Designing Web-Based Training: How to Teach Anyone Anything Anywhere Anytime

10.3. REQUIRE COMMITMENT

A lot of the high dropout rate of WBT courses can be explained as a lack of initial commitment. Many dropouts were just "taste testing" the course anyway. Others signed up with the intention of quitting if the course proved at all difficult. Designers and administrators often encourage such shallow commitment by encouraging learners to "just try one of our courses." While we want to let learners sample the goods before purchasing them, we need to demand full commitment when learners enroll in a course in earnest.

10.3.1. Require commitment to finish the course

Before admitting learners to a course, require them to commit to the goals of the course and to pledge to complete the course and stay on schedule.

Here is an example of a required page in the registration process.

Do not allow monitoring or auditing. Require at least a minimum level of participation.

10.3.2. Require a positive approach

Learners may be anxious, superstitious, and distrustful of something as new as WBT. Require learners to put aside their distrust, doubt, and suspicion. Explicitly require them to abandon these negative feelings if they are to take the course.

In this example, learners are required, metaphorically at least, to discard fears and negative feelings in order to enter the course. To open the doors to learning, learners must first pass through a negativity detector. To ...