Unrecognized Contextual Factors

Failed training programs can often be attributed to a number of contextual conditions that prevent their success. The barrier might be an environment that actually inhibits desired performance. It's not uncommon. It could be training solutions were developed without the essential perspective of employees and their supervisors. And it could easily be the influence of many other contextual factors that can make or break a training initiative.

Even worse, costly instructional failures may go unrecognized for some time. Imagine this scenario: Everyone responsible for launching a training program may have reveled in that achievement and the announcement of the programs' availability. Likely, they received congratulations from those who recognized that the development and deployment of a new training program was a major undertaking. News that trainees liked the new programs and gave positive feedback validated the cause for celebration. All is well, right? Not necessarily.

Even though trainees may appreciate the excuse to escape the usual work routine and to enjoy doughnuts in the learning center along with the good humor of the instructors and staff, organizations can be surprisingly slow to realize their instructional programs are not performing as well as they should, could, and need to. So many opportunities may have slipped by unnoticed. So much money might have been saved. So much more might have been earned. It's unfortunate training simply doesn't get the attention it needs, and that even training developers underestimate what they could do for their organizations. Listen up, executives!

Change Is Necessary

There are many reasons e-learning or any training solution can fail. We must objectively assess the context for a learning solution to identify the real barriers to success. Having done that, it is very likely e-learning designers and developers can affect some changes that will improve the chances of success.

If we're talking about employee training, for example, employees may not be doing what management wants because doing something else is easier and seems to be accepted. In this context, training focused on teaching how to do what management wants done may have absolutely no positive effect. Employees may already know full well how to perform tasks in the manner desired, but they simply choose not to do so. The performance context needs to change. And in this situation, further training won't make a difference.

Prerequisites to Success

An exhaustive list of e-learning success prerequisites is probably not possible because so many factors can undermine an otherwise thoughtful and well-executed plan. The items in the following list may seem to be rather obvious requirements; yet, inaccurate assumptions are often made about them:

• Performer competency is the problem
• Good performance is possible
• Incentives exist for good performance
• There are no penalties for good performance
• Essential resources for e-learning solutions are available

It is not rational to ignore any one of these prerequisites and still hope for success, so let's look closely at each one.

Is Performer Competency the Problem?

It is crucial to investigate business problems and define them clearly if any proposed solutions are likely to address and solve them. Underlying causes of performance problems can be hard to identify. Perhaps this is because decision makers are too close to see them or performance problems and suspected causes are too hard to face. Without good analysis, the wrong problems are often targeted because they seem obvious. But, then the real problems persist, ill-defined and unsolved.

Throw Some Training at It

It can be comfortable, even reassuring, to conclude that training is needed in the face of a wide range of problems. If we conclude a problem is really a training issue, no one needs to be culpable for the root cause of that problem. The prospect of a new training effort can paint enthusiastic pictures of future, problem-free performance. With high expectations, but inadequate analysis of the context, training programs are launched that have very little, if any, prospect of solving the real underlying problem.

The error, however, is probably not what you're thinking. It may actually be quite correct that people do need training for ill-defined problems. Because the preponderance of business challenges involve human performance, a blind guess that training is needed may be correct more often than not.

But the error is likely to be in deciding who needs training on what. For example, it may well be that supervisors of ineffective performers need training so they can more successfully draw out the desired performance from their already capable teams. Or it may be that ineffective performers need to learn and use helpful reminders as to when they need to perform specific skills they already possess.

Nonperformance Problems

From starting and running a number of business myself, I know businesses face many problems. It seems there is a new challenge every day: higher costs than expected, slow receipts, telecommunication breakdowns, and so on.

Just Do It—It's Easy

It is easy to go wrong, especially when not taking the performance problem seriously. Sometimes it seems just making an effort will solve problems. An executive order to put a new training program in place may set expectations that problems will soon vanish. How hard can it be? But these bubbles are destined to burst, probably after some sincere hard work on the part of the training team fighting against restrictive budgets and time lines. Those receiving the blithe order to go forth and train are set up to misunderstand what's really important for success. Is it to improve performance and bolster the bottom line? Or is it to entertain employees, present fascinating facts, and free them from their daily routines for a moment? Two different things. It can be hard to accept as trainers, but sometimes management really wants the latter. Or maybe they don't know what they want.

