Why Convenience Isn't A Learning Strategy
Microlearning works for busy people. And that's probably not the type of insight you came here for, but it's a place to start. The strongest argument for microlearning is their convenience. But can and should everything fit into such bite-size content? That's a question I see more and more organizations struggling with. There is no time (or budget allocation) to allow for long-form training that can plausibly resolve all of the many learning gaps. Given the many concerns everywhere around the globe, there is also direction lacking from executives to really focus on noncritical training.
If such a broader negative corporate environment weren't bad enough, the emergence of social media platforms such as YouTube shorts and TikTok has further hampered attention spans. A frequently cited argument is that our attention span has dropped to as little as 8 seconds and that the forgetfulness curve post-training is between 50% and 80%.
So why not give up and just launch as many microlearning elements as possible? If the data says we are not engaged and forget quickly, certainly the best thing we can do is package the information into the shortest format possible. Hopefully, that somehow keeps us engaged. And, don't get me wrong–I love microlearning. They are an amazing tool every L&D expert should absolutely use. But maybe instead of accepting that our learners are lost beyond the point of return 8 seconds after they have clicked on their newest training, we can consider when you should and when you absolutely shouldn't use microlearning.
For Busy People, There Are Few Reinforcement Tools As Useful As Microlearning
Please notice the subtle word use in this heading that, I think, makes all the difference: "reinforcement." If you are not trying to teach someone an entirely new concept or framework, then very often microlearning is a great tool you should reach for.
The fact that they take up 300% less of an average L&D team's bandwidth is something I'm not entirely convinced of, but I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty that they take up a lot less time and effort. More importantly, while it may not be 300% less, it is that extra time that will allow your L&D team the time and energy needed to make long-form training at the same level of engagement as your microlearning.
Another really good argument is that many people just hate long-form compliance training. The one that you needed vetted by your legal team, so it is stripped of all personality, fun, and engagement. Many people, especially those working in major organizations, think of content like that when you bring up corporate eLearning modules. And for learners like that, microlearning is a breath of fresh air that reminds them that learning can indeed be fun and easy.
And it's not just fun and games. When you need to urgently address compliance mistakes being made across different departments, it may just be more plausible to put out a quick microlearning that respects skill-based principles than spend time on constructing more long-form content. The urgency justifies the quicker content and you can get more stakeholders on-board to quickly QA the material.
I remember seeing a company face potential lawsuits over the fact that employees frequently forgot to follow simple redaction protocols after handling sensitive PII (personally identifiable information). It's hard to argue against simple announcements and microlearning for scenarios like these. It wasn't that the employees didn't know the underlying facts and procedures, they just needed reminding of the critical importance of this and the compliance consequences an organization could face if these weren't respected. For cases like those, there's hardly anything better than microlearning.
Microlearning As A Substitute For Meaningful Long-Form Content
With all that being said, let's go back to the data I shared at the start. That's where the case for microlearnings starts to look a bit shaky. And, to be perfectly blunt (bear with me here), I didn't write this article in one sitting. Like most people, I was interrupted–checking emails, glancing at my phone, or just switching up my music. It would be really easy to just draw from that experience and conclude that, given our shrinking attention spans, only short content can be effective.
By that logic, the best format for what I'm just writing would be a two-sentence paragraph. That's really quick, easy to consume, and doesn't even take away much from my time. But that argument would just be a textbook logical fallacy. Taking two related observations–frequent distractions and shorter bursts of attention–and stretching them into a false conclusion about how people learn. And yet, this is exactly the reasoning often invoked to justify replacing long-form content with microlearnings.
L&D teams don't have enough time? Don't I know it. Well, then build a business case to prove that your L&D team should have more time to build engaging and high-quality learning modules. Show that retention rates could improve and that this increased retention could lead to measurably improved efficiency, reduce turnover by increasing employee satisfaction, and free up the organization's funding for even more fun training content (one can dream).
People lose interest in your training after 8 seconds? Find a way to hook them back and engage them and do this throughout. This is especially critical for compliance and new skill development, as with AI training, where learning the nuances and new skills just doesn't fit with the format of a microlearning. Or, even worse, when you have AI combined with compliance and you have to devise long-form EU AI Act training.
For cases such as these, it's absolutely essential that you figure out how to build engagement and meaningful skill-building throughout the training process. You can't just accept "oh well, we have them here for 8 seconds and that's it."
Interpreting The Forgetfulness Curve And The Role Of Microlearnings Within It
And, to go back to perhaps the most shocking data point, if your long-form content is forgotten at a rate of between 50% and 80%, what was your immediate next step after seeing data like that?
Don't get me wrong, people do scroll on TikTok and their attention has dropped. But people are still training for very demanding jobs. With proper training programs, they become certified for complex cybersecurity certifications like CISSP, they become lawyers or doctors, all requiring intricate and detailed knowledge. There is nothing preventing people from learning this new information, except for the fact that they find either the delivery of the training content too dry or they couldn't process the information fully.
So, how is it a feasible solution to break down a 60-minute-compliance module into a 3-4 minute microlearning? Unless the underlying initial module had so much fluff or "good-to-know" content within it that you could reasonably take out 90%+ of content, the math just doesn't seem to add up. So before you see all of this data suggesting that the only thing you can do is to base your training on microlearning, consider:
- Whether there may be a good argument to just revise the engagement and approach of the long-form content, if you're seeing some bad retention data.
- If it's plausible you may need a microlearning. However, not as a replacement for your long-form content, but as a reinforcement tool to support your original learning
And maybe now's as good a time as any to come back to my original argument. Microlearning is a good reinforcement tool for busy people and they will help address the forgetfulness curve. And most people are busy and need to be targeted via long-form content, microlearning, social learning, and every other tool we have at our disposal. There's absolutely training gaps that microlearning will probably target and resolve. Then, there are others that require more skill-building and long-form content, where you will need to prove that engaging long-form content is worth the organizational time and investment to be done correctly.
Instead of thinking of microlearning as a replacement, we should just think of it as part of a system. One where each format plays a role in how people first learn, build, and retain knowledge. And our goal should never be less learning. It should be better and more optimized learning architecture.
