Nonlinear Purpose
Every course has a sequence for navigating the content; I dare you to show me a course that doesn't have one. Some courses proscribe that sequence, locking the navigation so that learners must go from A to B to C. Others are nonlinear, allowing C to come before A. But even nonlinear courses suggest an order. Menu options are usually presented from top to bottom and left to right. This creates an implicit sequence. So, I repeat: every course has a sequence for navigating the content.
How many times have you deviated from the implied order of a menu navigation in online learning? Technically, you may have the ability to do the sections of a course in any order, but when have you really taken advantage of that offer and chosen a different order? And did you do so for a specific reason?
If there's no reason to choose a different sequence, then the choice becomes meaningless. And I am not sure we should present meaningless choices to learners. While going through a very thorough, well-designed video on a course authoring tool, the presenter made an important observation:
"Don't get yourself stuck into this trap where you believe that if you lock down a course, that the learner's just gonna go 'Oh my gosh! It's locked down. I guess I'm just gonna hunker in here and learn.' No, it doesn't do that. They're gonna multitask. They're going to play Candy Crush, you know, if you lock down your course to such an extent that they have to view everything in a particular order" [emphasis mine].
My knee-jerk reaction was to nod my head in agreement. You can't make someone genuinely engage with your class just by restricting some buttons. Their eyeballs have freedom still.
It feels true. But is it? Maybe this presenter was overstating his point for rhetoric effect (many of us are guilty of a little hyperbole), but it seems like he made two distinct claims:
Learners will start unproductively multitasking during online learning when they might not have otherwise done so, and the reason for it is because of locked, sequential navigation.
Learners will not start unproductively multitasking during online learning if we avoid locked navigation.
I'm not convinced of either of these claims. Locked navigation does not guarantee genuine learner engagement, but neither does nonlinear course design. To borrow his framing, don't make the mistake of thinking that if you let the learner complete modules in any order they'll say "Wow, I didn't care about this class and was only doing it because I have to. But now that I can do Module 2 before Module 1, I'm hyped! Let's learn!" Learner motivation is a multifaceted jewel of intrinsic and extrinsic factors; it is not as simple as linearity vs. nonlinearity. Both have the potential to be useful or irrelevant to effective learning. Also, building nonlinearity into your course design can introduce costs, like extra time and resource needs for course development, along with more opportunities for things to break. And when implemented poorly, nonlinearity creates meaningless decisions that learners ignore.
How about we only present nonlinear options when we have a good reason to do so? Here are a few possible reasons I came up with:
Letting learners opt out of modules. Either by pre-test or credit from prior training, a learner is able to opt out of a module that covers content they've already mastered. The nonlinear navigation can update to let the learner see which modules they are skipping.
Letting learners opt into modules. Imagine a pre-test where a learner who demonstrated mastery was given additional learning opportunities in the navigationBonus, non-punitive lessons that might be more interesting to them? The nonlinear navigation makes it easier to hide/reveal this more advanced content. Or we include remedial sections for learners who need extra support based on their pre-test results.
Designing the course to acknowledge prior learner choices. Imagine the course has four modules, 1 through 4. And the scenarios/questions in the modules adapt based on the order the learner selects. So, Scenario A in Module 2 will be slightly different if the learner has already completed Module 1 versus skipping Module 1. Or perhaps later scenarios will become shorter/longer based on learner behavior in earlier scenarios .
The course covers disconnected topics. Perhaps you need to distribute yearly refresher training on a few small topics. Or a business has seen a recent increase in a couple types of customer problems/scenarios and wants to offer quick training on each of them. Since the modules are conceptually unrelated, a nonlinear design allows learners to start with the module that is most relevant to their current needs.