Assessment

Hi Jennifer! Rather than focusing on whether the learner viewed all the slides, is there a way you can turn the focus onto whether they mastered the skills or knowledge they need? Can you create an activity or simulation that helps them apply or demonstrate what they learned? Better yet, maybe even give them an opportunity to demonstrate mastery before the course if they want... so that they can bypass (i.e., test out of) whatever portions of the content they don't really need?

You might also try to pinpoint what your manager is concerned about with regard to users skipping content... is there a specific critical skill that learners absolutely must acquire? Or maybe the manager has observed some specific performance issues and thinks that training is part of the problem?

Thank you so much for responding, Jeanette.

These trainings are for new employees. They cover pay, how we run programs, etc. Users would not be able to test out of this information.

Additionally, I think my manager is concerned that he is spending all of this money on resources (paying ME, buying the program, taking time for the SME's to come up with the information, paying EE's time for viewing it), and is worried that it could be wasted, or that it's a failed investment. I think he needs some reassurance that we're on the right track.

My suggestions: first, create an ending quiz, either in Quizmaker or just a paper quiz, testing the participants' knowledge of their pay process, company programs, etc. Show your manager that you're using the same terminology in the test questions as in the learning objectives, therefore proving that you're testing mastery of those precise topics designed by you and the SMEs. This also reassures the SMEs that their specific input is valued and being applied. (You're using Bloom's Taxonomy, of course?)

Second, have some veterans of the previous knowledge transfer scheme take the course and the quiz. It would be best to find the very last participants of the previous scheme (HR briefing? handout? PPT dump?) so that you could control, as much as possible, against knowledge acquired through experience. Have those veterans compare and rate the two approaches. (Have refreshments available when they're rating the two approaches, I'm just saying.) Be sure to ask about gaps from the previous approach that were only addressed through experience, and/or caused employee frustration. This last element is the least quantifiable in cost, but the good news is that you can summarize to your own and the program's advantage.

Obviously, I'm biased in favor of eLearning, so you should be prepared for contradictory results - that is, you'll have to report truthfully, even if the advantage of eLearning is not clear. In general, though, yours is a prime case for eLearning - baseline information that must be repeated with standardized accuracy and without unforeseen bias, such as when one HR person's briefing emphasizes different topics than another HR person's briefing; or when one somewhat cynical or shortcut-taking employee informally briefs the new employee.

Ah, I getcha now Jennifer. And actually it's kind of awesome that your manager is thinking along these lines, rather than just heaping more training on people, or assuming that training is going to be the automatic "fix" for everything!

One thing that might help is to do a cost comparison to demonstrate whether he's getting his money's worth. It sounds like the content you're putting into your course is the sort of new-hire stuff that he wants everyone to know...  the type of info that would need to be covered at some point with new employees, in some form... whether as e-learning or in a classroom-type environment. So, one route would be to estimate the cost of paying people (and a facilitator) to gather in a physical location and go through the material in person, and compare that with the cost of developing and deploying the online course. You could also factor in the opportunity cost & hassle of trying to schedule people to go to an instructor-led class, as compared to letting them complete e-learning when their schedules allow. Usually the cost savings is pretty significant.

An additional thought would be to gather some very basic data from your learners. Even a few simple questions posed to a sample of your audience could produce some helpful anecdotal data that your manager might really dig. ....i.e., you could ask learners to rate the effectiveness of the course, identify the portions they found most or least valuable, etc. This can be really helpful to you as the developer, too, for obvious reasons! It's a great way to identify weaker spots in a course and target areas that need bolstering or an overhaul.

Here's a little overview of a survey that one of the community members here did, after he transitioned a previously ILT orientation into online learning. Here's a blog post about his course, too, in case you're interested.