The Pros and the Cons

However, in a survey from the Masie Center (Learning At Our Desks), training professionals reported that only 29% e-learning would be done during work, the rest would be done after work, during lunch, etc. Why this may be fine for some workers, others see it as an intrusion into their time. Is this the message that we want e-learning to send...that it is to be performed on the worker's time?

Labour Savings

You might expect to save in training salaries when e-learning methodologies are introduced, however, both learners and managers both want a trainer assigned to the e-learning experience (see Roles and Expectations for e-Trainers). So while e-learning might enable trainers to make more effective use of their time, it will not eliminate them.

Cost Savings

e-Learning offers economies of scale. After a sometimes large front-end investment, the cost of usage per incremental student is apt to be low. Moreover, access to very large amounts of information can be obtained at low incremental cost (Using Information Technology to Enhance Academic Productivity). Technology-based solutions also tend to be more scalable than labor-intensive ones. One should expect that additional learners could be accommodated at lower cost with technology than with traditional training methods.

In the above article (Using Information Technology to Enhance Academic Productivity), William Massy and Robert Zemsky write, "... technology provides more flexibility than traditional teaching methods once one moves beyond minor changes that can be instituted by individual professors. The 'career' of a workstation may well be less than five years, whereas that of a professor often exceeds 30 years. Workstations don't get tenure, and delegations are less likely to wait on the provost when particular equipment items are 'laid off.' The 'retraining' of IT equipment (for example, reprogramming), while not inexpensive, is easier and more predictable than retraining a tenured professor. Within limits, departments will gain a larger zone of flexibility as the capital-labor ratio grows."

This statement should be particularly troubling to HRD professionals, leaders, and managers who declare "People are our most important asset!" For Massy and Zemsky's are now declaring, "People are our most important asset -- but only for a limited amount of time!" Also, the statement indicates that a person does not learn over a lifetime, that they suddenly become obsolete and must be retrained. Hummm...I thought e-learning and life-long-learning sort of went hand-in-hand, at least according to the e-learning zealots...  Systematic

Clark Aldrich, a senior analyst at consultancy the Gartner Group, says that in the past, corporate training efforts were ad hoc. He also believes that training in a classroom is often delivered "just-in-case" while e-learning via the Web or CD-ROM is delivered "just-in-time" (Traditional Training Fades In Favor Of E-Learning). Moreover, Aldrich says training has not been systematic. Typically there's little correlation between who needs training and who gets trained. Aldrich says under the traditional system, "training becomes a way to perpetuate, in some cases, bad habits and, in most cases, old habits." 

As far as it not being systematic, Training magazine did an article on Instructional Development Design (The Attack on ISD), which is often used to develop classroom learning. In the article, ISD was reported as being too systematic. 

Where Aldrich and the the ISD article go wrong is that they are blaming the messenger (in this case the tools), instead of the source. ISD, e-learning, c-learning, etc. are simply tools that help us with the development and delivery of a message, which in training, is the learning package. If a trainer cannot develop an effective learning package with ISD, what makes us believe that she is going to be able to do so with a medium such as e-learning? Lets stop blaming the tools and the media. Ineffective trainers will build crappy learning packages, no matter what wiz-bang tool or medium we hand them! 

Also, there is no proof that one medium leads to "just-in-case" learning, while another medium provides "just-in-time" learning -- again, it depends upon the skills of the developer and trainer. In fact, a lot of e-learning is now and will continue to be "just-in-case" learning, which is a form of development (see Communities of Practice).

Drop Out Rates

While e-learning seems to answer a lot of learner's needs, drop-out rates are higher than those for campus-based learning. This is probably the one downside of distance learning that almost everyone agrees upon. Some people thrive on the social interaction of others and they quickly loose interest when they are placed in environments that lack such socializing events as being with others, peer pressure, the ability to do well in front of others, or spirits of competition or cooperation. 

"Despite what's said about the electronic classroom, it's a lonely way to study," reports Lambert in the article, Distance Learning Goes the Distance. He suggests that not everyone is blessed with the discipline and motivation that distance learning requires.

Vicky Phillips, founder of Geteducated.com, a consulting agency for distance educators, estimates the online student dropout rate at around 35%. The average attrition rate for college freshman at U.S. universities is around 20% (The Virtual Classroom Vs. The Real One). 

These higher drop-out rates are usually associated with the difficulty that learners have with maintaining the motivation to work their way through courses without feeling either lost or isolated to the point that they simply stop working on the material. 

However, some drop out occurs because a learner quits once she has extracted the knowledge or skills required to perform her job. We need to view drop out rates from at least two sides:

1. The learner quits the program because the learning package did not fit her needs (failure of the learning package to retain learner).
2. The learner quits the program because she extracted what she needed from the learning package (no failure, the entire learning package was just more than she required).

Retention Rates

Note: retention in this section means what is remembered, NOT dropping out.

Millbank studied the effectiveness of a mix of audio plus video in corporate training. When he introduced real-time interactivity, the retention rate of the trainees was raised from about 20 percent (using ordinary classroom methods) to about 75 percent (Millbank, G. 1994. Writing multimedia training with integrated simulation. Paper presented at the Writersí Retreat on Interactive Technology and Equipment. Vancouver, BC: The University of British Columbia Continuing Studies. p. 75).

However, this mixture takes bandwidth, which is not plentiful in most organizations.

Its the Method, Not the Delivery System!

Jerald Schutte, a Sociology Professor at CSU-Northridge reported that students in his virtual class performed 20% better than students in his traditional class (Virtual Teaching in Higher Education: The New Intellectual Superhighway or Just Another Traffic Jam?) A lot of sources were quick to reference this source as being a prime example of the power of e-learning. 

However, it is not the power of e-learning that brought about this achievement, but the methodology employed (Does Using Technology in Instruction Enhance Learning?). e-Learning is a medium, not a methodology. Note that some of the benefits of e-learning were significant in bringing about the increase in student performance, but the same results could have been achieved in the classroom if the same methodology was employed. 

No Significant Difference

The No Significant Difference Phenomenon, compiles various writings on distance learning. The bulk of these writings suggest that the learning outcomes of students using technology at a distance are similar to the learning outcomes of students who participate in conventional classroom instruction. 

The Whatís the Difference? report (available at The Institute for Higher Education Policy) discusses the quality and effectiveness of distance learning. Note that it is mostly a rebuttal of the No Significant Difference report.

A study completed by the U.S. Army Research Institute for Behavioral and Social Sciences. That study, entitled Training Through Distance Learning: An Assessment of Research Findings (Site source and PDF source) was published in October 1999, and reviews a broad array of literature on the effectiveness of distance learning. The report found the quality of the research on distance learningís effectiveness was quite weak.

More Reading

Online Students Don't Fare as Well as Classroom Counterparts

Resources

Continue