What eLearning users expect

Share this post:

I blogged earlier this year about expectations from learners around eLearning. At that time I presented a preview of a larger piece of research. I still think it is impressive to see that learners want to spend up to an hour on learning. In this blog I will be providing more information on this research.

What learners expect

In summary, there are five different areas of expectations. First of all the length, users expect learning to range from 15 minutes to 1 hour.

The second is that learning should be easily available when it is needed. Learners expect learning upfront for topics they need to understand separate from using a product. But what is needed while using a product should be ad-hoc and immediate.

In addition to this, there is a request for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to personalize the experience. Learners are keen to have recommendations based on the usage of others. This reminds me of how we all use navigation systems to provide us with online data about other drivers. They do nothing other than tell us how others are driving at the moment and where there are traffic jams. Why can’t eLearning do the same?

Furthermore, learners would also love to have their experience matched to their experience. This is of course more complex than the simple idea of “tell me what others learned”, but most reading apps today are able to tell me what I should read based on my reading history. This may not be perfect, but why should eLearning not be at least similarly intelligent? And imagine profiles of users could add to this experience.

And last but not least users of eLearning also ask for a link between industry and academia. There is a clear request to receive academic credits based on industry learning. This finding confirms all the pilot projects and local implementations which have been performed by  industries and the academic world but it also requests this to be more generic.

Outlook

Want to learn more? Access the full research here (if you can’t access it please message me).