This post is provided by guest blogger, Katie Sachs, graduate student at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL, MS in Training and Development program.

E-learning has become a popular method for training employees for many reasons, such as the relative ease in which it can be deployed to large, dispersed audiences. But even if an organization is reaching more employees with e-learning, how can they know if the

employees are actually learning? In a recent article for Learning Solutions magazine, Pamela Hogle (2016) says the answer is assessment. She suggests that organizations adopt an assessment strategy in which learning outcomes are defined first in the design process. Clear learner outcomes provide something to measure and they dictate the most appropriate form of assessment.

The title of Hogle’s (2016) article is a little misleading in that she really offers four alternatives to assessment types that aren’t just multiple choice tests. Her first suggestion is to adopt the previously-mentioned assessment strategy. And her final two points are centered on employee evaluation of the e-learning and of their own self-evaluation of job performance/confidence, post-training. Still, these are all valuable ideas to consider, and I recommend this article to anyone responsible for creating and deploying corporate e-learning. An assessment strategy that includes thoughtful learning outcomes and a way to measure success is crucial to e-learning efficacy.

Reference

Hogle, P. (2016, September 22). Beyond multiple choice: Seven strategies for assessing eLearning effectiveness. Learning Solutions Magazine. Retrieved from: https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2060/beyond-multiple-choice-seven-strategies-for-assessing-elearning-effectiveness