Do learning and retention suffer as screens get smaller?

Nothing gets smaller in our world.

Everything about what we teach is getting bigger and more complex. However, the screens that deliver our content keep getting smaller. So, what’s the effect on consumption, engagement, and retention?

Given the obvious dynamics, it’s a reasonable question. The answer is enormously important.

Our core business is compliance and conformity — working with clients to achieve international management system certification, satisfy laws and regulations, and leveraging this to enhance competitiveness. The key to ongoing success, to put this in the DNA of the business, is lifelong learning.

Our job is to train the leaders who will take this into the future. Our mission is to give them the ability to apply the knowledge, skills and desired behaviors to satisfy certification and regulator requirements and to increase the value the organization provides to customers.

In our quest to find the perfect answer, we haven’t found one yet. But we’ve learned three things:

1. Neither the desktop/laptop nor the smartphone are ideal
2. Learners’ preferences are powerful.
3. It’s all about the learning experience and learning effectiveness.

Laptop vs. Smartphone

Desktop / Laptop

• A larger screen and input options that enable additional screens, speakers, etc.
• Enhances readability and the potential success of the experience.
• Full-size keyboard, which makes writing and participating easier.
• Multitasking — which is also a double-edged sword.
• Accessing reference material, or another app, is easy, as easy as checking your email.

We have always felt that the learner, when accessing a desktop or laptop, finds themselves in an environment that is more conducive to a deeper involvement in the learning experience. However, this is not the preferred learning style of most learners. That said, most of our virtual content is accessed via smartphone.

Smartphone

• Very accessible, and very convenient. Facilitates access on demand — a free moment can be a learning moment.
• The device of choice. More comfortable for some learners, particularly for learners who may feel uncomfortable with the relevant learning and other related technology. Learners have grown up with it.
• Mobile, by nature, makes it excellent for micro-learning.

Preference is powerful

The bottom line is that if your content isn’t available on their medium of choice, participation goes down. Remote access, since COVID-19, is table stakes.

Which brings us to the final point, which is the tie-breaker.

No matter where, no matter when, it’s all about the learning experience.

Here’s a direct quote from a classroom of compliance professionals when I told them the next lesson is virtual and can be accessed at their leisure. (Please turn up the sound.)

GROAN

Every training organization jumped into virtual delivery with COVID-19, and every learner quickly tired of the off-handed, droning, monotone, and monochrome delivery. For learners who learn best by doing, this style of delivery simply does not work. It’s so common that each individual in the classroom couldn’t bear to go through it again.

Simply put, we have no laurels to lie back on. Each delivery of content, whether ILT, VILT, video, pdf, or song and dance, whether on a laptop, tablet, smartphone, or IMAX, must deliver a unique and satisfying learning experience. Without that, there is no consumption, engagement or retention.

Or, as our guiding light John Cleese has said, He who laughs most learns best.