The need for more virtual learning research

I find that my training design and delivery is a mix of using evidence of good learning theory and a lot of experience and instinct. For many years a lot of us would have been working instinctively to involve people, have great discussions and design good activities. As we’ve become more professional, had more access to materials and more evidence-informed information has become easier to consume, we’ve realised those things we did that were right and some that weren’t (learning styles, anyone!).

When we look at learning from an organisational perspective, the 2021 Workplace Learning Report from LinkedIn Learning shows that 62% of L&D professionals say that their CEOs are continuing to prioritise learning in their organisations and “are active champions of learning”. This means we need more and up-to-date research and evidence to inform the work learning interventions that we design and deliver.

Live online learning, as well as meetings and events, have grown significantly due to the global pandemic. The Impact of Covid-19 on Organisational Learning research paper from Challenging Frontiers highlighted that there was a lot of positive movement towards making sure that the virtual training offerings were the best they could be, with 49% of people that moved everything to virtual stating that they had designed it for effective online learning.

However there was a worrying 13% that moved to virtual training but made no changes to the design. Was this perhaps the emergency move to live online at the beginning of 2020 that necessitated just getting it done, or has this remained as-is coming up to two years later? The report highlighted that virtual training needs:

“a deeper understanding of the psychology of learning and how the virtual environment needs to adapt to meet these learning needs”.

“Short bursts of content interspersed with peer interaction” is recommended by Josh Bersin in his Framework for Optimizing the Virtual Live Learning Experience. We find in our training programmes helping teams to design and deliver great virtual sessions, that this can be quite a different way to organise learning delivery compared to their face-to-face experience.

Couple this with the challenge that we are having to use a virtual platform tool to connect people and it’s easy for trainers and facilitators to get overwhelmed by this different modality. Bersin highlights that:

“The human brain is wired for detecting motion… To combat limited attention spaces… enhanced VILT tools offer a multitude of options to keep the presentation moving and learner’s brains engaged.”

It’s the combination of being remote, having to facilitate differently and use the technology that makes this a unique challenge. With the prevalence of live online learning due to the 2020 pandemic, and now the move to more hybrid learning, meetings and events, we need more research and evidence about how to do this well.

And this is where I hope to contribute to this discussion. I’ve teamed up with Jane Daly, Behavioural Scientist specialising in evidence-based culture and capability transformation. We have launched ‘Through the lens of research: virtual and hybrid learning’.

UPDATE - the report can be downloaded: https://virtualresearchinsights.com/

You can also contribute to the 2023 survey!

We’ll share our findings to help you and your teams create even better live online learning.