Training development is never easy and success is never a given. But when the goal hasn't been defined, success is a miracle. If you don't know what success looks like, you're pretty unlikely to achieve it. Flailing about in endless meetings and planning documents doesn't make it easier; it just spends time and energy.

Disguised Competency Problems

Many business problems not obviously amenable to training solutions can actually be addressed through e-learning, at least in part. When we consider such significant problems as undercapitalized operations, outdated product designs, unreliable manufacturing equipment, noisy work environments, poor morale, bad reputation, and so on, is training really a solution? You may be surprised to hear that training should not be ruled out too quickly.

Although many factors determine the possible success of any enterprise, what people in that enterprise do, and when they do it, is the primary factor. If training can help change what people do and when they do it, then one component of almost every solution might well be training. Consider the following possibilities:

Undercapitalized operations. Finding more money might not be the only solution nor the best solution. Achieving new levels of efficiency, offering better service, or redefining the business model to match available resources may be better solutions with or without new money, and all of these solutions to some extent require people to change what they're doing.

If squeaking by without additional funding is the chosen route, it often means having fewer people covering more bases. To be successful in that scenario, the remaining employees need to learn how to handle a greater variety of tasks; just as important, they also must understand why they need to take on so much responsibility and what can be achieved if they manage well. Successfully squeaking by can be a business triumph if customer service is strong and customer loyalty is maintained. Could effective training separate the competitive winners from the losers in your field when times are tough?

Outdated product designs. How did this happen? Were people not tracking technologies, markets, or competitors? Did they know they were supposed to? Did they know how? Are they able to design better products? Perhaps some training is needed—the sooner the better.

Unreliable equipment or tools. Is equipment purchasing ongoing? If so, do buyers know enough about your processes, needs, and cost structures to know the difference between a smart buy and a low price tag? If you're stuck with the equipment you currently have, are there effective tricks or precautions known only by a few, maybe only by those on the night shift or by a few silent employees, that could be learned by others to make the most of your equipment's capabilities? This could be a training opportunity.

Poor morale. Poor morale isn't really a condition, it's a response. It can stem from a wide variety of problems or perceptions. At the heart is often lack of understanding of the company's mission and goals, lack of communication, lack of trust, or conflicting agendas. Some good coaching and team-building exercises are probably needed. e-Learning may be helpful in some of these situations, but it's more likely to be helpful in ongoing measures that energize the workforce and safeguard against chronic morale problems. For example, the corporate mission can be communicated in ways that lead not only to knowledge of the mission but also to energetic participation and voluntary endorsement of the vision. e-Learning can help managers learn more effective ways of encouraging spirited contributions through listening, feedback, and appreciated incentives. Often improperly and narrowly viewed as a vehicle limited to the transfer of knowledge and skills, e-learning might overcome a lack of insight and nourish a sense of pride that restores or helps maintain the essential health of your entire organization.

Turnover and absenteeism. People don't feel good about themselves when they aren't proud of their performance. They may be getting by, perhaps skillfully hiding their mistakes and passing more difficult tasks to others, but it's hard to feel good about yourself when you can't do well. As a result, it's hard to get to work, and one is constantly on the lookout for a more satisfying job. With the ability e-learning has to privately adapt the level of instruction to each learner's need, it might just be a solution to problems of turnover and absenteeism.

Tarnished reputation. Why does the organization or product have a bad reputation? Are deliveries slow, communications poor, or errors frequent? In the outstanding book Moments of Truth (1987), Jan Carlzon shows how successful companies focus on the customer, the front line employees, and the interactions among them that define their respective companies through “moments of truth.” In an effective organization, “no one has the authority to interfere during a moment of truth. Seizing these golden opportunities to serve the customer is the responsibility of the front line. Enabling them to do so is the responsibility of middle managers” (Carlzon 1987, p. 68). But how do those on the front line know how to serve the customer? How do middle managers know how to support and guide the front line? Through e-learning? It's a possibility.

