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The Design of MicroLearning Experiences: A Research Agenda

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 The Design of MicroLearning Experiences: A Research
Agenda

Silvia Gabrielli, Stephen Kimani, Tiziana Catarci

Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, Dipartimento di Informatica e Sistemistica,

via Salaria 113, 00198 Roma, Italy
{gabrielli, kimani, catarci}@dis.uniroma1.it

Abstract. In this paper we focus on the interaction design properties of micro-

learning experiences to outline relevant research directions and main challenges
of the field. We start by analyzing current efforts in the area of educational
technologies in terms of their support of anytime-anywhere access to learning
resources, which is a core property of microlearning environments. We also
overview learning theories that are relevant to address the lifelong dimension of
informal everyday activities of knowledge acquisition. From this discussion a
set of design requirements and evaluation issues are derived to inform future
investigation and experimentations in the microlearning area.

1 Introduction

Technological innovation has made our society a knowledge intensive one, where
successful performance of individuals or groups heavily relies on the acquisition and
use of relevant information contents and suitable communication means to achieve
task objectives. Microlearning is a new research area aimed at exploring new ways of
responding to the growing need for lifelong learning or learning on demand of mem-
bers of our society, such as knowledge workers [6] [7][13]. It is based on the idea of
developing small chunks of learning content and flexible technologies that can enable
learners to access them more easily in specific moments and conditions of the day, for
example during time breaks or while on the move. In this paper we analyse, from an
interaction design perspective, which are the core requirements, as well as some main
challenges, in the design of microlearning experiences. We start by focusing on the
spatial and temporal dimensions of learning to identify possible differences and syner-
gies of microlearning with other current approaches to educational technologies. In
section 3 we briefly discuss learning theories that are relevant to inform microlearning
environments, while in section 4 we list a minimum set of requirements that should be
met by this type of learning settings. Section 5 suggests possible methodological ap-
proaches for the design-evaluation of microlearning concepts and scenarios, according
to the requirements listed above. It also raises a number of issues, such as the evalua-
tion of lifelong microlearning experiences, that seem to have been particularly difficult
to tackle by learning studies till now [1]. We conclude the paper by sketching some

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interesting areas of inquiry for microlearning that should be part of its research agen-
da.

2 Anytime-Anywhere Access to Learning Resources

Microlearning activities, by definition, rely on access to learning resources which may

happen at the time of breaks or gaps in learners daily work/life activities. Since gaps
may take place in many different locations and moments of time, microlearning is to
be considered the most typical form of anytime-anywhere learning. Also, research
literature has shown that much learning in life is informal, in fact “opportunistic and
strictly under the control of the learner” [12]. Marchionini and Maurer say that learn-
ers take advantage of other people, technology, and the context during informal learn-
ing. Other studies also indicate that informal (science) learning outside the class set-
ting, significantly contributes to the motivation to learn [19]. It is rather interesting to
note that nearly 85% of students' time is spent outside formal classroom settings [3].
In Fig. 1 we compare different typologies of educational environments and tech-
nologies that might support informal learning, by taking into account their temporal-
spatial dimensions. Pervasive learning environments, for example, are characterised
by the presence of embedded technologies and a series of small devices like tags,
sensors, badges etc., that are dedicated to detect, observe and build dynamic models of
the environment and learners’ activities, so as to adapt to (and possibly support better)
knowledge acquisition [13]. Among interesting applications of pervasive technologies,
we mention mixed realities environments for learning [15], that recently have been
developed to transform or augment traditional learning activities carried out indoor
(classroom) or outdoor by designing innovative interfaces between the physical and
the digital world [15][16]. However, the complexity of design and dedicated nature of
these environments make their use quite limited and localized in terms of time/space
dimensions [13].
Desktop-based interaction experiences are provided by Computer Assisted Learn-
ing Environments and Web-based applications on which most of eLearning systems
and activities typically rely on. In some way, the large availability of desktop comput-
ers and simple network connections in everyday environments (like home, work etc.)
increases the level of anywhere/anytime access to eLearning by its users. However, a
possible disadvantage of these settings is that the devices and learning contents typi-
cally used for eLearning are not particularly easy to move or transfer from one
place/device to another, neither specifically suitable to be accessed while on the move.
To remove this problem mobile learning environments are more appropriate to use,
since they are based on portable devices like PDAs, cellular phones, laptops etc.,
supported by wireless network connections to enable a flexible and seamless access-
exchange of learning contents anytime and anywhere. This is particularly important
for microlearning experiences, that due to their ubiquitous emergence and life-long
duration, need to integrate the mobility capabilities of these devices with the computa-
tional power and support provided by pervasive/ubiquitous environments. This would
be expected to effectively support learners in their access and transfer of learning

2
resources across different surroundings, as microlearning requires. Moreover, it has
been observed that also in mobile computing, user activities tend to be implicit, oppor-
tunistic, and informal. Mobile users tend to rely on (or indirectly take advantage of)
the context, including aspects such as: location, infrastructure/resources, environment,
time, and other people. Considering the previous observations reported in [12] [19],
mobile computing does therefore afford a great opportunity for supporting (mi-
cro)learning [9].

