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About eLearning
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why do people retain more of what was delivered via eLearning than via classroom?
- Why does the same content take less time to complete when it is eLearning than when it is classroom?
- Are the drop-out rates higher in eLearning than classroom?
- Why do people retain more of what was delivered via eLearning than via classroom? (top)
It's simple: because it was self-paced. Learning is a very fragile, easily disrupted process. In the classroom, an instructor chooses a delivery "pace" often based on information he or she gathered about the class at the beginning of the course. That pace is unlikely to be "just right" for you. Too quick and you miss many points; too slow and you may mentally "wander off". Imagine a classroom with a very small whiteboard and your large notebook. If the information on the whiteboard is frequently erased and overwritten before you were able to "record" it in long-term storage, your notebook, you will have missed that portion of the course content. This is a highly simplified but useful analogy for the human cognitive "architecture". We have very small, volatile short-term memory, and vast, enduring long-term memory. In the learning process, information is assembled in short-term memory, processed in complex ways and effectively transferred into long-term memory. If you control the rate at which the information is delivered such that it is perfect for you, you will miss very little. You simply wouldn't do that to yourself. You will wait until you have understood before moving on and placing new demands on your short-term memory. In (good) eLearning, you choose the pace. Provided you are motivated to learn, you won't move on until you have understood.
- Why does the same content take less time to complete when it is eLearning than when it is classroom? (top)
Adult learners are extremely pragmatic. Given the opportunity to omit material they believe they do not need to learn, they will. Adult learners like to "graze". Provided their judgement is good, this is beneficial in that they make the most economical use of their time that they could. The classroom learner doesn't have this option. They may choose to ignore some content but they can't always leave early as a consequence.
- Are the drop-out rates higher in eLearning than classroom? (top)
There has been a great deal written about this in the past year. We believe it is essentially a measurement error. One cannot measure the drop-out rate for classroom courses by counting the people still sitting in the classroom when the course ends. When they are tired, overloaded, or possibly aware that they don't need to know some of what is being taught, they "drop out" temporarily. If they don't need it, they ignore it: it happens in the classroom just as it does in eLearning. One could hypothesize that if you could measure the total amount of time lost to inattentiveness in the classroom that it would in fact exceed the amount of content "skipped" by the eLearning grazer. Why? Fatigue. Another aspect of "self-paced" is the ability to take a break when you need it and not overload or fatigue yourself.
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