Until a problem is identified and framed as a competency problem, e-learning is not the solution. The types of problems just listed are not the ubiquitous problems for which training is an obvious solution. They are listed to underscore the widespread, multifaceted nature of performance problems and the often unsuspected value e-learning can bring to corporations and organizations of all kinds.

Few problems are devoid of human performance difficulties, and, generally, few solutions without a high-impact training component will be as effective as those with it. Still, identifying the real problem is a prerequisite. Guessing about the problem is unlikely to lead to effective solutions. If e-learning is going to work, it's necessary to determine clearly what the performance factors are and what is preventing optimal performance from happening. The problem may well lie in one of the contextual inhibitors in the previous list.

Good Performance Is Possible

It doesn't make sense to train people to do things they can't do. And training is offered with surprising frequency in situations where:

• There's rarely a case where the new skills would be preferred by customers or supervisors.
• It would take too long to complete a process if it were done by the book.
• Appropriate situations occur so infrequently that it's unrealistic to expect any trainee to retain skills between opportunities to use them.

I know that it seems too obvious to be included in this list of essential preconditions for successful e-learning, but there have been many times our consultants have looked at one another, shaking their heads in frustration, because they have realized that no matter how good the proposed training may come to be, trainees will not be able to live up to management's expectations. Without changing the performance context, the desired behavior is not going to happen.

While it seems like common sense, it's worth mentioning that training does not make the impossible possible or the impractical practical. Good performance needs to be a realistic possibility before e-learning has the potential to help.

Incentives Exist for Good Performance

Although the reasons aren't always obvious, behavior happens for a reason. People turn up at work for a variety of reasons, but it's safe to assume that most would not appear if they were not paid.

Many people receive a fixed amount for the hours they work. They will not make more money immediately if they do a better job, and they will not receive less, unless they are fired, for doing a poorer job. So, for these people, pay is an incentive for being present and for doing a minimally acceptable job—and not much more than that.

Fortunately for employers, other incentives exist:

• Approval and compliments
• Respect and trust
• Access to valued resources (tools, people, a window with a sunny view)
• Awards
• Increased power and authority
• More desirable or interesting assignments

Because these incentives occur in response to desired behavior and are usually offered in a timely, reinforcing manner, they can and do affect behavior in profound ways. If valued incentives exist for desired behavior, training that enables such behavior is likely to be successful as well.

Incentives Run Amok

A partnership between management and training is critical for success (see Figure 4.1).

Management's role is to provide a learning and performance context that results in a workforce willing to do what needs to be done, in the way it needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.

Training is responsible for enabling willing workers to do the right thing at the right time, to see opportunities, and to be effective and productive. The outcome is a win for both through a willing and able workforce.

When incentives do not exist or rewards are given regardless of behavior or achievement, personal goals take precedence. For many—certainly and thankfully not all—goals that drive behavior may become:

• Reduced effort (doing nothing or as little as possible)
• Increased free or social time
• Limited responsibility
• Little accountability

Management may complain that employees are uncooperative, unprofessional, or in some way the cause of operational failures. Seeing this as a performance capability problem, management might jump quickly to ordering up new training. Unfortunately, skill training for employees who lack incentives to perform well makes little, if any, impact.

Use Training to Fix the Performance Environment

By the way, e-learning can be used to improve the performance environment when positive incentives are absent:

• Consider training managers on how to motivate employees, seek input, build teams, or provide effective reinforcement.
• Consider providing meaningful and memorable experiences through interactive multimedia to help employees see how the impact of their work determines the success of the group and ultimately affects their employment. (Please refer to Chapter 9 to understand how e-learning design can affect motivation.)

These solutions may be the most cost-effective means of getting the performance you need, and they will dramatically increase the effectiveness of training you subsequently provide performers working in the improved environment. Remember, of course, that you will still need to provide incentives for the people who receive training on providing incentives, or this training will also fail.

There Are No Penalties for Good Performance

We haven't discussed avoidance of penalties as an incentive for good performance, although it is a technique many organizations rely on, even if subconsciously. Penalties are more effective in preventing unwanted behaviors than in promoting desired ones, but, over the long haul, they are weak even in doing this. Further, the burden of penalty avoidance (hiding out) saps energy and creates a negative atmosphere.

