How would you rate yourself as an online trainer or instructor? Are you struggling to keep the attention of your learners? It is only natural for an online instructor/trainer to want their learners to remain, at least, mostly focused throughout the duration of their eLearning course. However, capturing a learner’s attention has only become more challenging in the digital age, also known as the information era.
Today, we are constantly being bombarded with, and have instant access to, a multitude of information. This is speculated to have caused an increase in our tendency to get distracted. We become highly selective on our attention focal as we can easily ‘click or swipe away’ if something doesn’t interest us.
It has been said that, on average, we can keep our attention between 10 to 15 minutes before losing focus. In order to break this pattern, one of the many strategies that can be employed in an eLearning course is by incorporating elements of surprise. Adler (2008) suggested that surprising learners stimulates their attention and also motivates them to correct their faulty pre-conceptions, hence inciting a more thorough processing of the learning material.
Some of the ways these ‘surprising’ elements can be added include:
- Changing up the delivery format of the content, such as playing a short animated video within a text-dominant course.
- Applying the cognitive dissonance theory, such as by asking thought provoking questions which will prompt learners to reflect on their existing ideas.
- Interspersing knowledge checks within the course, such as having a quiz with choice-level feedback which can help learners realize whether they have grasped the learning material.
By employing strategies like the above, it is less likely for the learners to give in to their daily distractions. If they are not actively engaged with the course, the chances are that they resort to multi-tasking instead, such as scrolling through social media or having a movie play in the background, which is not ideal as it leads to reduced retention and understanding of the learning material. Therefore, when designing an eLearning course, it is important to consider and utilize strategies that can effectively hold the learner’s attention.