Narrator using "I" or "We" in courses

In short: If there is no person on the screen that welcomes you, someone that gives the user of sense, that the content is coming from them, I would go with "we".

I gave a presentation at LSCon about writing voice over scripts, and this exact question came up in the discussion. We didn't come up with a compelling answer. No one was aware of any research either way (although I'd love to be corrected on that if someone else knows of research). As a group, I think more people preferred using "I" for most courses.

Nejc, I'm not sure that having someone on screen or off screen makes that much difference. If it's a single narrator in the voice over, I think that makes it feel like a single instructor conveying knowledge.

Some people in my session commented that "we" can come off sounding a little condescending.  Personally, I wouldn't say "We'll show you" unless the course had two narrators. I would default to "I" for that. I might say, "We'll review this process" though, as then you're doing it together with the learner. Your reworks make sense to me. If you have to use we, rewrite the sentences like your examples.

The best option would be to do a short sample with both versions, I and we (reworked as needed). Then get a handful of sample learners (from your real audience, not people in the L&D team) and see which one they prefer. If you do that, come back and let us know. I want to hear how this goes.

As an old school stand-up trainer originally, my take on these kinds of topics always defaults to how it would be said in front of a group. Here are a couple of soft standards using that mindset:

• "I" puts the focus on the trainer, not the trainees. So writing scripts as "we" is how you typically train a group.  Eg Today we are going to cover... we will learn about... we have explored.... etc
• "You" is best used for praise (avoid "We" when giving feedback)
• Tough messages/bad news about past performance or to provide context/rationale for training, are always "our/we" to avoid trainees feeling singled out.  Eg  Our year end results were a bit lower... We have received a lower customer satisfaction rating.... - never "your" divisional sales missed target... etc