool only got them ‘80-85% of the way there… saved some time, took more in other ways’. Most interestingly to me, the series of X posts where these claims were originally made has now been deleted. While there are obvious incentives for pretending AI work is human work, are there also incentives to pretend that human work is AI work?
👋 And finally…
With Wimbledon starting this week, tradition dictates that I must once again roll out a reminder of Andy Murray’s triumph in 2013. Sport will never matter more to me than it did on this day.
👍 Thanks!
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