The Annual Survey Report for 2008 on Learning and Development from the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) presents a confusing picture on the status of e-learning in the UK. The CIPD sent surveys to 5000 of their members with roles and l&d managers and received 729 responses. Of these, half were private sector and half public/voluntary. 55% worked for organisations with less than 1000 employees, while only 20% represented organisations with more than 5000 employees. CIPD is the leading HR professional body in the UK, with 130,000 members. It would be fair to assume that all of the respondents work in HR and therefore are likely to be responsible for training that works across their organisations, e.g. management, induction and compliance. Few will be responsible for technical training in specific functional areas.

Each one of the headlines concerning e-learning takes some interpretation:

'Less than half (47%) are using more e-learning and a quarter (26%) say they don't use or no longer use e-learning': When you look at the figures, what you see is a more positive picture: not only are half of all companies using e-learning more, only 2% are using it less. The fact that 26% don't use it at all is hardly surprising when you consider the high proportion of small organisations represented. Small organisations are much less likely to go for e-learning, given the lack of scale to justify bespoke development and the lack of expertise available to them.

'Few feel it is the most effective learning and development practice (7%)': Needless to say, this is the figure that is picked up on in the press and to be fair, it is significant that l&d managers don't rate the efficacy of e-learning as highly as other more traditional approaches. Nevertheless, you have to wonder a little how much meaning you can attach to their answers. First of all, what sort of e-learning are they talking about - self-paced, self-study lessons? live online events using virtual classrooms? collaborative online learning? It is impossible to have one measure for the effectiveness of all three, because they have almost nothing in common except for the fact that they are delivered using technology.

Then you might ask how they know whether e-learning (or any other medium for that matter) is effective or not? Do they actually measure effectiveness (the CIPD's Value of Learning project suggests not)? Are their opinions based on their own prejudices (sorry, I mean 'preferences') or feedback from customers, i.e, managers and learners themselves?

You might also wonder whether it is meaningful to ask how effective one medium is compared to another - the critical issue is whether a medium is effective.

And one final point here - effectiveness is in itself only one half of the story: A medium is chosen for its effectiveness and its efficiency, i.e. how much it costs, how long it takes, etc. Coaching and on-job instruction may be preferred options, but can you really afford them?

'Larger organisations use e-learning to a far greater extent than small organisations': Of course they do. Most trainers in smaller organisations have little or no idea what e-learning is and wouldn't know where to start. Of course this does need addressing and the CIPD themselves would be the ideal body to raise awareness and help develop expertise in smaller organisations.

'Nearly half tend to agree that e-learning is the most important development in training in the past few decades': Not surprising because it is one of the only changes - see my posting Ten years is not so long in learning and development.

'29% say that in the next three years between 25% and 50% of training will be delivered via e-learning': I hate these percentages of percentages questions because they are so hard to interpret, although this finding is significant. If you remember that only 20% of the respondents were from organisations with more than 5000 employees, then you can expect that the large organisations are going to be doing one heck of a lot of e-learning. That's if you believe these forecasts: looking back through these surveys, respondents have always believed that next year they're going to be doing lots more of everything.

'More than three quarters (79%) feel e-learning is not a substitute for classroom-based learning': Of course it's not. But why ask the question? Do we ask whether coaching is a substitute for the classroom? Or whether the classroom is a substitute for coaching? These questions are so loaded they could go off at any minute.

''The vast majority (92%) feel that e-learning demands a new attitude to learning on behalf of learners': This is undoubtedly true, but then only of learners who are Gen X and older, which includes all the respondents to this survey. In my experience, a much bigger issue is that e-learning demands a new attitude on behalf of learning and development professionals.

'Almost all (95%) feel that e-learning is more effective when combined with other forms of learning': What can I say? This one is unambiguous and I heartily agree. And, of course the same is true for other media: the classroom is more effective when combined with other forms of learning; coaching is more effective, etc.

I can understand why the CIPD is reluctant to revise their survey questions too radically, because this makes year on year comparisons so difficult. But the time really has come for a fresh think. It really shouldn't be such hard work to extract something meaningful from so much data.