Is your online business using best practices?

Why aren’t some online businesses using adult learning best practices?

I am an adult learning consultant, instructional design strategist and first time business owner. Business ownership was a daunting undertaking but more interesting was what learned when I stepped into the world of the online coaching industry. 

Online coaching is a $20+ billion industry and projected to continue growing 6.7% annually (Coaching Federation, 2021). Online coaching is a niched market spanning business and leadership development, lifestyle and career coaching, and other skills development. 

While coaching offers consumers numerous benefits, there are three significant issues facing the coaching industry: 1) there is a distinct discrepancy in the use of language, 2) education and learning are perceived as the same, and 3) adult learning best practices are not integrated in program development. Individually these issues are concerning because each leaves consumers’ needs fully unmet. Collectively coaching programs that omit all of these issues has a negative impact on the business owners projected outcomes.

Issue #1 - There is a distinct discrepancy in the use of language.

My first six months exploring the online coaching industry I noticed individuals marketing ‘course creation’ services but upon deeper investigation I found ‘course creation services’ are used to sell copywriting, marketing and selling, or program launching services. Sadly, there is rarely a mention of instructional design or curriculum development in the coaching industry. In addition, there is a propensity to sell consumers drag and drop templates to format courses, but these templates do not support business owners understanding how to effectively create a well development course. 

Issue #2 - Education and learning are perceived as the same.

Paralleling the inconsistent use of language the terms learning and education are used interchangeably. This issue is often present in learning and development. Here skills development programming is viewed as an educational or learning experience but the program does not support the balance of education or learning. A search of Merriam-Webster dictionary reveals:

Educating - to train by formal instruction and supervised practice especially in a skills, trade, or profession

Learning - knowledge or skill acquired by instruction and the modification of a behavioral tendency by experience

For example, some companies market educational resources for employee development but they omit critical elements of supporting learning, specifically adult learning. This results in platforms or programs that are simply repositories of information missing the goal of supporting adult learning. 

Issue #3 - Adult learning best practices are not integrated.

Adult learning best practices are not integrated as a framework for building knowledge and skills development programs for adults. Periodically, online articles are published about adult learning but each article provides a review of the same key concepts about adult learning. These brief descriptions present adult learners as:

• having rich life experiences used in learning
• being internally motivated to learn
• being self-directed, preferring to determine their learning needs and goals
• having evolving social roles that contribute to learning motivation and self-directedness
• problem-solvers aiming to use learning to help themes learn for a specific purpose 

These generalizations about adult learners are based on the early work of Malcolm Knowles (1913-1997). Yet his research has been expanded by researchers such as David Kolb, Stephen Brookfield, Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Rosemary Caffarella, John Elias, Mary V. Alfred, Sharan Merriam, Peter Jarvis, and Lisa Baumgartner. Each scholar has expanded the breadth and depth of Knowles’ findings that support recommended adult learning best practices. Adult learning theory has existed for over 50 years and when integrated into personal development programming resulted in transformational social justice, health and nutrition, and formal education benefits. 

The goal of adult learning best practices is to use the validated generalizations about adult learners to support active engagement, information retention, and skills application. When businesses fail to integrate adult learning best practices as a strategy to provide learning experiences, businesses risk having poor learner motivation and engagement, limited information comprehension, and poor or non-existent skills application. These undesirable outcomes can have a negative impact on business financial bottomline. 

Now is the time for businesses to critically assess if or to what degree they are apply instructional design and adult learning best practices:

• Are you using the same language as the consumer?
• Do you appropriately distinguish between education versus learning?
• How are you ensuring your program reflects education or learning?
• Are you integrating the most common generalizations into adult learning programming?

If you need help learning how to use the same language, positioning your program as education versus learning, or how to integrate adult learning best practices, schedule a consultation with Dr. Carrie Graham www.drcarriegraham.com .

Reference: 

Coaching Federation. (2021). 3 trends that will shape the future of coaching. https://coachingfederation.org/blog/3-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-coaching