9 Metrics to Assess eLearning Learnability

Assessing learnability gives crucial insights into the kind of change an eLearning program produces, informing businesses if the training is bringing them closer to their goals. For that reason, it is a best practice to evaluate how effective an eLearning course is. This article will define 9 metrics you can look to when assessing your eLearning’s learnability.

Laying Down the Groundwork

Before you begin assessing the learnability of your course, it is important to lay down a solid foundation. This means carefully analyzing organizational needs and goals and defining them clearly. Having a clear direction before developing an eLearning intervention increases the likelihood of greater learnability since the course accurately addresses the needs and goals that led to its creation. Here are the things you can do to ensure a robust starting point:

Conduct a thorough training needs analysis

A training needs analysis identifies and measures the gap between your workforce’s current abilities, skills, and knowledge (ASK) and the actual ASK needed to meet the organization’s goals. TNA reveals who needs learning, of what kind, and in what capacity. Thus, training needs analysis sets a clear starting point for developing an intervention and defines what needs to be addressed by said intervention.

Establish clear, measurable, and relevant learning objectives

Another factor that supports potential learnability is learning objectives. Learning objectives are essential components of any good learning program. They are typically defined right at the beginning and guide the development of course content, activities, and assessments. Learning objective, thus, give direction to a course by ensuring all learning activities lead to a measurable outcome.

Link learning objectives with relevant KPIs

We have already established the importance of learning objectives. You can fine-tune the precision of your learning objectives to facilitate the development of even more targeted learning by linking them with KPIs.

Establish benchmarks

Finally, establish benchmarks for desired performance. You can do so by analyzing competitors, examining high-performing teams, or defining the level your employees will need to reach to meaningfully contribute to organizational goals.

Metrics for Evaluating Learnability

Let us now dive into the metrics you can evaluate to determine the learnability of your eLearning intervention.

Completion rates

You can track a program’s completion rates to determine learning effectiveness. Completion rates can indicate the following:

• A course was engaging
• A course was relevant
• The learning experience had the right level of complexity

Learners are less likely to complete courses when they are seen as irrelevant, difficult, or boring, Thus, learnable courses will have higher completion rates.

Learning Retention

Learning retention shows that your eLearning program was successful in transferring information or skills to learners. A well-designed eLearning program facilitates the retention of key points and behaviors, hence, learning retention is another good metric for measuring learnability.

Assessments

Assessments are a direct evaluation of learning outcomes. They are built keeping learning objectives in mind and are, thus, able to inform you whether the training intervention achieved what it intended to. When learners perform well on assessments, it’s a clear indication that the content, delivery, activities in a course meaningfully changed their knowledge and behaviors. If they perform poorly, it indicates that the course might have missed its mark. A course with high learnability will naturally have better learner performance on assessments.

Knowledge Gain and Implementation

Another way to assess learnability is by looking at knowledge gain and implementation. Supervisors, managers, as well as learner self-reports can be potential sources of information regarding this metric. Managers and supervisors can attest to whether learners utilize what they learned in their jobs. Similarly, learners can be asked whether and how they are implementing their new learnings.

Skill Improvement

Skill improvement is another valuable measure of learnability. Since teaching and developing skills is more complex, an eLearning program that leads to visible skill improvement has fulfilled its purpose.

Performance Outcomes

Performance outcomes are usually measured over time, signalling that a program’s learnings have also persisted over time. An eLearning course that produces outcomes, hence, did not only stick, but was memorable and effective enough to stick for a long time. Thus, performance outcomes are a useful metric for measuring long-term learnability.

Return on Investment

Return on investment or ROI is a comparison between training costs and the monetary benefits the training produced. ROI can be positive or negative. A positive ROI occurs when the monetary benefits of training exceed training costs. A negative ROI occurs when the monetary benefits of training are lower than training costs. ROI is a very concrete measure of learnability as it signals whether the training produced change or not. Hence, the higher the ROI, the higher your eLearning course’s learning effectiveness.

Learner Feedback

You can also collect learner feedback to gauge the learnability of a course. Feedback can be regarding multiple factors, and will supplement the metrics mentioned above. Some parameters you can collect feedback on are:

• Engagement
• Learners’ perception of abilities, skills, and knowledge gained
• eLearning design
• Learning implementation
• Learning experience
• What learners liked and disliked

Control Groups

Lastly, you can measure learning effectiveness with control groups. Control groups are groups that do not receive the learning intervention for the period its being evaluated and tested in. Control groups give you a baseline and help you determine how your experimental group (i.e., the group that received the learning intervention) benefited from the eLearning program, if at all.

Conclusion

Assessing learnability gives you valuable insight into how an eLearning intervention is faring. It indicates whether a training program is contributing to organizational goals and success or not. Without learning effectiveness, any training endeavor would simply be a poor of allocation of resources, leading to the waste of training dollars and overall L&D budget. Furthermore, an ineffective course would add nothing to the company’s productivity after taking up employees’ precious time.

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Knowledge Check!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the concept of learnability?

Learnability, or the learning effectiveness, of an eLearning program indicates whether a course effectively imparts the intended knowledge and skills to learners. Hence, it is a key measure of a learning intervention’s success.

Why is learnability important?

Learnability gives crucial insights into the kind of change an eLearning program produces, informing businesses if the training is bringing them closer to their goals.