Microlearning: Accessing Information or True Learning? (with corrections)

(Warming: It will take you longer than a few minutes to read this (perhaps half the attention span of a healthy adult). However, you will probably find it interesting and helpful.)

Attention Span

Much has been made of attention span. You are probably familiar with the statistic indicating that goldfish have longer average attention spans that humans. You’re also probably familiar with the traits of the tech-savvy Millennials who dominate today’s workforce. It is the data on their attention span that has made microlearning a phenomenon.

But, what is one to believe about attention? John Eades, writing on the eLearning Industry Blog says that the attention span of the Millennial generation is 90 seconds. A 2015 study by Microsoft revealed that the average person’s attention span is down to 8 seconds. (that’s the one that compares our attention span to that of goldfish). David Comish and Dianne Dukette authors of The Essential 20: Twenty components of an excellent health care team, state that “most healthy teenagers and adults are unable to sustain attention on one thing for more than about 20 minutes at a time, although they can choose repeatedly to re-focus on the same thing.” They write that a two-year-old child can maintain focus on a freely chosen task for “about five minutes.”

So, just how long can someone maintain attention? It takes me two to three hours to write an article, sometimes longer. For the most part, I stay on task for 30 minutes or longer (consistent with the Comish and Dukette data), before I’m interrupted. Writing requires a lot of research so I go to my library, my research files, magazine websites, and conduct Google searches. Some may say that moving from one type of research is a diversion of attention. To me, it isn’t. It’s part of completing a task.

Am I some sort of freak that skews the attention span curve? Probably not, I’d venture to say that you do the same things. How relevant then, is attention span to learning or retaining knowledge?

Knowledge Acquisition and Retention

Let’s look at retention. If you have not read Professor Will Thalheimer’s article “How Much Do People Forget?”, I recommend you go to this link (https://tinyurl.com/2u8ulgg) and read it now. There are popular myths stating the people forget at predetermined rates. Dr. Thalheimer thoroughly researched the data and has surmised: “The amount a learner will forget varies depending on many things.”

With that in mind, we can discuss remembering. The retention of content depends on multiple variables. Things like the type of material being learned, the importance of that material to the learner, how interested the learner is in the material, and how that material will be applied, all influence what one learns and retains. These factors, and more, also influence attention span. Microlearning, in and of itself, does not increase retention.

Fortunately, microlearning isn't necessarily about retention. It seems to be about accessing specific information when needed. I'm waiting to read the research on microlearning and retention.

How we acquire knowledge is an important factor, as well. Edgar Dale’s Cone of Experience model shows that people generally remember about 30% of what they see from videos. That goes up to 50% retention of what they see and hear content via live demonstrations or observations. If they are required to participate in hands-on-activities and/or provide oral or written explanations of something, they are said to retain about 70%. Dale suggests that people retain about 90% of what they do.

Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy

Benjamin Bloom’s taxonomy of learning domains: Cognitive (knowledge), Affective (feelings, emotions, attitudes), and psychomotor (skills) has been around since 1956. Most of us in the L&D profession are very familiar with it.

Cognitive Domain: Helping people acquire knowledge is perhaps the least difficult instructional task a L&D professional has. There are many ways and many tools for imparting knowledge. Remember cramming for midterms with flashcards and crib notes? It’s conceivable that you remember some of the information you crammed into your brain on an all-nighter fueled by NoDoz. But, it’s more likely you forgot it once it was no longer useful. That’s how our brain works. Microlearning can help people acquire cognitive content, but there’s no research to show it helps with retention.

Psychomotor Domain: Skill building is much more difficult. It requires explanations, demonstrations, practicing, coaching, feedback, and repetition. The keys to skill building are repetition and corrective feedback. Either alone does not build skills. Take tennis for example. You can’t learn how to return a 100-mile-an-hour tennis serve by watching a 60-second video. You can try and try, but you won't be able to do it until someone shows you and helps you with coaching. Similarly, you won’t be able to lay a perfect welding bead on a pipe inside the darkened hull at the bottom of a ship by watching a video, either. The keys to skill building are repetition and corrective feedback. I seriously doubt microlearning helps build skills.

Affective Domain: Changing attitudes, beliefs, and feelings is perhaps the most difficult task L&D professionals have. People are prone to stubbornly defend their existing beliefs and attitudes, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Short, 60-second, messages aren’t likely to change one's beliefs or attitudes. (In retrospect, brainwashing by repeating a message over and over, may change beliefs and attitudes, but I doubt many L&D professionals are prone to try brainwashing as a learning methodology).

MicroLearning: A look at its past

According to Grovo, a firm that produces microlearning content, “microlearning is the process of building successful behaviors in small, focused segments.” John Eades writing in the eLearning Industry blog defines microlearning as: “a way of teaching and delivering content to learners in small, very specific bursts.” I prefer the second definition to Grovo's. The latter specifies that microlearning is about "delivering content," while the former is about "building successful behaviors." As I said above, I doubt microlearning will prove to be highly effective in building successful behaviors (skill building). We'll see...

Barry Raybould, published an article in 1990, in the Journal of Performance Improvement entitled “Solving human performance problems with computers a case study: Building an electronic performance support system.” He starts his article noting that “information overload” was a “key issue” in the workplace at that time. That's a rationale used to promote microlearning today, as well. Raybould defines EPSS as “A computer-based system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice, and learning experiences [as needed].” He suggests that an effective EPSS system would:

• Access only to that portion of information that is relevant
• Quickly find answers to specific task-related questions
• Ensure users are accessing the most up-to-date information
• Allow for different levels of knowledge within the target audience
• Provide knowledge when it is needed rather than in scheduled training sessions

Five years later, James Laffey, professor at the University of Missouri, introduced a model of Dynamic EPSS that is characterized by the ability to change with experience, updated by users, and augment other elements of a performance improvement system. Today, 27 years later, a dynamic EPSS system is called “Real Time Learning” or “microlearning.”

A Grovo publication entitled “Small Steps to Big Wins: How microlearning transforms organizations” states, in the second paragraph that “The training systems we used in the past don’t work anymore. The innovations that propelled technology forward over the past decade have, so far, left training behind.” Really?

Strengths of Microlearning

I’m not going to say much about this. The strengths and benefits have been repeatedly articulated in magazine and research articles for over twenty-five years. I will add that,

Advances in technology have allowed for access to information via mobile devices, which was unheard of and possibly not conceived of back in 1990. I think we all can agree that access to essential information when we need it and where we need it is important to high levels of performance. This is microlearning’s key benefit. (However, there are places where access to the internet or an Intranet is not possible. The bottom bays of a tanker hull being one of them.)

Shortcomings of Microlearning

Microlearning is not an effective way to teach skills. The video clips may provide explanations and demonstrate how something is done, but will not necessarily build skills. For that, coaching feedback and repetition are needed.

Microlearning, by itself, will not change attitudes. This is my strong belief and contention. I have no data to support it.

Microlearning is not effective for complicated subjects. I’ve been told by strong advocates of microlearning that complicated topics can be covered in a series of microlearning modules. That's called "chunking." We've been doing that for decades. I’ve also seen some ML modules that include a bit of gaming and remediation loops, but that’s difficult to do well in 90 seconds. The examples I saw, did not impress me with their gaming or remediation. Perhaps that can be done better in four to five minutes. I’ve not seen any research on it.

Microlearning is does not replace blended learning. Microlearning has a valuable place in any organization’s overall L&D strategy. It cannot replace other learning methodologies and function as a standalone training solution.

Hopefully, your attention span and interest got you all the way to this point. I appreciate your diligence.

Thank you,

Alan Landers

The Learning Strategist