How to use data to solve learner engagement challenges

Dive into your LMS analytics to increase L&D engagement and solve key challenges using data.

Increasing learner engagement is a key priority for most learning and development professionals. In many instances, data already collected and stored within your learning management system can provide valuable insights for solving learner engagement challenges.

Let’s explore some of the key ways of using L&D data to boost learner engagement.

Tracking user logins

Your LMS can very quickly tell you which learners are so disengaged from learning that they are not even logging into your LMS. Using the user lost login metric, you can identify learners who have not used the LMS in the past week, month or even year.

With that data at your disposal, you can directly target this audience to encourage greater engagement. This could be achieved using the messaging system within your LMS or, perhaps better given the current lack of engagement, email. You could even approach managers rather than individual learners to enlist their support in driving engagement.

Another option is to dig deeper into the data. Are there patterns, such as infrequent logins from learners who are in a particular division, team or role? This might help you find and resolve underlying reasons for low engagement.

Monitoring completion rate

Completion rate tells you the percentage of learners who have completed a particular course. In this instance, you can turn that on its head to see which percentage didn’t complete each course.

Courses with a low completion rate are likely to be the cause of some engagement challenges. It should be easy to identify and address possible reasons for this. Common problems that are easily resolved are:

• Courses that are too long and should be split into multiple shorter courses
• Courses that have misleading or unclear titles
• A technical or usability issue with a specific activity within the course

Measuring time taken to complete courses

Similarly to monitoring completion rate, data on how long it takes learners to complete a specific course is another way of boosting engagement. Courses that take a long time to complete are more likely to result in incompletions. 

Shortening or reworking courses that take a long time to complete will increase the likelihood of more learners completing the learning.

See how learners are progressing through courses

Learner progress data gives you a real-time snapshot of how far into each course learners are at any given time. This can be a useful and very quick way of identifying points at which learner engagement drops off.

Data showing a high number of users have got to the same point in a course but have not progressed any further will be helpful in finding the reason for the sudden halt in learner engagement.

Building social proof

Data in your LMS can be cross-referenced to prove to learners the value of engaging with your L&D programme. For example, you might work out that 43% of learners who complete a particular course get a promotion within 12 months. Or maybe 30% of people who enrol on your leadership programme get a pay rise within six months.

The specifics will depend on your organisation and the evidence you’re able to source. But your LMS data can be combined with HR analytics to generate compelling social proof of the benefits of learner engagement.

Tracking grades

Monitoring how learners are performing in assessments can be useful in addressing low engagement. Learners who are performing poorly in assessments are likely to be less engaged with learning. 

Use this data to make targeted interventions. This will benefit individual learners but also enable you to pinpoint and resolve the reasons for low engagement.

Checking forum analytics

Metrics relating to your LMS forums can give you valuable insights into how well each learner is engaging in discussions. Post count, comments and replies will all help you to build a picture of which users are engaging and which are not.

If you’re not pleased with your findings, you can look at ways to increase engagement with your LMS forum.

Find the metrics that matter to you

We always tell customers that their LMS reporting system contains all the data they could ever need on their L&D programme. That includes learner engagement data.

The best approach is to think about the learner engagement metrics that will be most useful to you. You can then create automated reports to keep track of these key measures as frequently as makes sense for your organisation.

Book a meeting to discuss how the data in your LMS could solve learner engagement challenges.

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