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Perhaps the most crucial type of content you’ll ever encounter is information you have to learn in order to do your job, get a promotion, or to maintain or upgrade a professional certification. If that content isn’t clear and effective, you’re in trouble.

Self-paced, technology-based training (automated courses housed on the Web, a CD-ROM, or an intranet) has become quite popular with companies and other organizations. In these courses, learners are on their own – they do not interact with an instructor or a group of learners. This option offers learners greater flexibility (including just-in-time knowledge and the ability to repeat sections at will). However, these courses must be designed with extreme care since they must function completely on their own.

From the user’s perspective, how well do automated courses really work? In particular, what makes them succeed? What features should you look for if you’re selecting such a course?…

Dr. Jackie Dobrovolny of the Univ. of Colorado (Denver) has studied these issues in detail. She conducted a research study with employees from several large international corporations.

Her findings are must-read material for anyone who designs, selects, or evaluates computer-based, self-paced courses. Also, if you’re considering shelling out some of your hard-earned money to take an automated course, you might want to ask about specific course features before you pay.

Dobrovolny recently published an excellent three-part series about the lessons learned from her research in Learning Circuits (the magazine of the American Society for Training & Development, ASTD):

1. A Model for Self-Paced Technology-Based Training, Sept. 2003
2. Learning Strategies, Oct. 2003
3. Effective – and Ineffective – Instructional Strategies, Jan. 2004

Parts of these articles are written in a rather thick academic style, but don’t let that put you off. This is really good, useful stuff.

If you’re not familiar with the jargon of instructional design, a useful term to understand before delving into these articles is metacognition: “A person’s reflection on his or her own thinking processes. By using metacognitive skills, readers are able to reflect on their own reading processes, for example, whether or not they understand what they read.” (According to this glossary.) Dobrovolny also notes, A quintessential metacognitive statement is, “I got it!” or its converse, “I’m lost.”

WHAT WORKS

Here is Dobrovolny’s checklist of desireable strategies in self-paced, technology-based training (which appears at the end of her third article):

• Frequent opportunities for learners to self-assess and self-correct
• Table of contents, searchable index, site or content map, section summaries, headings, search capabilities, and a glossary so learners can use the course both as a training intervention and as a job aid, reference, or EPSS (electronic performance support system)
• Print features so learners can make paper copies of some or all of the course
• Numerous and relevant examples
• Reflection questions to help learners create personal relevancy
• Definitions of all acronyms and technical terminology
• An advance organizer that addresses both the big picture of the content and the structure of the course
• Support for the preferred learning strategies typically used by the target audience
• Clearly defined course goals or objectives in both the course description and at the beginning of the course
• Rhetorical questions that ask learners to think about the implications or consequences of the course content and examples of how they might use the content on the job
• Different approaches to a process or different opinions about a topic
• Visual aids that show how all of the pieces of the content fit together to create a whole. Use this visual as part of section and course summaries, a printable job aid, and practice exercises.
• Recommendations to learners that they discuss the course content with anyone who will listen to them. It’s particularly important for learners to discuss the course with their supervisors both before and after they take a self-paced, technology-based course.

SOME DISCUSSION: What E-Learning Is, and Isn’t

Dobrovolny’s articles led to a interesting discussion on the Learning Circuits weblog (a great place to keep up on and discuss a wide range of learning/training issues). Check out this thread: Novel Definition of eLearning.