E-learning in Corporate Training in China
Posted on August 25, 2010 by Li Feng
Many people have observed a trend in the realm of corporate training in China. That is, e-learning is becoming widely adopted in Chinese corporations. A blog posted by Alex Raymond presents some insightful observations on how e-learning is being employed in this area in China. These observations confirm what we’ve found with online learning in China.
First and foremost, Chinese students strongly prefer videos of the instructor giving lectures of the content in their e-learning courses. To them, this simulates the classroom experience as they can watch and listen to the instructor, as if they were sitting in a classroom. Indeed, many e-learning courses in China have this component and a lot of users expect it as a given. They tend to shun away from courses that are text-based.
The second observation that Alex Raymond makes is the significance of testing in e-learning courses in China, especially tests that lead to certification in certain industries. This observation is very true according to what we have learned in China. Chinese students seem to value the certification at the end of the course at least as much as they value the learning process itself. They need some kind of proof to demonstrate that they have acquired the skill/competence. As Alex Raymond puts it, “Training courses and e-learning programs that deliver a certification or formal degree are in much higher demand than voluntary or non-degree based e-learning.”
Another informative point that Alex Raymond makes in his blog posting is that, with the increasing popularity of small chunks of learning content (“bite-sized learning”), which concurs with our observation, and decreasing involvement of the IT department, e-training is easier to implement and can be “on-demand,” which is much more convenient for users and companies. On a related note, Chinese companies not only want the learning content to be on-demand, but want the reporting system to be sophisticated enough for evaluations of the learning experience and other analyses.
In his blog, Alex Raymond also points out that Chinese e-learners enjoy interactivity in their courses, including interactive quizzes, simulations, widgets, etc. and interactions with the instructor, subject matter experts, and fellow students. According to our observation, however, most of the interactivity in online courses in China is learner-to-resource (i.e. quizzes, simulations, widgets, etc.) interaction. On the other hand, learner-to instructor or learner-to-learner interactions are very limited. We would like to see increasing interactivity in the latter in Chinese e-learning courses.
To read the full story of Alex Raymond’s blog posting, please click here.
What are your thoughts on e-learning in corporate training? We look forward to your thoughts or comments on this topic! Please share with us here!
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[…] to Li Feng in a recent UMass Online Blog, e-learning is becoming widely adopted in Chinese corporations. In her post, Li discusses how […]