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Interactivity: Who Cares?

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How to Put Teeth in the Idea of Engagement Through Interactivity

Sometimes, our work in learning is subjective. I wrote about this in my last blog, Learning Objectives: Who Cares? In that post, I explained how people can get caught up in selecting just the right verb when creating a learning objective. In reality, creating an objective is an exercise in setting expectations for a learning event.

Similarly, we as learning professionals need to consider what counts as interactivity, why it matters in learning, and how to incorporate it while remaining true to the expectations of a learning event.

Why Interactivity Matters in Learning

One of the learning models I often cite is John Keller’s ARCS model. It’s simple and helps explain what a learning event should include to gain and maintain a learner’s motivation. According to the ARCS model, a learning event should:

Gain the learner’s attention.
Explain why the event is relevant to the learner.
Begin to provide the learner with confidence that they can understand and, as appropriate, apply the content.
Give the learner opportunities to find satisfaction in understanding and, as appropriate, applying the content, as well as being satisfied with the learning event.

We can get lost trying to incorporate interactivity when we’re focused solely on gaining and keeping the learner’s attention. This can conflict with another related but different concept — engagement.

This can be seen in conversations like:

“The materials don’t look nice.”
“The learner experience is too passive; we need them to click through everything.”
“There’s no audio in this e-learning, which seems boring.”

Outside of that second bullet, the other two items aren’t solving for interactivity — they’re trying to solve for engagement. In learning, engagement is what makes a learner want to be involved in the learning process. One way to drive engagement, however, is through interactivity. Interactivity allows the learner to actively participate in the learning process and can be incorporated into all components of ARCS. For example:

Attention: Asking a question of the learner.
Relevance: Having the learner select and see the outcomes of different scenarios relevant to their role.
Confidence: Completing formative assessment questions (i.e., knowledge checks).
Satisfaction: Completing a summative assessment with a score at the end.

Interactivity is important because it supports motivation to continue through a learning event and keeps the focus on the ever relevant “What’s in it for me?” question that all learners bring. Interactivity is where we stop lecturing to learners and invite them to be active participants in their own learning journeys.

Selecting Interactivity Based on the Learning Event

Obviously, interactivity in person looks a lot different from interactivity online. Again, we must return to the expectations of the learning event. What do you need learners to be able to do once they complete the learning?

For example, if your learning event is for awareness only, you may want to lean a little more on engagement than on interactivity. Perhaps you aren’t looking for a full course but rather a short video.

But, if you need learners to be able to complete a task or adhere to a certain behavior after a learning event, you’ll want to bump up the level of interactivity. Below are some topics where interactivity can be included — in person or online depending on how you set up the interaction.

Systems Training

This is a straightforward example of interactivity because learners need to interact with a system to complete their work. An interaction can involve following a job aid to complete a task in the system’s sandbox environment. It can also include short, frequent questions about navigation elements.

Policy Application

If learners need to know and be able to apply a policy, you can provide scenario-based questions. As a formative assessment, these questions can be a little “tricky” for the learner. By this, I mean that the right answer is difficult to know unless the learner does something, such as open and read a portion of the policy to sort through the nuances of the answers. This not only gets learners to interact with the learning event but also with the policy.

Best Practices

Sometimes, training is more than just raising awareness but less than requiring adherence to a policy. For example, this could involve the best way to complete a review of a shared document or the best way to lead your team. Interactivity can include a type of pre-test, where learners are asked to provide what they think is the best answer and then find out if they’re correct or incorrect during the presentation of the content. You can also incorporate a sorting activity as a formative assessment to distinguish which is a best practice and which is not.

Who Cares (Really)?

Of course, interactivity in e-learning can include clicking through a ton of click-to-reveals, next and previous buttons, flip cards, and other features that encourage learners to literally interact with the course navigation. But I argue that these levels of interactivity are often solely used for engagement — to keep learners interacting with the course and to “prove” that they did something other than passively listen to a narrated, auto-advance online lecture.

Interactivity is a shared concern for all parties involved in the creation of a learning event, as well as for the learners in the event, regardless of whether it’s in person or online. Interactivity needs to be tied to the learning objectives and support the learner in achieving those objectives.

The Power of Purposeful Interactivity

In today’s learning landscape, interactivity must be purposeful, not just a checkbox. Rather than focusing on flashy features, we should create meaningful experiences that enhance engagement and learning outcomes. As learning professionals, we must align interactivity with the goals of each event, ensuring every element supports the learner’s journey.

Our ultimate aim is to empower learners to take charge of their education. By incorporating interactivity that aligns with learning objectives, we capture attention and inspire motivation.

So, as you design your next learning event, ask yourself: How can I make interactivity a driving force for engagement and understanding? By prioritizing meaningful interactions, we create impactful learning experiences that lead to true transformation, not just participation.