Although combined use of penalties (even if just words of disapproval) and positive incentives (even if just words of encouragement) is sometimes considered the most effective means of controlling behavior, employees will be drawn to work environments in which positive rewards are the primary means of defining desired behavior. They will tend to escape environments in which censure is prevalent, whether deserved or not.

The worst case, of course, is one in which there are penalties for desired performance. Although it may seem absurd that any work environment would be contrived to penalize desired performance, it does happen. In fact, I can—and, unfortunately, feel I must—admit to having created just such an environment at least twice myself. I offer an account here as both evidence that this is easier to do than one might think and as a small atonement for past errors.

Essential Resources for e-Learning Solutions Are Available

Design and development of good e-learning is a complex undertaking. It requires content knowledge and expertise in a wide range of areas, including text composition, illustration, testing, instruction, interactivity design, user interface design, authoring or programming, and graphic design. It's rare to find a single person with all these skills, and even when such a person is available, training needs can rarely wait long enough for a single individual to do all the necessary tasks sequentially. Forming design and development teams is the common solution, although teaming introduces its own challenges. (Chapter 11 identifies those and presents some process solutions.) What is essential in teaming approaches, however, is that all necessary skill and knowledge domains be present and available when they are needed.

Not the Usual Suspects

Making sure all the needed participants are available and involved is not only a coordination problem but also a problem of understanding who needs to be involved. For example, while everyone understands that subject-matter expertise is required, few executives see themselves involved in e-learning projects beyond sanctioning proposed budgets. But executives are presumably owners of the vision from which organizational goals and priorities are derived. e-Learning provides the means for executives to communicate essential messages in a personal way that can also ensure full appreciation of the organization's vision, direction, and needs. So it's a major missed opportunity when executives have no involvement.

e-Learning can truly help all members of any organization understand not only what they need to do, but also why it is important. Check Table 4.2 for suggestions on who needs to be involved when.

Executives
Why	When
The vision and business need must guide development. As projects are designed, opportunities arise to question and more fully define the vision—always strengthening, sometimes expanding, the contribution of the training. Executives also need to see that post-training support is provided.	At project definition to set goals At proposal evaluation to weigh suggestions and alternatives During project design for questions and selection of alternatives and priorities During specification of criteria and methods for project evaluation
Performance Supervisors
The people to whom learners will be responsible need to share not only their observations of performance difficulties and needs, but also need to help identify what will motivate learners and prepare post-training incentives and support.	At project definition to evaluate and propose alternative goals During project design for questions and selection of alternatives and priorities During the specification of criteria and methods for project evaluation
Subject-Matter Experts
Unless the instructional designers are also subject-matter experts, designers must have articulate experts to help define what is to be taught and to ensure its validity.	Throughout the instructional design process, beginning with prototypes and later for content scope determination and reviews
Experienced Teachers
If the content has been taught previously, those who have taught it will have valuable insights to share. They will know what was difficult for students to learn, what activities or explanations helped or didn't help, and what topic sequencing appears to be best.	Throughout the instructional design process to help sequence content and suggest interactive events
Recent Learners
Recent learners are often the most valuable resource to instructional designers. Unlike experts, recent learners can remember not knowing the content, where the hurdles to understanding were, and what helped them get it.	During rapid prototyping, content sequencing, interactive event conceptualization, and early evaluation of design specifications
Untrained Performers
It's very important to test design ideas before e-learning applications have been fully built and the resources to make extensive changes have been spent. Because you can only be a first-time learner once, it's important to have a number of untrained individuals to evaluate alternate instructional ideas as they are being considered.	During evaluation of second- and later-round prototypes through to final delivery To add fresh perspectives, different performers will need to be added to the evaluation team as designs evolve.

The more sophisticated the instructional design, the more likely it is that great amounts of time and money will be wasted if creators lack a full understanding of the following elements:

• Content (facts, concepts, procedures, causes and effects, etc.)
• Characteristics of the learners

• Behavioral outcomes that are necessary to achieve success
• Specific aspects of the performance environment that will challenge or aid performance
• Organizational values, priorities, and policies

In short, a lot of knowledge and information must guide learning design and development.