Fig.1: Types of Learning Environments according to Temporal-Spatial Access

3 Learning Theories for MicroLearning

All the learning environments mentioned above share the same foundation on con-
structivism and/or social cultural theory as a common understanding of knowledge
acquisition [4][5][22][23]. Microlearning makes no exception to that, but can also be
informed by a range of more recent learning approaches, projects 1 and studies, that
have focused on investigating the characteristics of adult learning during lifelong
activities [10][20]. Most adult learning happens outside formal education, it often
responds to the need for a personal/professional growth of individuals that dedicate
part of their (informal) daily activities to the acquisition of new competences or to an
updating of their knowledge, motivated by changing conditions or circumstances in
life (for example getting prepared for a new job).
Also, informal learning typically is based on task specific activities, where learners are
interested more to access very specific pieces of information instead of a complete
body of knowledge, in order to support decision making or the acquisition of a certain
(useful) skill [20].

1 See, for instance, some results of the MOBIlearn EU Project "Guidelines for Develop-
ing Mobile Learning Deliverable"

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Mobile and ubiquitous technologies are particularly indicated to support this type of
learning; in the case of microlearning they should be designed to enable a natural
blending of it within the flow of everyday activities carried out by learners.
It is also worth mentioning that these technologies are suitable to support both inten-
tional and unintentional types of learning; the former are characterised by intensive
and deliberate efforts to acquire new knowledge by a learner, the latter consist of not
deliberate learning experiences derived from conversations, observations in the world,
accidents etc., that cannot be planned in advance, but are potentially enabled as unex-
pected outcomes from the informal learning activities [10][20].
Microlearning is thus to be considered a contextual lifelong learning process, that
according to [17] is most effective when it can enable activities such as:
i) the construction of knowledge, by means of finding new solutions to problems or
creating connections between past and current experiences,
ii) conversation with both the social-physical world and with oneself (like in reflec-
tion, experimentation in the world and interpretation of results) as well as,
iii) learner control over any continuing cycles of experimentation and reflection.

4 Main Requirements of MicroLearning Experiences

In the light of the microlearning properties discussed above, we provide below a

list of requirements that should guide the design of both technologies and contents for
microlearning experiences.
According to our analysis, they should be:
1. highly transferable and unobstrusive of the learner’s activities, so that learners
can easily download and upload the didactic materials they have been provided
from one device to another. This should also enable learners to work always on
the most updated version of the learning material wherever they are, by using
the most appropriate device according to the specific conditions in which they
happen to carry on learning. This also entails the study of natural interfaces for
multimodal interaction with the learning system to support the learners in situa-
tions such as: multitasking, hands-free or eyes-free interaction, exposure to
possible distractions (noise, interruptions, etc.) coming from the surrounding
environment.
2. Easily available and user-friendly, enabling anytime-anywhere access, sup-
ported by the use of mobile phones, PDAs or other wireless communication
devices connected also by Local Area Networks (LANs). Usability aspects of
microlearning technologies and contents should be analysed carefully, to ena-
ble the most intuitive and straightforward interaction with them by people with
different levels of expertise with technologies.
3. Persistent, that is the learning environment, including all the modifications op-
erated on it by a learner in a lifetime, should be independent from its physical
instantiation on a certain device, thus easily accessible at anytime through the
specific technology at hand. The use of a persistent user profile may enable the

4
 learner freedom in accessing her own profile from different devices, settings
and for the different types of services provided.
4. Useful, especially by enhancing the different activities contributing to the
achievement of the learning goal(s). This is only possible if technologies are
able to present an adequate and simple image of the learning environment to
the user, no matter how complex its inner organization might be. For micro-
learning, appropriate system metaphors, especially ‘off the desktop’ ones,
should be uncovered and studied in order to fulfil this requirement.
5. Individual as well as sharable, so that they adequately support individual
learning activities, but also enable learners to get or provide support from/to
peers, tutors or other experts by the use of communication technology.
6. Adaptable and/or adaptive to learners’ needs, so that different interaction
styles can be selected by learners according to their preferences or skills (for
instance, their level of expertise with the learning environment) or automatical-
ly suggested by the system, according to specific learners profiles or models
developed in the course of long term interaction. Personalization features
should be carefully designed to avoid making user interaction with the micro-
learning environment too complex or running against principles such as trans-
parency, predictability, control etc.. By contrast, the aim of this requirement is
to support a more natural and consistent interaction of the learner with digital
(learning) resources, according to learners’ different preferences and abilities
(including those of learners with special needs) and to the affordances provid-
ed by everyday environments.
As far as microlearning contents are concerned, below we mention a number of me-
tarequirements that, according to the theoretical approaches cited in section 3, should
be fulfilled. In particular, they should:
1. promote the acquisition of basic skills such as flexibility and adaptability in
learners, making them aware of the very rapid and changing nature of
knowledge in everyday environments,
2. foster the development of creativity skills, as well as problem solving and
managing competences,
3. capitalize on learners communication abilities as a way of supporting the so-
cial production and reconstruction of knowledge during learning and work-
ing activities and try to improve them by providing learners ways of analys-
ing their own communication styles as recurrently practiced in the field.

