eJournal Entry #3

Analyzing Learners

Last week’s journal entry focused on analyzing context and this week’s reading discussion probably gave you additional insights about the broader context than the system or organization that you are designing for. This week, focus more specifically on analyzing the learner population that you will target with your instructional design. You’ll find more specific information on the key considerations in analyzing learner characteristics on page 25 in The Instructional Design Knowledge Base. Feel free to find additional sources that describe the learner characteristics you need to analyze.

Special note: You should do some research to gather information for this analysis and include links or attachments of the sources that inform your analysis in your journal entry.

For this journal entry, I based my learner analysis off of the Dick and Carey ISD Model. The questions they use for the Learner Analysis are some of my favorites and really cause me to think about my audience/learners. (http://www.itma.vt.edu/modules/spring03/instrdes/lesson5.htm) 

The questions are:

1. What are the general characteristics of your target population? Examples include age, grade level, topic area, etc.
2. Are there any entry behaviors that are not specific to your goal, and yet you feel are required for your intended learners to possess? (Entry Behaviors)
3. Do the learners already know something about the topic? (Prior Knowledge)
4. Do they have a positive attitude towards the content and the delivery system? (Attitudes Toward Content and Potential Delivery System)
5. Is it reasonable to expect them to want to learn what needs to be learned? Is the topic likely to interest them? (Academic Motivation)
6. Is it reasonable to expect that they can learn what needs to be learned? (Educational and Ability Levels)
7. Do they have any general learning preferences? (General Learning Preferences)
8. Do they have a positive attitude regarding the organization providing the instruction? (Attitudes Toward Training Organization)
9. Are there any important group characteristics? How similar or diverse are they? (Group Characteristics)
10. How did you obtain this information regarding the learner characteristics?

The general characteristics of my target population are new employees ranging from 19 to approximately 65. They are mostly new and unfamiliar with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services; however, they may have been employed by the Department previously or worked as contractors for a time. Mostly, few of the new employees have experience with policies and procedures of the Department. I am able to gather this information each month, since my department conducts the face-to-face portion of the new employee orientation.

While the new employees understand “Don’t do Drugs” and that the Department is a “Drug Free Workplace,” few really understand the policy and what this means to them as part of their job duties. They leave regular face-to-face new employee orientation with the basic knowledge of “Don’t do Drugs in the Workplace and report it if you see someone,” and the required eLearning takes it one step further into understanding the policy and how it applies to them. Basic behaviors that are necessary for them to begin the eLearning are reading skills and problem solving skills for the learning scenarios (which will provide them feedback if they are not correct choices).

Sadly, the new employees have to complete a series of eLearnings that will leave them with a negative attitude. This is due to a variety of reasons. First, the quality of the original, rapidly developed eLearnings in 2009 are such that they often make no sense, contain old, irrelevant information, and are visually scary. Second, navigating the eLearnings isn’t always clear and consistent from one to another. Someone thought it would be fun to put buttons in different places or not to put written instructions on what to do next. Third, the LMS that is currently being used is old, has many issues, and times out the learner. This creates great frustration on the part of the learner because s/he has to call the HelpDesk and have things reset. So, there is no positive attitude toward eLearning after they do a couple of them.

The learner comes into the eLearning with an attitude of “I know this, it’s about don’t do drugs in the workplace...duh.” This is hard to combat. There is little motivation initially to take the eLearning. This is something I will have to combat and attempt to create interest immediately and make everything relevant to their job. The eLearning will serve as further education for all employees ranging from Patient Care Assistants (PCA) within a facility to new Administrators within a facility or central office. The audience contains a wide range of education, job skills, and technology skills. This will be a further challenge since a PCA has a vastly different job and experiences with drugs in the workplace than the administrator will have who sits in central office. For this project, and the needs of the Department, the learners only have the choice of an eLearning which will include some lecture, activities, questions, and learning scenarios.