How to tackle the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in eLearning

Posted 2 years ago

Back in the ’90s, although it wasn’t a popular option, some organisations began to adopt eLearning as part of their company training plan.

At the time, because the resources and technology were nowhere near the levels they are at today, eLearning hadn’t reached its full potential. Luckily for organisations across the globe, the eLearning landscape has rapidly developed into what it is today!

Unfortunately, however, there are still many organisations that still offer this dated eLearning to their staff – which is an issue for a number of reasons but mainly as it is not nearly as engaging as modern technology allows eLearning to be.

What is eLearning?

eLearning is defined as any “learning conducted via electronic media, typically on the Internet”. This means that unfortunately, even those boring PDF printouts that are given to staff by some employers are technically considered to be eLearning.

For this reason, there is a negative stigma attached to the phrase “eLearning”, which makes it come across as a less engaging method of training staff designed to only tick boxes for employers.

We share very strong opinions on this stigma, and we do everything on our power to try and break it. One way we do this is by letting anybody try our training to see its quality before purchasing with a no-obligation free trial!

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

Have you ever taken an online training course and forgotten half of the information in a matter of weeks, days, hours, and even minutes? Well, that is more-than-likely down to the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve.

Formulated by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885, the forgetting curve depicts how quickly we forget information over time if we make no attempt to retain it.

A real-life example of this could be if you were at a networking event and somebody gave you their business card with their phone number on. You get back to your office and realise you’ve lost the business card. Are you likely to have remembered that phone number? Probably not.

These same effects apply to eLearning that isn’t engaging.

How to tackle the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in eLearning

By no means did I mean to make you panic about your workforce not retaining information from the training you provide them with. I just want to make you aware of the dangers of poor eLearning, and how to tell the good from the bad.

With that said, here is what you should look for in a quality provider of eLearning.

Relevant Training

The human brain is limited in terms of retaining information. Therefore, it is naturally quite picky about the information it does retain.

It prioritises relevant information, hence the reason it is easier to remember your pin number than it is the last 4 things you bought using your card.

This is relevant in eLearning too. There is no point in somebody being trained on a course that has no relevance for the job they are doing. Make sure you put the right staff on relevant courses, else you could risk them not taking any information in at all!

Mobile Compatible Training

One of the best ways for learners to retain information is by making eLearning accessible from anywhere. Users should have the ability to complete training wherever they are, at any time of the day.

Ensuring that your courses are mobile responsive makes learning and retaining information easier for your learners. They will have a better chance of recollecting and refreshing their knowledge if they can access their courses when and where they like.

Engaging learning

Having workers undertake engaging courses will not only help to improve completion rates, but it will also help your learners to retain information.

Learner concentration naturally decreases if they’re forced to read an abundance of text, reducing knowledge retention. Instead, keep your learners interested by offering them content that is interactive and requires them to do something other than just read.

How we keep our content engaging

Here at iHasco, one of our core values is to “Seek Constant Improvement”. One area that we are constantly trying to improve on is the engagement rates of our courses.

But we do much more than that to help keep our courses engaging… As standard, all of our online courses are professionally animated & lead by a presenter.

Additionally, each course is equipped with additional resources, for those learners who want a more in-depth breakdown of certain topics. This is just one way they can practice for the end-of-training test!

We could go on and on about what sets iHasco apart from the rest, but our feature pages will give you a better idea of what sets us apart from other “eLearning” providers!

But don’t just take our word for it, claim your no-obligation free trial today by filling out the form below: