Reality eLearning

We have reality tv and virtual reality, so why not reality eLearning? I don’t mean in the visual sense, but in terms of cognition. The purpose of eLearning in the workplace is to improve and enhance job performance. So workplace learning should include a strong dose of reality to prepare learners for the varied situations that arise during work.

As far as I can tell, reality is fluid. It warps, it morphs, it flows, it halts, it screeches and surprises. Events rarely happen as planned and after all, how could they? We are inventing and creating our reality as we go along. This is moment to moment stuff. So with no prepared script to follow, how can we help people prepare for the unknown? How can we add a dose of reality to our courses and why would we want to anyway?

Learning Transfer

The underlying reason for making learning realistic is because we want as much positive learning transfer to occur as possible. Do you ever lie awake at night and ponder how well the skills, knowledge and attitudes explored in your courses transfer to the reality in which your learners live? I thought so. Learning transfer for problem-solving is a big challenge.

For example, how can eLearning help someone handle an employee crisis, deal with an irate customer or fix a crashed server? In each of these situations, the reality has many variables. When positive learning transfer occurs, audience members will take what they’ve learned in one situation (the eLearning course) and use it to solve varied problems in another situation (work).

Your learners will have to quickly:

• Analyze a problem to determine it’s salient characteristics
• Find commonalities between the problem at hand and what they have learned
• Identify broad abstract concepts that solved the problem in a training context
• Apply and adapt the most useful concepts to the current problem

Getting At Someone Else’s Reality

The best way to understand the types of problems that potential learners experience is to get in touch with their work environment. I’ve spent time at a muffler repair franchise, customer service call center and an HIV laboratory, to name a few. The type of information that emerges from informal conversations and observations in the work environment are enlightening. You may also want to take a formal approach for garnering information by using surveys and questionnaires, running focus groups and interviewing sample members of the targeted audience and their managers.

Beware that you may run into a tough spot in your zeal to hang out with the employees. In some organizations, high-level management may not want you to speak with audience members. Although this is a self-defeating approach for the organization, there often isn’t much you can do about it. If obstacles are thrown in your way, you’ll have to make do with interviewing supervisors only. This way, you’ll get at least half of the picture.

When it’s impossible to get on-site and directly into the work environment, telephone interviews are another option. If even this doesn’t work out, make attempts to research the field, read about it and imagine yourself doing what your audience members do. The more you can imagine what work is like from the learner’s perspective, the more realistic and effective your courses will be. Theoretically, this will improve learning transfer. The next article will present some ways to add reality to your courses.

How do you get in touch with your learning audience? Comment below.