Social pressures

Brian Sutton is Chief Educator at training provider QA. Sutton endorses the view that completion rates are heavily affected by business goals: “Where training is closely related to job skills and may even be compulsory, there is no real problem with completion rates. All our programmes are linked to qualifications and, to the extent that these are valued and influence career prospects, they form a powerful incentive for completion. On the other hand, where courses form part of a general education programme, it seems that ‘procrastination rules OK’.”

To help overcome the dangers of procrastination, Sutton has tried implementing a form of learning contract, between the learner, their manager and the supplier. “It’s early days yet and we’ve had varying levels of success, but we are determined to try and improve the commitment of all parties to the learning process. Our learning contract asks learners, managers and the trainers to sign off on the contribution they will make to the programme, in a wide range of areas. So far we have implemented the contract at the start of the programme, but we are more likely to be successful by making it a ‘condition of sale’.”

Case study: When learning can’t be left to chance

All financial institutions have a responsibility to put procedures in place to prevent money laundering. Indeed, directors and senior managers within the financial services industry face a two-year jail term for failing to meet these responsibilities. One of the ways in which financial institutions help to meet these responsibilities is by ensuring that their staff are well trained in procedures to identify money laundering and report any suspicions without, of course, breaching customer confidentiality. Britannia Building Society is the second largest building society in the UK, with 188 branches, over 3,300 employees and group assets exceeding 19bn. The Society is meeting its responsibilities under current legislation through a series of e-learning and e-assessment materials which it has specially commissioned from VEGA Group PLC.

A key element of the course is a series of highly-realistic case studies. Completing these successfully entitles the learner to a printed 'pass' certificate. Candidates who fail the case study test are allowed one further attempt at a different case study, but, if they fail again, they are 'locked out' of the system for seven days. During that time they must continue their studies and discuss their progress with their manager before re-sitting the case study module. VEGA’s Peter Durrant explains how this works: ”Users sign on, take the course, and their records are stored on the branch server. Once a month, these results are up-loaded to the company’s main server, so results can be shown to the industry's regulators, as necessary. Regulators can review each learner's records and see proof of their level of competence."

Under the current regulations, each member of Britannia's staff that is affected by the legislation must go through a re-training and re-certification process every two years. However, Britannia's company policy is that staff are trained on an annual basis. Julie Lovatt works in the Society's Group Training and Competence Department: “Britannia felt that e-learning would provide the right degree of interactivity with the staff to advance knowledge and skills, while introducing a robust record keeping system. We launched the training programme successfully through a full staff communication programme. This included putting information about both money laundering and the new training programme on our intranet site, giving staff the chance to test out the materials as part of a display, as well as running a competition for staff."

Lovatt continues: "We are delighted with the results. We now have a training programme and monitoring system in place that can prove to both the industry regulators and our customers that this Society is highly competent and trustworthy."

According to Steve Rayson, Director of Government Services for e-learning developer Epic, another form of social pressure that seems to yield results is to have learners ‘buddy up’: “We are interested in findings from The Open University that show how learners can be motivated to finish courses out of loyalty to their buddy. Students work jointly throughout the course on a variety of tasks and assignments. We are applying this technique to our PRIME leadership course, which is being implemented in the Department of Health and as part of the NHS Leadership Programme. I’m convinced that working in pairs will generate a greater sense of loyalty than would be achieved in a larger group.”

Case study: Achieving results through blended learning

Trainers who may be feeling depressed by e-learning completion rates would do well to look at some superb results being generated by the NHS e-Tutor training programme, commissioned by the National Health Service Information Authority (NHSIA). To date this innovative blended learning programme has achieved a completion rate of 93.8% and average learner satisfaction ratings of 5.95 out of a maximum score of 6.

In July 2002 the NHSIA announced that it was registering 200 NHS trainers onto places on e-tutoring skills courses operated by The Training Foundation under the Institute of IT Training Certified e-Learning Professional (CeLP) Programme. At the time, Diane Benjamin, Programme Manager for the NHS Information Authority commented: "The NHS in England is committed to a major basic IT skills development programme for some 700,000 staff over the next 5 years. We anticipate that the majority will choose to study via e-learning approaches, so it's vital that we put in place effective learner support to assist staff, many of whom will be studying online for the first time."

This customised blended programme developed for the NHSIA by The Training Foundation commences with a one-day classroom course called the e-Tutor Programme Startup day. The subsequent learning experience takes place online, with a high level of remote tutor support and peer-to-peer interaction.

Carol Hulm, ECDL Service Manager and project manager for the NHSIA, explained how learners have responded: "From the outset the feedback we received from learners has been excellent. So far, 91 learners have completed the programme in 17 groups and have qualified as e-tutors. The six learners who haven't completed have either withdrawn for health reasons or because of pressure of work, or still have to complete one or more course assignments. The fact that we chose a blended solution has undoubtedly shown benefits in terms of completion and satisfaction rates.”