Make Real Turns Learners into Activists

Brighton (UK), September 2022 - What happens to learning outcomes if you participate rather than just consume information? This was the question we asked ourselves as we set about looking at which of our recent projects would benefit from deeper, academic research and statistical analysis of learner impact and intentions.

We teamed up with Lynda Joy Gerry from the Bioengineering Institute of Auckland to explore the real difference it makes when you take learners out of their comfort zone and challenge them to do something a little bit different.

We designed an approach called "Hear to Listen" in collaboration with Lloyds Banking Group to help their people to have better mental health conversations at work. To test the effectiveness of our solution, we created a control and an experimental version of the course.

The control version followed typical eLearning best practice - video, varied interaction, multiple choice questions, and reflection activities.

The experimental version included additional activities and functionality, requiring the learner to record their responses via a webcam. They then had to watch themselves, re-evaluate their responses, and carry out additional questions and reflection activities.

A key finding here was that thoughtful, well-designed eLearning can make a difference, even in a complex subject area such as this, with both groups showing a positive change in attitude towards those with mental health conditions.

However, all of these increases were clearly more significant in the experimental group, particularly around empathy. This group was much less likely to blame people for their condition. We also saw decreased confidence within the experimental group, but increased willingness to engage in difficult conversations.

We have created two supporting documents alongside the publishing of the academic research paper: you can view the high-level overview guide, and we have also created a summary article for download on the main link.