Adobe Captivate: How Long Should Your eLearning Lessons Last?

by AJ George

 

Today's working professionals have more on their minds than ever.

"Is the courier going to get here on time?"

 

"Am I going to get that raise?"

 

"Is the project on budget?"

 

"Am I on schedule?"

 

"What time do the kids need to be picked up from daycare or school?"

 

"What's for dinner?"

 

"Is the dry cleaner going to be open this late?" 

eLearning developers face a daunting challenge when it comes to engaging adult eLearners. Not only are adults distracted, but many industry experts believe that attention spans in general are shrinking.

 

Distractions and shrinking attention spans aren't the only hurdles facing eLearning developers. Many professionals who take eLearning courses don't necessarily want to take them. In fact, your eLearning students may have been forced to take your course as a mandated part of their jobs.

 

Given the distractions, waning attention spans and an audience that may be less than enthusiastic about taking your eLearning course, you might want to seriously consider how long each of the eLearning lessons that make up your eLearning course should take, on average, to complete. Should the lessons last 10 minutes? 20? 30? Should the course itself last 60 minutes? 90 minutes?

 

Let's assume you're developing a 60-minute eLearning course. How do you go about dividing the course into bite-sized lessons (chunks) that will maximize learning before minds begin to wander?

 

As Neil Postman pointed out in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, there was once a time when people would sit and stay captivated by speeches for 8-10 hours. But those days are long-gone. While prior studies have put attention spans at around 20 minutes, a study conducted at Simon Fraser University found that for literate humans, the average continuous attention span was 8 seconds, with a maximum of 30 seconds. In addition, it was determined that the average general attention span was from 10-12 minutes.

 

In his book, The Media How-To Guide for Nonprofits, David Perry said the continuous attention span for adult learners is 15 seconds. 15 seconds!

 

Ralph A. Burns conducted a study on adult learners, finding that the bulk of information the students were later able to recall was received during the first 5 minutes of instruction. Burns said that the lowest level of retention occurred between the 15 and 20-minute mark.

 

At Arizona State University, a group of professors realized the fault in the standard teaching method of having a professor lecture at the front of a classroom for no less than an hour. They banded together to create the Arizona Collaboration for Excellence in Preparation of Teachers (ACEPT). The professors cited the adult attention span as being a mere 8 minutes and structured their new methods of training around this short attention span.

 

John Talanca, Director of Technology & Distance Learning at Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation, is not a fan of long eLearning lessons.

 

In his article, Let's Get Small, Talanca says that the majority of today's online surfing for learning "occurs in small chunks: a web search here, some investigative reading there, a few minutes in a chat room, followed up with a conversation in a break room."

According to Talanca, "My department's eLearning strategy includes the design and development of brief eLearning modules as a main staple. The majority of eLearning courses we offer our employees take less then 12 minutes to complete, and many take only eight to 10 minutes of the learner's time. Sure, we have some longer courses in our catalog, but they're the exception. We constantly receive learner comments on these mini-modules to the tune of, 'Exactly what I needed and no more,' and 'It [the module] didn't waste my time.' "

 

Clearly the adult attention span is decreasing. And things aren't likely to improve any time soon. Rather than fight fate, consider creating your eLearning lessons for the ever-shrinking attention span of your learners.

 

Many eLearning professionals that I spoke with agreed with Talanca and felt that adult learners retain the most knowledge in small chunks. When asked how they would approach a 60-minute eLearning course, it was recommended that the course be broken into 12, 5-minute lessons or 6, 10-minute lessons.

 

Of course, not everyone agrees that tiny, 5-minute lessons are better. For instance, Chris Bennett, the Founder and CEO of Ah-Ha! Media, an e-learning company providing employee compliance training, said the following about eLearning lessons: "30 minutes is about the maximum; less than 15 is too short. The exact number of minutes between 15 and 30 should be dictated by the depth and number of objectives in the learning lesson. In a one-hour course, it's absolutely fine to have two 18-minute lessons and one 24-minute lesson."

 

On his BLOG, Dr. Tony Karrer, CEO/CTO of TechEmpower, a software, web and eLearning development firm based in Los Angeles, says he's discovered the perfect timing for eLearning lessons, and it's much longer than 5 minutes.

"I have found a sweet spot for learning chunks around the 10-15 minute range," said Karrer.

 

When it comes to eLearning lessons, Karrer feels that "Most people are satisfied with just the most basic information and the ability to get more as needed."  

 

What are your thoughts on this subject? How long are your typical eLearning lessons and courses? Send your comments by clicking here... we'll include your comments in a future issue of this newsletter.

 

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Comments

[Jason Stone]

I have found this to be very true. It has impacted how I teach adult learners and I've taken to breaking up my recorded lecture materials into smaller chucks. Not only is this advisable from a video streaming technology perspective, it is just sound elearning.
Jason, Speech Instructor.

[Accelerated Online Degree Genius]

Certainly you made some good points regarding the small chunks of study time while taking distance learning classes. I guess this is the difference between learning from traditional textbooks and a distance education.