“Never Mind—We Have the Manual”

Repurposing is a term used to put a positive spin on some wishful thinking. It's the notion that existing materials, designed for another purpose or medium, can be used in lieu of having more in-depth resources available for e-learning development. It sounds like an efficient if not expedient process to take existing material and turn it into an e-learning application, like turning a toad into a prince. It seems particularly attractive because key human resources, people who are always in high demand, would not be needed very much. The team members can just get the information they need from the documents, videos, instructor notes, and other materials.

Sorry. It's a fairy tale.

Noninteractive materials are far too shallow to supply sufficient knowledge for e-learning design. You've heard the adage, “To really learn a topic you should teach it.” Preparation for teaching a subject requires much more in-depth knowledge and understanding than even the best students can gain from just reading documentation. e-Learning approaches vary from timely e-mailed messages to fully interactive experiences incorporating dynamic simulations. But even the simplest form of interactivity tends to reveal lack of depth in the author's understanding.

Repurposing is essentially a euphemism, because without additional content, in-depth knowledge, and the design work necessary to create appropriate interactivity, repurposed material quickly turns into boring electronic page turning. Any plan, for example, to take a manual and turn it into an effective e-learning application without the involvement of people knowledgeable in the subject, input from those experienced in teaching the subject, and guidance from managers of the target audience is, if not doomed to failure, going to be far less effective than it could be. And, perhaps worse, the faulty applications produced may lead to the erroneous conclusion that effective e-learning solutions don't exist, are too expensive, or are too difficult to build.

As you can see from Table 4.3, the content to be created for effective instructional interactivity reaches far beyond the information available in noninteractive resources. Much of the design work requires in-depth content knowledge—more than can be gained from careful study of materials designed for declarative instruction.

	Repurposing	Designing for Interactivity
Initial analysis	Existing materials	Performance needs
Design focus	Clear content presentation	Meaningful, memorable, & motivational learning experiences
Additional subject matter resources required	Little or none, depending on quality of existing materials	Extensive, including examples, and likely performance errors and their consequences
Materials to be created	Content presentations structured for computer screen presentation, transmission, and compatibility with delivery devices	Motivational content to prepare learners to learn, learning events carefully structured from CCAF components, and logic to select appropriate events for each learner
Product potential	Page-turning application, possibly with shallow interactions or quizzes	Highly interactive, e-Iearning adaptive to learner abilities, readiness, and needs

In listing essential resources, it may indeed sound as though all e-learning applications are tedious and expensive. This isn't true, but just as any organizational initiative should be guided by people in the know and with experience, it would be an error to attempt e-learning without the expertise needed to direct the effort.

Why Do We Do Things That We Know Are Wrong?

In outlining the contextual prerequisites for success in the preceding section, I worry that I've made an important mistake. I think the reasoning is logical; yet, organizations repeatedly do things to sabotage the success of their investments in e-learning. My mistake may be twofold: (1) assuming that organizations will change their behavior if a better path is identified and (2) assuming that the overall success of the organization is the primary goal of individual decision makers.

The reality may be more like this:

• We like a bargain. “We don't like the costs we're hearing for good e-learning applications. If we can get an e-learning project going with minimal investment, at least we won't be completely behind the times—and who knows, maybe something really good will come out of it. I love getting a real bargain.”
• Our people are smarter than others. “We don't need to baby our people with all this learning rigmarole. Just get the information out to them, and they'll do the rest.”
• It's not really this complex. “I was a student once, and sure, some teachers were better than others. But pretty much anybody with a few smarts can put a course together.”
• Being conservative makes me look good. “I play it conservative. We don't need Cadillac training, and I sure don't want to be seen as throwing money around. I save a little, and we get some training. It might be mediocre. But who knows? Everybody argues about training anyway, no matter how much we spend. So I look interested and keep the costs to a minimum.”

It's tough to fight such mentalities. The truth remains, however, that astute use of e-learning provides a competitive advantage. Many companies have completely changed their views of training. Whereas they once saw it as an unfortunate burden, they now see it as a strategic opportunity. They hope their competitors won't catch on for a long time.

