Is Your E-learning Course Effective?

Learning experience design is important, but it’s not the final goal of e-learning.

You developed your e-learning course for months before you published it.

It has great interactivity, dazzling graphics, and stunning animations.

You pushed the limits on all the design work, teaching yourself a few new tricks along the way.

The course survey is full of glowing praise, such as “I learned a lot” and “so engaging.”

Overall, you’d say it’s a great course.

But is it an effective course?

Is it “successful in producing a desired or intended result”?

If so:

Can you clearly state what that desired or intended result is?

Can you pinpoint why that result was desired or intended in the first place?

Can you explain how you determined that result came to pass?

All right, enough with the interrogation.

Lighten up a little, will you?

Sure, I’ll lighten up, but we’re talking about business.

And every business is in the same business, which is the business of making more money.

And businesses make more money by either increasing revenue or reducing costs.

Ultimately, these are the two categories of results your e-learning course should produce.

And while there are numerous intermediate results you may target, it should be clear how those intermediate results will lead to increased revenue or reduced costs.

I used to be an idealist, an educator who refused to buy into such a heartless, soulless, money-driven, corporate motive as maximizing profits.

Worse, I somehow believed that educators should do what they do for the pure joy of helping others improve their lives.

I even thought that one of the main reasons people wanted to learn is for the sake of learning itself.

It only took me a couple of decades to see the picture differently.

It happened when I realized that I’d always been paid for most of the teaching I’d ever done.

Even when I taught or trained others as a volunteer, I was, in part, seeking ways to make myself more competitive in the job market so I could … make more money.

Maybe I wasn’t as altruistic as I thought.

And how many of my learners, students, trainees, participants, and clients had engaged in learning for the pure sake of learning?

There may have been a few, but 99% were there to earn a grade, land a job, get a promotion, or learn a new skill that could help them … make more money.

And did you invest your time and money into mastering all the skills for e-learning development for purely selfless reasons?

Chances are you did it to get a good gig or a better job so you can … make more money.

And your e-learners probably didn’t seek out and launch your course purely for the joy of learning or the magical learning experience you created.

Most consumers of e-learning want something out of it, such as better grades and better jobs, all in the pursuit of … knowledge?

You know the more likely answer.

So, it appears that most of us in the business of learning, whether as providers or consumers, are in it to earn more money, just like a business.

Let’s circle back to your employer or client and the business of making money, which stems from business results.

According to the definition above, for an effort to be effective, it should produce results that are “desired or intended.”

It would be unwise to leave any of this to chance, hoping that the outcomes of your e-learning course are what your client or employer desired and expected.

Producing intended results requires forethought and organization to ensure the e-learning course is designed, developed, consumed, and applied, every step of the way, in support of achieving those results.

And you can’t know what is intended without first conducting a proper analysis of the business problem and figuring out the business results the company wants to achieve.

This is followed by identifying the work processes and workers whose workplace behavior must improve, and how it must improve in order to yield the desired and intended results.

Only then can you design and develop an e-learning course that will affect learners’ workplace behavior, often in the form of skills, that will bring the desired and intended business results.

Learning experience design is important, but it isn’t the goal of e-learning.

Sure, learning is desirable because knowledge is power, but …

… knowledge without application is meaningless, and …

… application without achieving the intended results is wasted energy.

In other words, it’s ineffective.

The purpose of your e-learning course is ultimately to produce desired and intended business results for your client or employer, the people who pay you.

Once you can demonstrate exactly how your e-learning course produces the intended results, you can legitimately claim that it is effective.

You’ll also be able demonstrate with cold, hard numbers how much value you bring to your client or employer.