People have talked about the WIIFM (“What’s in it for me?”) factor in educational theory for decades. It’s the idea that is if people know what benefits training has for them personally, they’ll be more invested. It’s easy to simply insert a sales pitch at the beginning of your course and consider your WIIFM quota met. Motivation is more complex than that. Let’s take a look at what motivation is, and how we can build it into training.
We’re all rolling boulders.One of my favourite comedy sketches is from BBC4 radio comedy, John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme. It features Sisyphus, a character from Greek mythology. Sisyphus is doomed to the eternal punishment of rolling a boulder up a hill all day only to have it roll back down again just before reaching the top.
Tags: elearning • eLearning Design • Hints and Tips • Instructional Design • learning theory • motivation • off-the-shelf eLearning • WIIFM