By Mark Nelson
Welcome back to the final installment of our five-part series, exploring the power of microlearning apps in acquiring knowledge and skills in the digital age. Previously, we reviewed mobile-first learning, gamification, personalization, and social learning. Today we’ll examine microlearning analytics, and how they make it easy to measure employee learning and engagement.
What Are Microlearning Analytics?
Microlearning analytics give us insight into learner behavior, helping us optimize the content in microlearning apps. With this insight, we can identify knowledge gaps, amplify engagement and maximize knowledge retention. This data-driven methodology is used by educators, instructional designers and corporate training professionals to enhance learning experiences and outcomes. It is an essential tool in modern digital learning, enabling the shift from a one-size-fits-all approach to personalized, adaptive learning experiences.
Analyzing the Learner’s Journey
Microlearning analytics provide a comprehensive picture of the learner’s journey within microlearning apps. Companies receive key insights like how learners interact with the course material, time spent on each microlearning lesson, completion rates, assessment scores and the number of attempts a learner makes before achieving a satisfactory result. This data equips companies with an in-depth view of a learner’s journey, shedding light on their learning pace, areas of difficulty and the effectiveness of the content delivery method. Organizations can extract meaningful patterns and trends by examining these data sets to optimize learning.
Instant Visibility
In the most effective video-based microlearning apps, administrators and business leaders can instantly view comprehensive, real-time data analytics at a glance. Administrators should be able to quickly understand how many microlearning video trainings were delivered, the number completed, and the number missed. They should be able to easily identify the individuals who need more coaching or feedback to help them progress in their role and even in their career. Administrators should also have immediate access to employee quiz scores. If multiple learners are missing the same questions, then administrators immediately know what needs to be adjusted to provide more effective training in that subject area.
Identifying top performers and rewarding them will help increase motivation, morale, adoption and engagement. In fact, employees who receive recognition have an 89% higher sense of determination and are 32% more engaged.
Companies should be able to instantly see who is viewing and completing trainings, as well as see who is viewing more content above and beyond the assigned trainings. This will assist managers in identifying the best individuals for the next generation of company leadership. Harvard research shows that employees “who are in learning mode develop stronger leadership skills than their peers.” In other words, video-based microlearning can help level the playing field by uncovering individuals perhaps not initially thought of as leadership material, but who are truly a team player, willing to do the work and willing to learn skills the company thinks are needed to lead.
Reporting features should also instantly display who has completed certain courses or earned certain badges so they know that the employee should be proficient in that topic or skill set. This gives managers additional peace of mind knowing the right people have been assigned to the right tasks, significantly reducing the likelihood of injury, lost time and wasted company dollars.
Tracking Learner Engagement
Engagement data provides insights into how invested learners are in their training. This could include the frequency of logins, time spent on the platform and user interaction patterns with different learning resources on the microlearning app.
Many video-based microlearning app platforms also have their own scoring systems that help summarize multiple statistics and reports.
For example, in Tyfoom, administrators can instantly view the overall company engagement score and the company TSR (Tyfoom Success Rating) score to immediately get a pulse on organizational engagement health. Administrators can also view individual engagement and TSR scores so they know who is engaging with the learning content and who is disengaged completely. When users routinely miss or skip training, they are flagged, alerting managers that the individual may need additional outreach. Managers can use Tyfoom’s disengaged employee report to intervene before employee disengagement causes a prolonged loss in productivity, costly accidents or a negative impact on company culture.
Learners should also be able to view their own analytics and immediately understand how engaged or disengaged they are. The ability for individuals to view their engagement scores within the microlearning app is crucial. Learners cannot address an issue if they do not know it is a problem in the first place. This transparency allows employees to take responsibility and maintain accountability for their own engagement and learning.
When learners have access to this information, they can quickly see their progress within the app, view achievements, track their past performance and compare their progress with others. This is one reason why gamification in video-based microlearning apps works. It incentivizes motivation, engagement and accountability.
The Cost of Disengagement
Actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. a staggering $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity each year. But that’s not all. Disengaged workers also have 37% higher rates of absenteeism, 49% more accidents, and make 60% more errors. Unsurprisngly, disengagement harms company profitability and share price over time.
Boosting Engagement
While the costs of disengagement are sobering, the solution is surprisingly simple. Video-based microlearning not only significantly increases knowledge retention, but also engagement. Studies have shown that learners retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. It’s no surprise that 70% of employees prefer learning from video rather than written material.
Video-based microlearning helps address each of these issues, and helps organizations better manage employee training, communication, and engagement with on-demand and daily delivered content. Again, using Tyfoom as an example, users recall 96% of concepts and maintain a 92% monthly engagement rate, ensuring long-term knowledge retention and adoption due to how the platform employs science-based techniques and gamification.
Why Microlearning Analytics?
Microlearning analytics are crucial for assessing the effectiveness of bite-sized learning modules, providing insights into learners’ progress, engagement and overall comprehension. By analyzing these metrics, organizations can tailor their microlearning strategies, identify areas for improvement and ensure a more targeted and impactful learning experience for their employees.
Many platforms over-complicate microlearning analytics. Companies ultimately need to know if employees are trying and if they are learning. Administrators and business leaders should focus on analytics, including how the learner engages with content (engagement score), quiz scores to understand retention, and badges or courses completed because these metrics provide the biggest indicator of whether an individual will be a safe, productive and engaged employee in the long-term.
The Future of Microlearning Analytics
The potential for personalized, adaptive learning experiences has never been more significant. Microlearning analytics serve as a vital tool in optimizing the content and delivery of microlearning apps. By offering a comprehensive view of the learner’s journey, companies can successfully identify knowledge gaps, enhance engagement and maximize knowledge retention.
Tyfoom’s video-based microlearning app (with its user-friendly Admin Dashboard and focus on engagement scores, quiz results and badges) provides instant visibility into individual and organizational engagement, addressing the critical issue of disengagement and fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
To learn more about how you can revolutionize employee training, communication and engagement in your organization, schedule a meeting to speak with a Tyfoom training consultant.