How To Create Effective Online Training

By Lewis Bell

With the 21st century advent of broadband Internet access in even the most remote locations of the country, manufacturers and service organizations quickly decided that online training was the silver bullet they needed to improve the skills of their technical staff. Because online training saves much of the high cost of travel and lost productivity, many of these companies were under the erroneous impression that effective online training required a minimal investment of time or money.

The key to the previous statement is the word “effective.” Creating training that achieves results takes a considerable investment of time and money. The definition of technical training is: 1) the transfer and retention of knowledge; and 2) the change in behavior associated with it. Much of the online training that was initially created by manufacturers and service organizations did not meet either of these two requirements. An equal number of efforts may have achieved portions of the overall goal, but there was no true assessment of success.

So how can you assure that online training is effective in transferring knowledge and changing behavior? There are hundreds of lengthy books on the subject, each with its own perspective on the issue, but if the following simple steps are taken, online training can be effective (and cost-effective).

Step 1: Know Your Audience
Frankly, not all technicians are computer savvy. While many of them are IT-level POS geeks, an equal number yearn for the days of simple pump mechanics. Since online training must address both groups, it’s often necessary to require prerequisite skills and certifications before allowing someone to enroll in a “click-heavy” course. The key to connecting your audience to an effective online course is making sure that all students are starting on the same mark. After all, universities have 101, 201 and 301 courses for a very good reason—simple concepts must be grasped before building on those concepts with more advanced knowledge.

My curriculum developers also consider cultural attitudes when creating online training. Courses developed for the United States must have animation or user interaction on the screen every few seconds, or the student will get bored and skip ahead. Students in other global regions have more patience; quick on-screen action is often distracting to them.

Step 2: Develop Learning Objectives During the Design Phase
I cannot stress this point strongly enough. You MUST develop this list before beginning the development of any online training. In addition, you must be able to define what a good learning objective looks like.

The rule of thumb is that that the word “know” or any of its synonyms (understand, be aware of, familiar with, etc.) are NOT to be used in a learning objective. If your learning objective is: “The student will know about X product at the end of the training,” then you are destined for failure. How do you measure “know”? A valid learning objective would be: “The student will be able to identify the six components of the X system from photographs or diagrams.” Do you see the difference? An effective learning objective can be tested. Of course, this means a long list of learning objectives will be created for any course, and that takes time to develop.

Most of that development time is spent tracking down the subject-matter expert (SME) and helping them to understand that they must work together with the instructional designer to create these learning objectives. It is a difficult process because SMEs have very busy schedules. But the SME is in a unique position to help focus the training on the critical tasks to be mastered. Without this input, the developer is merely guessing about what is important. It is possible to train effectively on the wrong topics. SME input should prevent this.

The result is a course that has been designed around concrete learning objectives that can be tested.

Suppose for a moment that your learning objective is: “Using the product installation manual, the student will be able to properly install X component in Y system.” How do you assess this? Well, you could build an elaborate virtual environment where the student virtually installs X component…Ka-ching! Before long, you’ve blown your entire budget on a Flash-based simulation and you don’t have the time or resources to address other key learning objectives.

The point here is the simple truth that online training is best used for the first part of the definition of technical training—knowledge transfer. It is inefficient for the second part—behavioral change. The cost of building virtual worlds is still very high, so a blended approach is needed for most of your technical training courses.

Blended coursework is when the knowledge transfer (and some minor behavior assessment) is done online and then followed up in a hands-on course with a proctor. When I was first brought on board at my company, the goal was that most of our instructor-based training would be converted to online training. After reviewing the learning objectives, I quickly came to the conclusion that while we could transition to a blended approach and reduce travel costs, we could not eliminate them altogether. In the petroleum equipment industry, it is unlikely that all (or even a majority) of courses should be completed solely online. For compliance and regulatory reasons, most courses must involve a set of “proof tasks” to be performed on the actual equipment.

Using a blended model, we have been successful in reducing most in-class time by 40-50 percent. We have also been able to remove the mundane “death-by-PowerPoint” lectures and allow our trainers to do what they do best—lab exercises which easily (and inexpensively) simulate real-world service environments.

Step 3: Measure, Measure, Measure
Any effective online training program knows that it has been effective. Measurement must be built into every phase of the project. Once the course is in its final stages of development, the SME must evaluate it. An alpha version of the course should be deployed to key field experts as well. This is called “formative evaluation” and the feedback should elicit tweaks and course corrections.

“Summative evaluation” takes place after the course has been deployed and should also result in course improvements. This summative evaluation should at least consist of smile sheets, cognitive assessments and field feedback.

A smile sheet, or student feedback form, is used to gauge the student’s emotional response to the training; simply, did they like it? In addition, it should capture their feelings on pacing, resources, quality of simulations and multimedia, etc.

Test scores provide the cognitive assessment of the course. Was the knowledge actually transferred? Was it retained? Was the student able to perform the tasks described in the learning objectives?

Finally, some sort of ongoing behavioral assessment must be done to gather field feedback. We ask technicians, “What did we not train you to do that you needed once you installed X equipment in the field?” Once this has been determined, the course should be adapted to include this content. One of the real advantages of online coursework is the ease and speed at which it can be changed. A few clicks of a mouse, and the updated content can be loaded into your course.

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The PEI Journal • Second Quarter 2008 • Volume 2, No. 2 • Contents are Copyright © Data Key Communications, Inc.
All rights reserved. • Nothing may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission of the publisher.