What is a Learner Analysis for Instructional Design and eLearning Development?

Far too often, wrong inferences are made about learners regarding understanding how they learn, what motivates them to learn, and their attitudes toward learning.

It's important that instructional designers, eLearning developers, and course creators remember that learners are not empty boxes into which knowledge can simply be poured.

Everyone has experiences through which they understand the world differently. And, in turn, how they ultimately will understand or evaluate their training materials.

Learning is a process that involves a change in knowledge. It is not something that is done to learners but instead something that learners do themselves. 

WHY SHOULD YOU ANALYZE LEARNERS?
 

Instructional designers often believe that they know the learners they're developing training for well enough to design effective instruction. In a traditional, face-to-face course, this may sometimes be the case...

...but if you're attempting to apply more learner-centered techniques and develop innovative learning environments that utilize a variety of rich resources...

It's essential that you have the following information before you develop the instruction:

• The knowledge the learners are bringing to the topic
• Typical learning characteristics
• Previous experiences with the topic
• Attitudes the learners may have toward the topic
  
  

A learner analysis helps shape and guide instruction, as well as determines how instruction should be designed. The information can reveal important variables that may affect the learner and must be addressed during the design and delivery process.
 

The information gathered during a learner analysis will help you make critical instructional design decisions such as:

• Levels of scaffolding or guidance to provide
• Level of technical support needed
• Delivery method(s)

If you skip completing a learner analysis, you risk frustrating subject matter experts and adding unnecessary friction to the learning process.

By ensuring that your training is designed for the audience that it's expected to serve, conducting a learner analysis will maximize the likelihood of your course's success.

WHAT SHOULD YOU INCLUDE IN A LEARNER ANALYSIS?

Entry Behaviors

Entry Behaviors are specific skills and knowledge that learners must possess prior to instruction to accomplish the specified goal (because they will not necessarily be covered in the instruction).

These prerequisite skills and knowledge may relate directly to the content or be associated with the delivery system.

During your learner analysis, you need to determine if the learners possess the entry behaviors and note the implications for design, delivery and/or evaluation.

Prior Knowledge of the Topic

This category includes knowledge that the learners already possess on which they can continue to build new skills.

This is important so that instruction can build and relate to prior knowledge. Time spent instructing learners needs to be based on learning new material instead of learning an area with which they are already familiar.

It also provides an opportunity to see if learners possess discrepancies or misconceptions about the topic so that they can be clarified during instruction.

• Entry behaviors concentrate on those skills and knowledge learners must have before instruction to accomplish the goal that may or may not be directly related to the primary instructional topic.
• Whereas prior knowledge describes general skills and knowledge relative to the instructional topic
   

Attitudes and Motivational Factors

Instructional designers also need to address the learners' feelings about the subject matter and the skills to be learned.

Included in this area should be learners' perceived levels of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (ARCS) toward the content information to be covered by the course.

This knowledge will help you systematically analyze how motivated the learners are, enabling you to effectively support each learner's specific level of motivation.

A person's self-reported attitudes are thought to be indicators of their motivation.

And a learner's perceived levels of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction (ARCS) are believed to represent a learner's attitude toward specific instruction.

In general, are the learners motivated to learn?

What motivates them to succeed in the course? What de-motivates them in general?

Academic and Skills Level

Find out from the subject matter expert how able the audience can learn the new skills, or their capacity to master the materials. What educational or academic experiences have they had?

Information for this area can be gathered through:

• Interviews
• Observations
• Records
• Assessment data

Learning Styles

Learning styles refer to how individuals learn best.

The three basic learning styles and learning strategies for learners are auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.

You may not realize that today, well over 40 different models are used to describe learning styles.

Most models have similar components and are derived from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, identifying the following four different types of learners:

1. Active and Reflective Learners
• Those who want to discuss or be active right away versus wanting to think about things and then reflectively respond.
2. Sensing and Intuitive Learners
• Sensors like being grounded by facts and intuitive prefer possibilities and imagination.
3. Visual and Verbal Learners
• Visual learners like to see information represented via charts, diagrams, and pictures, whereas verbal learners prefer to hear the information.
4. Sequential and Global Learners
• Sequential learners prefer small steps in the learning process, while global learners prefer the whole picture and working downwards.
  
  

We all have these learning characteristics, and so do our learners; however, we all differ in the degree to which we prefer one type of learning over the other.

It is important to understand there is no right or wrong type of learning style. Each learning style has advantages and disadvantages.

Therefore, different learning styles respond differently to different instructional methods.

HOW DO YOU GATHER LEARNER ANALYSIS DATA?