Top 10 eLearning Myths EXPLODED!

Let’s wrap up the year — and the decade! — by debunking some annoyingly persistent eLearning myths. In true New Year’s fashion, we’ll count down to the top truly terrible myth. Here goes:

10. Brain games improve working memory or make you smarter

“Brain games”, through gamification-focused apps, have become a multimillion-dollar industry, with dubious claims about making people smarter, improving their short-term memory or staving off dementia. They don’t do any of that.

“Our findings and previous studies confirm there's very little evidence these types of games can improve your life in a meaningful way," said Walter Boot, an expert on age-related cognitive decline, in a Science Daily article. 

People might get better at specific tasks they perform as part of the game, but that improvement doesn’t transfer to their daily lives or improve their memory or thinking skills overall. That’s a useful kernel of information: To improve at a particular task, practice doing that task with spaced repetition. And, if you enjoy the brain games, keep playing — just don’t expect it to make you smarter.

9. If learners enjoy training, they will retain it

So-called “smile sheets” — forms that learners might fill out after training that gauge their opinion of the training experience — are ubiquitous in our industry. They’re also pretty much useless. 

Considerable research has shown no correlation whatsoever between positive survey results — learners saying they thought the training was useful or of good quality — and improved learning or performance results.

Learners may all be asked to complete an evaluation, but only a minority do. So the sample is skewed toward those who care enough —  liked or disliked the training strongly enough — to respond. The questions are often poorly written and vague, and the response options tend to be a Likert scale. Something like strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree. Therefore the results do not offer specific or actionable information.

Most learners are poor judges of whether they will use information on the job. They’re usually asked to evaluate it right after they’ve completed the training, before they really know how useful it will be.

Rather than measuring whether learners enjoyed their training or think it might be useful, it is more meaningful to measure changes in their performance following training — and over time. That’s the best way to determine whether they’ve retained and are using what they’ve learned.

8. Course completion = Learning

The myth that if your learners complete their training, they’ve learned the material is a longstanding canard. Maybe more of a fantasy.

When SCORM became standard and provided, among other benefits, the ability to track who used training, how much time they spent and whether they completed it, those data became magically imbued with meaning.

For a while, it was even enough to show that learners had completed training to get an organization out of legal hot water. But that’s no longer the case. Training has to actually be effective.

Exposing learners to content, once, is not the same as teaching them. And flipping through an eLearning course is not the same as mastering the content. Course completions are a vanity metric that only makes you feel good; they tell you nothing meaningful about your training — or your learners.

7. Interactivity = Engagement

Right up there with thinking that finishing an eLearning course is the same as learning the content is the myth that interactivity — any interactivity — is engaging and means that learners are paying attention.

This myth has led to an avalanche of poorly gamified content that forces learners to move puzzle pieces around, jump through graphical hoops and literally play games — just to earn access to training content. Then they have to, you know, cover the content.

Meaningful interactivity can, indeed, enhance learning and make content stick with learners. But the interactivity has to be deeply connected with the content. For example, asking learners to role play in scenario-based learning or choose the best response to the dilemma posed in an interactive video can get them to think about the issue, apply the material they’ve covered — and come up with the right response.

6. Flashy graphics are essential for engagement

You don’t need great graphic design to have great eLearning. In fact, putting too much effort into the graphic design can backfire, when you end up with visually gorgeous content that is not intuitive or accessible.

The best eLearning is useful, accessible and relevant. The design should not add to learners’ cognitive load. That is, learners should not have to expend energy figuring out how to navigate and use the eLearning. The design should be clear, and navigation between elements should be obvious.

Colors, typeface, type size and layout — all elements of the visual design — can enhance or harm your eLearning by making it easier or harder for learners to use.

5. Learners don’t want to read

Really?

According to Pew Research, 73% of U.S. adults have read a book (or part of one) in the past year. Millennials are the most likely U.S. adults to visit a public library.

And of course there’s all that reading that is not books. In 2016, Pew found that younger adults preferred reading news to watching or listening to the news, for example.

People read what interests them. They skim (or skip) what doesn’t.

If learners are not reading your eLearning content, it’s not because they dislike reading. It’s because the content is not relevant, it covers material they already know, it is poorly designed or it fails for some other reason.

