Obstacles to completion of online courses

Our jobs, and how we do them, are in a constant state of change and the Internet is changing the way business is done. Online learning is quickly becoming the educational/training tool of choice as companies rush to bring their employees up to speed while improving accuracy and productivity without employees losing office time or incurring travel expenses.

Although online learning is beginning to have a large presence in companies all over the world, managers are finding that it is not a perfect process. There are challenges to any training delivery system and online training is no exception. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Headquarters in Washington, D.C. has reported a problem with getting employees to complete or even start their online course work. According to Tanya Luckett, DOE Online Learning Center (OLC) project manager, only about 50% of the employees who have signed up to access the OLC, a learning, knowledge management, and career development online portal, have attempted to take an online course. Ms. Luckett reports that of the 50% who have attempted to take the courses, only about 20% have completed the courses they started.

Several obstacles to getting trainees to start and complete online courses have been reported by organizations all over the world. These obstacles can be categorized as environment, design, technology, and learner motivation. The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify obstacles to completing the online learning courses at the DOE. The environmental obstacles include lack of management support, issues with noise, interruptions and distractions, incompatibility with work demands, time constraints, lack of social interaction, and improper marketing of the courses. The design obstacles include boring or text-heavy course material, improper choice of course delivery systems, unclear direction, and lack of feedback. Technology obstacles are problems with media choice such as audio or video, overload of the intranet network or bandwidth, and incompatibilities with equipment. Finally, learner motivation obstacles are lack of reinforcement or incentives, problems with learner self-efficacy, and incompatibilities with learner communication styles and preferences.

The study used a one-shot questionnaire survey. The survey questions were designed to identify the factors significant to impeding completion of online courses. Multivariate Analyses of Variances (MANOVAs) were used to look for demographic differences within the identified factors. If differences were found, individual Analyses of Variances (ANOVAs) were used to determine how the groups differed within each significant factor. Means, standard deviations, counts, and frequencies were used to describe the sample.