How to Do the Right Thing

It's easier to point out errors than it is to prescribe fail-safe procedures. There's no alternative I know of to strong, insightful leadership. But a short checklist of the right things to do with respect to e-learning would include:

1. Define performance needs clearly and specifically.
2. Measure current levels of proficiency.
3. Determine what is motivating current behaviors.
4. Make sure desired behavior is possible and reasonable.
5. If appropriate, launch a training development effort to:
   • Make needed knowledge resources available.
   • Determine what's most important to achieve and what the benefits will be.
   • Look at ROI, not just expense, in determining your budget.
   • Use designers and developers who have portfolios of excellent work.
   • Define changes to the work environment that will reinforce learning experiences and sustain them.
6. Develop a supportive environment that recognizes and rewards good performance.
7. Keep alert for the kind of rationale that supports doing the wrong things.
8. Stay involved.

Design—The Means to Success

We've seen the importance of the design context for achieving training success and performance goals. Some errors are made by not using e-learning when it really could be of help. In other cases, training could not solve the problem, regardless of the approach taken. Finally, e-learning development, if it could otherwise be successful, is often held back by lack of access to critical resources.

When all the external factors are in place, we're just getting ready to start. The challenge ahead is that of designing and developing a high-impact e-learning application. This is where the return on the investment of resources will be determined.

In a process something like peeling away the layers of an onion, we will work down to the nitty-gritty details of design. We start first with questions of how good design happens.

e-Learning or Bust

There has been an enthusiastic rush toward e-learning recently. The pioneering efforts in computer-based instruction of the 1960s demonstrated the feasibility of outstanding education and training success, whereas e-commerce has fostered today's expectation that electronic systems will be a primary component of nearly all learning programs in the future. People no longer wonder whether e-learning is viable but, rather, how to convert to e-learning most expeditiously.

There probably isn't enough concern or healthy skepticism. It's good if you are concerned about all this e-learning commotion. I'm there with you. I think it is good to be concerned because much (probably most) e-learning is nearly worthless. Just because training is delivered via computer doesn't make it good. Just because it has pretty graphics doesn't make it good. Just because it has animation, sound, or video doesn't make it good. Just because it has buttons to click doesn't make it good.

Excellent design is required to integrate the many media and technologies together into an effective learning experience. Excellent design isn't easy.

Quick and Easy

Multiple approaches to developing e-learning have been advocated over the years, and elaborate systems have been developed. Some have tried laying out more simplified cookbook approaches providing step-by-step recipes for design and development of learning applications. Although all of them have provided some good ideas, the task continues to prove complex, as evidenced by the plethora of short-lived and little-used applications. Paint-by-number solutions just don't hack it, although you wouldn't know that from the number of people who promote them.

There is undying optimism that just around the corner is an easy way to create meaningful and memorable learning experiences that swiftly change human behavior, build skills, and impart knowledge. I emphatically do not share that optimism. We don't have automated systems producing best-selling novels or hit movies. Developing engaging interactivity is no less of a challenge. In some senses, I see it as a greater challenge.

Clearly, tools will advance, and we will have more flexibility to try out alternatives. Our knowledge will advance, many alternatives will become more successful than they are now. More powerful tools will help us evolve initial ideas into very successful applications more quickly. And perhaps, way down the line, computers will be able to create imaginative learning experiences on command. We'll just access a database of knowledge, provide information about ourselves (if the computer doesn't already have it), and indicate whether we want to study alone, with others nearby, or with others on the network. The computer will configure a learning experience for us, and voilà—there it will be! But not today.

Learning Objects

In the excitement of both e-learning's popularity and our compelling visions of the future, many have been working to create approaches, if not enterprises, that expeditiously solve today's problems and meet foreseeable needs. They hope to develop the primary catalyst that will bring it all together.

One instance of this is the concept of templates or reusable learning objects (RLOs). An RLO (see Table 4.4) is a small “chunk” of training that can be reused in a number of different training settings. RLOs are a speculative technical solution to reduce development costs. They address development and maintenance issues, and when used selectively and judiciously, they can speed up not only development, but design as well.

But because RLOs can have design and implementation details worked out and therefore greatly speed up overall creation of e-learning applications, there's a temptation to let available RLOs limit, if not dictate, instructional possibilities. Ironically, design choices limited to available RLOs can become more difficult and tedious than using a modern authoring system to build exactly what's called for. Authors can become more fixated on maximizing the use of RLOs than maximizing the impact of the learning experience.

This is not to say RLOs are bad. In the hands of a professional instructional designer, who uses RLOs only where they are fully appropriate and avoids the temptation to compromise learning experiences just because fitting RLOs aren't available, RLOs can provide an invaluable way to reduce the time and expense of creating excellent e-learning applications.

There's a bit of a conundrum with RLOs or authoring by selecting a template and populating it with content. For example, very small RLOs would seemingly allow the greatest flexibility and applicability. They can be used almost everywhere. But because they are small, they carry minimal relevance to specific instructional contexts and are therefore instructionally weak. Please remember, a strong context is needed for maximum performance change. Context-neutral templates are generally undesirable learning objects, regardless of the number of times they might be reused. Small and context-neutral objects must be assisted by other structures, RLOs and/or custom structures that build on context. And this means authors can be taken off task by trying to assemble and integrate RLOs to create the whole of a learning experience, while trying to avoid an encumbered patchwork that may be difficult to use and maintain.

Conversely, larger RLOs, especially those embracing the specific nuances of content and context, can provide essential learning activities and offer great utility while working within the supported context but need considerable revision when used in alternative contexts (Figure 4.2). Larger RLOs tend to work against the fundamental purpose of RLOs across contexts, but can provide outstanding utility within the domain for which they were created.

Is lowering the quality of e-learning a fair trade-off to ease design, development, and maintenance? No. Simply said, poorly designed training is of little value, whether it's easy to author and maintain or not.

Intrigue, challenge, surprise, and suspense are valuable in creating effective learning experiences. The drama of learning events is not to be overlooked when seeking to make a lasting impression on learners. Just as we have not yet seen automated ways to create such elements in other media, it will be a while before e-learning evolves to automated creation. We still need to develop a greater understanding of interactive learning before we attempt to make courses by either automation or assembly-line production.

That said, RLOs have a valuable role to play in today's professional e-learning toolbox. While small, general RLOs can be used for such utilitarian functions as recognizing learner gestures, presenting options, and showing progress, more complex, content-specific RLOs can be used when repetitive complex interactions serve as the basis for performance practice. The smaller RLOs provide utility across many content domains, while the larger RLOs provide development and maintenance advantages within a defined domain.

Art or Science?

A fascinating debate has carried on among our industry's most knowledgeable and respected leaders and researchers. The debate concerns whether instructional design is, or should be, approached as an art or a science. If based on science, then it should be possible to specify precise principles and procedures, which, when followed properly, would produce highly effective e-learning applications every time. If instructional design is an art, then procedures remain uncertain, effective in the hands of some, who add their unique insights, but ineffective when used by others. It's a lively debate in my mind, and I find myself in the frustrating position of agreeing with both sides wholeheartedly on many of their respective arguments.

I come out centered securely on the fence, uncomfortable as that is at times. It seems clear that a combination of science and art is required and that neither is sufficient without the other. I believe the advocates of each position actually accept this centrist position in their practice.

No one can produce optimal, meaningful, and memorable learning experiences in a single pass of analysis, design, and development. Certainly, experienced and talented people will do a better job than those with little experience or background. Although scientific methods are appropriate to investigate alternative instructional approaches, the science of instructional design is not yet sufficiently articulate enough to prescribe designs matching the impact of those devised by talented and, yes, artful instructional designers.

It seems that no matter how complex some theories may be, and some are bewilderingly complex, dealing with the complexity of human behavior is beyond appropriate generalizations of research findings. By the same token, we need to draw heavily on research foundations to teach people the art of instructional design. Without the rudder of research, creative design results in applications that are simply different and unusual but not necessarily effective.

Problems Applying Research Results

Use caution when applying research to instructional design. Specifically, don't overgeneralize research findings. The temptation may be to apply theories hastily without carefully considering whether findings in one context apply to another context. Functional attributes of contexts—including characteristics of learners, expectations of them, prior learning experiences, desire for training, and so many more—differ more often than is apparent.

