Brandon Hall's PowerPoint Survey Results

Reprinted from Brandon Hall Research News, July 12, 2005

Purists often dismiss the notion that PowerPoint can be an effective learning development tool. However, as part of a recent study, we've found that many organizations - when following a few simple guidelines - are enjoying the benefits that PowerPoint provides, while meeting their learning and training benefits. Here are just a few of the high-level findings that will be explored in further detail in an upcoming Brandon Hall Research publication tentatively titled, "Leveraging PowerPoint in E-Learning: Techniques, Case Studies, and Comparative Analysis:"

• PowerPoint-based learning provides tremendous efficiencies in development times. Average development times across study participants was 33:1 (33 hours of development for every 1 finished hour of courseware). Compare this with the development of e-learning created with traditional authoring tools (220:1) or with simulation development averages (750:1).
  
• Subject matter experts CAN be effective developers of online learning. We studied several organizations that are expanding their developer network by using subject matter experts (SMEs) as primary course authors - using PowerPoint as their development environment. There is a big caveat here. Organizations that provided proactive training to SMEs on how to design and develop online learning experienced positive results, while organizations who simply "turned the SMEs loose with PowerPoint conversion tools" failed miserably in achieving their desired results.

• PowerPoint works best when focused on specific learning domains. We found effective use of PowerPoint for content areas such as teaching policies, procedures, product knowledge, basic regulatory and compliance, and sharing information on changes and current events.
  
• Organizations that use PowerPoint as part of learning have figured out how and when to use the "right tool for the job." Organizations that have a clearly defined model for the "right time" to use PowerPoint-based e-learning are more successful at making it an effective part of their corporate training culture.

While the purists are still debating the issue, the fact is that PowerPoint-based e-learning is filling a significant training need as part of a holistic, blended learning environment.