Barriers to learning

• Barrier to learning


  Anything that prevents a learner from being fully engaged in the learning process
• Person or group affected by learning barriers


  • Feels frustrated or unwilling, and cannot achieve their learning goals
• Common barriers to learning

  • Lack of focus
  • Negative past experiences
  • Personal mindsets
  • Lack of technical skills
  • Isolation
  • Boredom
• Overcoming lack of focus


  1. Advise learners on when and how to find space to focus

  2. Recommend setting aside a "focus hour"
• Overcoming negative past experiences


  1. Create an environment where learners can regularly and safely voice their concerns

  2. Align their personal development goals with the outcomes of the course
• Overcoming personal mindsets


  1. Make sure the learning environment offers learners the room to discuss concerns in a constructive manner

  2. Offer live support for both technical and content concerns
• Overcoming lack of technical skills


  1. Create simple tutorial that demonstrate how to use the organization's LMS

  2. Provide a more personal walkthrough of the system, either in-person or through a recorded webinar
• Overcoming isolation


  1. Make social features, like discussions, a key element of the course design

  2. Incorporate team competitions, group work and leaderboards
• Overcoming boredom


  1. Understand the training audience needs and the kind of content and scenarios they find relatable and inspiring

  2. Ensure the assessments' difficulty level is challenging enough to prevent boredom, but also not too difficult
• When learners are prevented from fully participating in learning, the many benefits of learner engagement can't be realized
• By identifying and addressing the factors that prevent engagement in online courses, learners and businesses are both able to get the most out of the learning experience
• Ways to engage learners despite barriers

  • Make learning participative
  • Encourage peer learning
  • Break tasks down into smaller steps
  • Use learners' own words, language, materials and personal context
• Ways teachers can help learners with barriers

  • Make both written and spoken information clear
  • Be aware of your own attitudes and views
  • Observe what works for a particular learner and what does not
  • Work through any emotional issues
  • Be aware of the language you use and of that used by other members of the group
  • Encourage learners to ask for help
  • Listen closely to what learners say
• Encouraging learners to be creative will engage and enable them to expand their ideas and thinking
• Collaborative working with their peers, and teaching and support staff, will enable them to demonstrate and build on their skills, experience and achievements