Regis Learning Solutions

Generational Learning Preferences: A Primer
E-learning preferences often break down along generational lines. Knowing these preferences and understanding their roots are essential to creating e-learning that resonates with your audience.
By Stephen Kirkpatrick

The understanding that e-learning preferences break down along generational lines is so widespread among training professionals today as to be axiomatic.

But do you know the details behind the axiom—and what to do about them when designing e-learning for specific generational cohorts? If not, your curricula run the risk of missing the mark with large blocks of learners.

Generations Defined
Generation	Birth Years	Age Range in 2008
Baby Boomers	1946 – 1964	44 to 62
Gen X	1965 – 1977	30 to 43
Gen Y (Millennials)	1978 – 1990	17 to 30

The PC and the first Apple computers didn’t come along until the middle and late 1980s, when Baby Boomers were already in their 30s. Most Boomers didn’t learn how to use a desktop computer until mid-career—some of them never really learned.

Baby Boomers grew up learning in the traditional instructor-led classroom, using minimal electronic learning support beyond films (i.e., moving frames on celluloid). Late in their educational careers, they were exposed to the occasional overhead projection on acetate sheets. PowerPoint, however, didn’t become a phenomenon until the 1990s, when most Boomers were already in their 40s and 50s.

As recently as 10 years ago, cell phones were far from ubiquitous, too. They cost a lot more, coverage was iffy at best, and the meter was running for every minute one spent “on the line.” There was no instant messaging and no broadband wireless. Once again, Boomers had to adopt these cutting-edge technologies later in life. Most did so slowly, and few, even to this day, take advantage of all of the features available on the gadgets they carry around.

Because all of this generation’s formal education took place in the traditional classroom, it should come as no surprise that most Boomers still prefer to learn in this way. The good news is that they will tolerate e-learning—if it is designed correctly.

Because Boomers are comfortable with printed text, for example, they tend to be more tolerant of e-learning that looks like the classroom material to which they are accustomed. A course designed not unlike a three-ring training binder comprising clear learning objectives, followed by a series of electronic pages that are organized in a linear pattern into modules, sections, and courses, will typically resonate with them.

Boomers are also more apt to tolerate computer-based learning if there are printed instructions made available to them that explain how to access the e-learning, as well as coaches or facilitators to get them up to speed on any e-tools they may be required to use and to walk them through the content.

Generation X was the first generation to be brought up with computerization, but it was an age of computerization that looked very different from what we are accustomed to today. Gen X workers' formative years took place in the age of DOS and the Atari video game, not Windows Vista, Mac OS, and DVD. Digital versions of audio, video, and image files were technologies that developed as those in Gen X became teens and early 20-somethings. Cell phones hitting the market during their youth were as large as a brick, cost hundreds of dollars, and required a wired power source. This was the era of the infamous screeching MODEM handshake, an annoying sound that many people under the age of 20 probably don’t remember.

Because they were introduced to technology at an early age and experienced a dizzying number of technological advances during their formative years, Gen X learners fully expect e-learning to be engaging and to incorporate moving graphics, images, and interactivity.

Technology presents no impediment to them. Indeed, they will meet the challenge of learning a new technology quickly. They eschew e-learning courses that resemble electronic pages or printed materials, responding better to nonlinear courses that engage them visually, aurally, and technologically. They also like choices in their e-learning, such as the option to turn audio on or off, or the ability to choose between watching a video and reading a transcript. They only want you to teach them what they need to know right now. As for the rest, they prefer a job aid or takeaway that they can reference, as needed, at a later time.

Generation Y workers grew up knowing not only how to use the Internet, but living on it—spending much of their free time communicating, learning, and even socializing online. Indeed, some social scientists and chief learning officers express legitimate concerns that this generation’s social skills are lacking because Gen Ys experienced far too little face-to-face interaction during their formative years.

It should come as no surprise, then, that this younger generation is more comfortable than any other with all of the amazing handheld and wireless/broadband Internet technologies available today. Indeed, Gen Ys seem to take the latest and greatest gadgets for granted and view features like instant access to the latest weather map on their handheld wireless device almost as a birth right.

For e-learning designers, this should be cause for celebration, right? Not so fast. The very attributes that make Gen Y such a great audience for e-learning also make these learners far more demanding of their e-learning experience than those from other generations. Gen Ys want it all, and they want it on their terms—meaning that as an e-learning designer, you’d better deliver or risk losing them entirely.

If given the choice, most Baby Boomers who have a question in the workplace will turn to someone next to them who is more experienced and ask the question. Gen Y learners prefer to access information on their own. They’ll rarely bother asking someone a question. Instead, they’ll hop online and find the information themselves.

What to do? Because Gen Y learners are independent, they don’t want lockstep, ironclad courses that prescribe how they progress through their own learning experience. In fact, they militantly resist linearly designed courses, viewing them as an inefficient use of their time.

Instead, they want to learn in their own way, at their own pace, and on their own schedule. In other words, they want to be able to search on their own for the content they need to learn using wikis, blogs and other online support resources. They also demand loads of interactivity and graphics in their courses, with content presented in small “chunks”—supported by menus and indices that allow them to click around and explore the content they want to learn in their own sequence.

Stephen Kirkpatrick, Ph.D.,
is a co-founder of Regis Learning Solutions.