Distance Learning

Distance Learning: Scope

Distance learning is a broad topic, and it varies widely on a number of important dimensions. These may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Content. Distance learning has been used to impart a wide variety of material, such as the orientation of new workers, job-specific skills training, personal and career development, management and leadership development, and skills updating and retraining. For example, a leading consumer electronics retailer uses distance learning approaches to teach its regional managers how to give effective feedback to employees and to update its sales representatives on changes to product features.
• Sophistication. Distance learning approaches can range from the very simple, such as downloadable learning modules that are text intensive, to the very complex and sophisticated, such as programs in the field of telemedicine, in which users can perform a virtual physical exam on a patient. For example, using a mouse, a medical student could point to an area on a patient's abdomen and then receive immediate feedback on what conditions were discovered.
• Fidelity. An effective training environment has high psychological fidelity, in that it closely mirrors the environment in which the trainee will have to perform the actual tasks for which he or she is being trained. For example, a leading worker's compensation insurance company uses distance learning to help its clients' managers to identify and correct unsafe workplace behaviors. Via computer, managers are shown videos of workers engaged in various tasks, such as a package delivery driver lifting a box, and are asked to select the safe and unsafe behaviors that the driver is engaging in. The managers receive feedback on their choices in real time and are offered the opportunity to ask questions and to change their selections.
• Connection with needs assessment and training evaluation. The advent of a new training technique such as distance learning does not by itself guarantee a successful training experience. To be maximally effective, a training program has to be guided by a careful needs assessment (and the resultant instructional objectives) and must be thoroughly evaluated on a number of dimensions, such as the amount of behavior change engendered and the eventual impact on the business unit's financial performance. Like more traditional training techniques, distance learning implementations can vary widely with respect to their connection to needs assessment and training evaluation.

Distance Learning: Advantages

Distance learning has many potential benefits both for individual employees and for organizations. Some of these benefits include the

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