While trimming content down to the essentials — and offering deeper, more detailed content as additional resources — is a sound principle when designing eLearning, much effective, engaging eLearning still gets learners to read.

4. Learners have the attention span of a goldfish

A close companion of the “learners don’t read” myth is the goldfish myth. This thoroughly debunked stray bit of misinformation from some dubious “research” published several years ago claims that humans’ attention spans are shorter than a goldfish’s, or about 6 seconds. 

Just as people read what interests them, they engage at different depths — according to their interest and their needs — and for different lengths of time.

Often, learners may simply need to look up a fact or remind themselves of how to do something. In those cases, they’re looking for a quick “one-shot” answer. Other times, they might dig more deeply — read a blog post or even watch a short video.

If our attention spans were truly only a few seconds long, it would be impossible to explain blockbuster movies, binge-watching Netflix, teens so absorbed in video games that they don’t hear their parents calling — and so many more examples of people engaging deeply with content.

Attention spans aren’t shrinking. But more and more types of content are competing for learners’ attention. To grab it and hold onto it, content has to be relevant and engaging. That means building your eLearning using great storytelling, compelling visuals, gamified content, and relevant interactivity.

3. Millennial learners only want video

In fact, any sentence that starts, “Millennial learners only …” is a myth.

Millennial learners, like millennial employees, are no different from any other generation of learners or workers.

Across the board, from instructor-led training to microlearning to virtual reality-based training, attempts to define learners’ desires, abilities, interests or likelihood of success based on their age cohort have crashed head-on into reality.

A leading virtual reality researcher found, for example, that the appeal of VR-based training has a lot to do with exposure to the technology — and nothing to do with age. That’s likely true for any technology. And, as the “learners don’t read” myth relates, millennials are more likely to head to the library than any other adult age group.

Individual learners are different and have different preferences. But they can’t be defined by their age alone. Their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes are affected by their educational and cultural backgrounds, their financial situations, their interests, their job needs — and a host of other characteristics that make each learner a unique individual.

2. Microlearning has to be video

The myths that learners have vanishing attention spans and that younger learners only want video-based learning combine to drive this myth. Microlearning is simply short, focused, useful learning. It can come in myriad formats — including video.

Effective microlearning exists as:

• Apps, including games, flash card apps, quiz apps and quick reference guides
• Podcasts
• Infographics — static or interactive
• In the workflow, as performance support tool
• Digital text, such as blog posts, articles, wiki sites or web content
• eBooks and PDF documents, especially interactive PDFs
• Video, including screencasts and animations
• Short eLearning modules
• Adaptive microlearning with emphasis on a knowledge retention strategy
• Chatbots
• Text messages
• And many more

Microlearning is not defined by its medium. It’s not entirely defined by its size. It’s defined by a narrow focus — one or two concepts — and its immediate applicability.

1. You should teach to learners’ “Learning Styles”

The myth of learning styles is beloved. This could be because it gives learners a reason to explain why they’re struggling with content. It might appeal to educators who want an easy way to “personalize” learning.

Whatever the reason people cling to this myth, they’re mistaken.

Vast amounts of research have found no improvement in mastery or knowledge retention when learners are given materials that play to their supposed or self-identified learning style.

At best, a person’s learning style is a strong preference. Some might prefer video to reading; others choose to listen to podcasts rather than watch videos.

More often, though, the choice of a learning medium is determined by the content itself, the environment where the learner will use it — or a combination of these:

• People who spend a lot of time in the car might choose podcasts over text or video
• Learners trying to master a process might watch a video over and over to see how it’s done
• An employee filling out a once-a-year form might look up an annotated form — an infographic — for a quick refresher
• A microlearning app might offer quick, frequent mobile-friendly review of product details or terms in the workflow or on the go

None of the preferences described in the examples are innate, hard-wired approaches to learning; they are all choices any learner might make in certain situations.

Myths make for great storytelling, but they can create a less-than-ideal foundation for eLearning design. Better to explode those myths like New Year’s fireworks and work with cognitive science, demonstrated KPI improvement and other proven truths when it comes to building and delivering your online training.