Busting the myth that e-learning is more effective than face to face

A recent post by Paul titled Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom linked to a New York Times article. The source research for the article has caused quite a stir in learning, training and teaching blogs, social networking groups and forums.

Sadly, it seems that we are being too trusting (or lazy!) in accepting the summary without reading the research directly. So before you turn your training rooms into data suites and spend an load of money on learning the latest flash authoring software, please take heed of the following warnings about the research quoted by the New York Times.

Warning One: this is a ‘meta’ study NOT new research

Ben Goldacre, author of the excellent Bad Science book and website, explains meta-anaysis like this:

A meta-analysis is a study where you take lots of individual trials, some of which may be quite small, and effectively put all the figures into one big spreadsheet. This allows you to get a more accurate answer about an outcome, … …. The joy of meta-analyses is that they can help to avoid what is called a “type II error”: missing a genuine finding

He gives several examples of meta-analysis identifying problems with many prescription drugs that smaller trials did not find. It is a great tool for finding patterns in the pooled data that would be missed in smaller, individual studies.

Just be aware that many networking groups, journalists and e-learning evangelists are touting this study (it’s too long and dry for most people to read) as NEW data. It is not a new study, it is a new analysis of lots of existing studies.

Warning Two: the ‘classroom’ studies appear to be very brain unfriendly

The research takes many existing studies from classroom. All of these appear to be ‘lecture’ style and have very little of what we would understand to be brain friendly learning. Many of us who design and deliver face to face training have moved away from this training/teaching methodology because we have found that by incorporating brain friendly learning principles, we can help our learners achieve vastly better results.

Warning Three: several of the ”on-line’ studies incorporated good brain friendly learning principles

The online studies used in the meta analysis were more contemporary in their design and delivery. Many incorporated collaboration, investigation, engaged multiple senses and encouraged active participation. These are much more in line with how we know adults and children learn effectively.

Summary: the conclusion reached by the researchers is wrong!

Rather than saying that “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction” they would have been more accurate in concluding that:

On average, students in stimulating, collaborative and multisensory online learning conditions performed better than those receiving dull, one dimensional, boring face-to-face instruction

I believe that the researches thought they were measuring only one thing – the delivery channel and the report became online vs. classroom.

What they were actually measuring was at least two things. One was the delivery channel, the second was the delivery methodology. They failed to appreciate the impact of using collaborative, multi-sensory, stimulating methods that encourage active participation.

Our learning environments, whether on-line or face-to-face, must be designed to creating understanding rather than passive consumption of information. We believe it is the the methodology that makes a difference, not the channel.

broken keyboard image by Luca ©
bored student image by Orange42
sleeping student image by umjanedoan

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