The treatment matrix

Perhaps the most enjoyable session I attended at the eLearning Network's July showcase event was presented by Richard Middleton of Academy Internet. The title of the session was 'Fun & games - are they really necessary?', although a more accurate description would probably have been 'Fun & games - when are they necessary?'

Richard argued that, in designing self-study e-learning, the amount of effort you should put into elaborate forms of interactivity (scenarios, sims, games) or rich media content (audio, video, 3D, animation) should depend on two factors:

• "The greater the behaviour change that is required (ie, that the learner needs to put the learning into actual practice), the richer the digital learning activities need to be. This helps the learner to fully engage with the content and be able to transfer the learning to their working practice."
• "The less motivated a learner is to learn the content, the more rich media needs to be used to engage and motivate them to keep learning."

Both quotes come, by the way, from a free Insider's Guide to Authoring Digital Learning, available on Academy Internet's website. To take another quote from the same document:

"When should you take your learners on a journey of discovery and when should you take them for a short stroll around the garden?"

This leads us naturally to the sort of two-dimensional matrix which every self-respecting model requires, On one dimension is learner motivation and the other the need for behaviour change:

1. When the need for behaviour change is low and learner motivation is high, some really simple rapid e-learning materials will do.
2. When the need for behaviour change is low, but motivation is low, richer/more creative media are required, e.g. the use of video / stories.
3. When behaviour change is required and motivation is high, you need highly-interactive materials, e.g. tutorials, scenarios, sims, but these do not need to be so media rich.
4. When behaviour change is required and motivation is low, throw in everything including the kitchen sink, e.g. media-rich scenarios, games, virtual worlds, all with high interactivity.

Of course real-life is not quite that simple and other issues come into play, not least the nature of the learning objectives; however, there are some good ideas here and Richard's approach emphasises once again that it all depends on the situation.