5 Design and Evaluation Approaches

So far we have discussed possible suggestions for developing effective microlearning

experiences. However, due to the early stage of work in this field much experimenta-
tion at the level of design and evaluation of microlearning environments is required. If
we analyse research in innovative design areas such as ubiquitous computing, we can
observe that participatory design approaches or observation of users’ activities in
authentic everyday settings have been the most appropriate methods applied to gener-

5
ate relevant data to inform design [14][18]. This is because in early concept design of
innovative technologies, the effective involvement of participants and stakeholders is
the most important factor to determine successful outcomes. We claim that adopting
this approach would also be key for microlearning, due to the need of uncovering
original and effective combinations of microcontent with natural interfaces and to
sustain dialogue among learners, technology developers and system designers. Ethno-
graphic observations, as well as participatory design techniques, provide interesting
hints for developing early design concepts to be tested in microlearning interactive
scenarios. Previous studies have demonstrated how technological possibilities, if ap-
propriately presented to users within meaningful and (possibly) authentic scenarios,
can be of inspiration for developing creative and useful design solutions that would
hardly be found by following more traditional design approaches [14]. As we men-
tioned before, new metaphors, beyond the ones currently used in distant education,
need to be devised and investigated to present a more appropriate and transparent
system image to its users. This should be founded on in-depth and longitudinal anal-
yses of learners actions in the physical world and interactions with microlearning
resources as they are experienced within interactive design scenarios or during life-
long knowledge acquisition.
Evaluation studies on microlearning would also be key to inform a better design of
these systems. For what concerns evaluating microlearning technologies, user-centred
principles and approaches could inform the analysis of microlearning concepts or
scenarios. However, assessing usability of cutting edge technologies, for which usual-
ly only proof-of-concepts or early prototypes are available, might be particularly diffi-
cult. This is because task centric evaluation techniques are not ideal to be applied for
studying informal everyday activities and also because it is unclear how it would be
possible to apply quantitative evaluations or controlled experiments to assess lifelong
learning processes. For the evaluation of more advanced and robust microlearning
systems some adapted usability techniques may turn out to be useful. For instance,
recent efforts towards developing usability heuristics for the evaluation of mobile
environments/applications (such as [11], [21]) and shared environments (such as [2]),
or adaptation of expert-based inspection techniques for mobile learning settings [8].
Somewhat problematic would also be measuring the effectiveness of microlearning
experiences in terms of the learning objectives achieved. Specifically, a main chal-
lenge would be to assess achievements at the level of metaskills acquired by the learn-
er through a life long assimilation and personal (re)interpretation of the contents pro-
vided. This is an area where currently more investigation is required. If microlearning
research will undertake this challenge it is likely to provide interesting insights for a
better understanding of learning activities as instantiated within everyday informal
settings.

6 Conclusion

This brief excursus in the field of microlearning theory and technological develop-
ment has shown that there are several areas and opportunities for future inquiry that

6
promise to advance the state of the art in microlearning and also to bring relevant
results to the HCI community interested on educational technologies. To summarize,
some main directions to be included into the microlearning research agenda are the
following:
• Experimentation into the design of anytime anywhere access to digital learn-
ing resources, by devising ubiquitous computer interfaces and suitable inter-
action metaphors to enable flexible use of microlearning environments by
different kinds of learners, during informal lifelong learning.
• The development and application of different combinations of HCI method-
ologies for a better analysis and understanding of lifelong learning practices.
This should capitalize on participatory design techniques for early concept
generation, as well as on interactive scenarios and user-centred methods to
evaluate correspondence between solutions proposed and learners’ needs.
• The design of cutting edge technologies and prototypes responding to the list
of microlearning requirements mentioned in section 4 and possibly to an ex-
tended list of them as informed by current and future research on everyday
use of ubiquitous/mobile technologies.
• The study of new evaluation methods for microlearning environments that
would properly take into account the lifelong dimension of learning, as well
as any future advancement of teaching methods and models shedding light on
the emerging requirements of informal learning activities.

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