When I've asked my graduate students to justify various peculiarities in their designs, they could frequently and proudly cite published research findings. But often, with a bit more analysis, we could see how the referenced findings could be valid and yet not actually support the graduate students' design decisions. In many cases, one could cite other findings that would suggest doing quite contradictory things.

Scientists are careful to address the applicability of their findings and to caution against overgeneralization. Researchers are continuing to look for principles that are broadly applicable and less dependent on contextual nuances. While many advances are being made—most promisingly, in my view, through a collection of theories known as constructivism (Duffy and Jonassen, 1992; Jonassen, 1999)—it is very important to realize that many appealing principles are far from universally true. It's easy to make mistakes.

Valuable as scientific findings should be, it's perplexing to me that so many who know research literature well cannot or at least do not design appealing and effective e-learning applications. If a pill tastes too awful to swallow, it will remain in the jar, benefiting no one. Such is the case with many e-learning applications too awful to endure.

The problems appear to lie in two major areas. First, it's important to keep not only the intent of a learning experience in mind but also the likely assessment the learner will make of the experience. Is it meaningful, frustrating, interesting, intriguing, painful, confusing, humorous, or enlightening? Learners are emotional, just as they are intellectual, and emotions have an effect on our perceptions and what we do. In addition, adult learners are zealous guardians of their time. If they perceive a learning experience to be wasting their time, they will become irritated and resentful. In that case, attention will shift away as engagement fades, and the motivation to escape will take precedence.

It's often noted that a high percentage of learners do not complete e-learning courses. Optimists say attrition occurs because learners quit when they have gotten all they need from a course. Because e-learning offerings are intended to assist people individually, learners should, in fact, opt out when they've gotten all they need. Of course, the more likely explanation for not finishing is that learners have had enough. Not all they need, but all they can stand. In their judgment, the benefits of completing the course do not justify the time expense or the pain of sticking it out. Harsh? I suppose so. Reality? I think so.

Second, many common design processes actually prohibit successful creativity. In general, they make impossible inspired design ideas and force designers toward the mundane—all with an explicit rationale and justification to present to management and concerned stakeholders. It's amazing how readily organizations complain about their lack of empowering training and yet find themselves structurally, mentally, and even culturally defiant against changing to approaches that will get them to their beleaguered goals.

Chapter 14 discusses an effective process called the Successive Approximation Model (SAM). It offers a dramatically different approach to e-learning design and development, even though nearly all of the basic steps and procedures are found in every other formalized development process. It requires change, a new group dynamic, and managerial flexibility, but it's worth it. It can make all the difference as to whether winning ideas will be discovered and incorporated in training or whether status quo practices will preclude improvement.

A Pragmatic Approach

So if creativity requires guidance, current scientific findings are helpful but insufficient, and the processes typically employed don't get us the solutions we need, what can we do? We can take a pragmatic approach that depends on some creativity, intuition, and talent, to be sure, but also depends on experience as much as published research, intelligence, and an iterative process that includes experimentation and evaluation. These foundations work well, but they work well only for those who are prepared and armed with the knowledge of how they work together.

The approach I advocate, and will present shortly, is pragmatic, validated through countless applications, supportive of creativity, and comparatively simple. What you'll find here is:

• A frank, outspoken, impassioned, and blunt critique of what doesn't work
• A list of conditions and resources essential for success
• A process that promotes error identification and rectification as a manageable approach to achieving excellence
• Examples of good design you can use

Get ready; all this is coming up.

The Takeaways

This chapter reviewed a range of multifaceted situations in which e-learning might be a powerful component of a mission-critical solution, including some unexpected situations in which e-learning might be very helpful. It also presented a list of essential conditions for success:

• Performer competency is the problem.
• Good performance is possible.
• Incentives exist for good performance.
• There are no penalties for good performance.
• Essential resources for e-learning solutions are available.

Finally, this chapter showed that for e-learning or any training solution to succeed, it is essential that it be designed well—much better designed than what is typically seen—and this requires an investment of human resources going all the way up to the key visionary. If you are that visionary, you must be on guard, because people will let you down for many reasons (some of which were identified in this chapter), while earnestly doing what they think you want. You will need to invest the necessary time and resources to achieve your objectives.