Learning with e-learning and online courses is more popular than ever, yet studies or comprehensive practical experiences are scarce. We want to change that – and have analyzed thousands of online courses. One result: Length matters! We explain the exciting findings and provide practical tips for your online courses.
Today, online courses exist for a wide variety of applications: Most corporate training professionals rely either on blended learning or on e-learning. The difference: An online course for blended learning is only part of a training program combining online and face-to-face sessions. An e-learning course is usually a standalone, self-contained online course. However, all online courses have one thing in common: They are designed to convey knowledge.
But what is the right length for an online course to be practically successful?
In this article, you will learn
how our mini-study was conducted.
the most important results in brief.
our tips for your online courses.
how the results were generated (in detail for statistics fans).
1. Evaluation of Successful E-Learnings and Online Courses
We analyzed over 8,000 courses on our online learning platform blink.it to find the success factors for great online courses.
Evaluation by Hand + Eye
The evaluation was not done by a computer: Each successful course was reviewed individually by us and categorized as “E-Learning” or “Blended Learning” based on the content. You will find out later why these categories are important.
What does “successful” mean?
We speak of “success” when an online course not only has a certain quality in terms of content (which we cannot comprehensively evaluate in our study), but above all regarding the motivation of the participants: Did the participants actually view the content? Did they not only start the courses, but also complete them to the end? Therefore, the definition of “successful” in the context of our evaluation is:
“Your course is successful if all participants have viewed all content!”
We call the key figure for success the “course completion rate”: This number indicates how much content the course participants viewed on average.
Example of the Course Completion Rate
For example, a completion rate of 10% means that participants viewed an average of 10% of the content. A perfect course has a completion rate of 100%: this means 100% of the content was viewed by all participants!
Enough mathematics for now! Here are the results of our evaluation:
2. Results: How Course Length Influences E-Learning Success
Note: In the following, “successful” means a course completion rate between 75% and 100%.
The following graphic shows a simplified representation of the results of our evaluation: We looked at how much content the courses have, and what kind of courses they are (E-Learning or Blended Learning)
Graphic 1: Results of our course study. Successful courses with a maximum of 25 content items are mostly blended learning courses; successful courses with 25-75 blinks are predominantly pure e-learning courses.
2 key takeaways from our study:
Most successful courses with at most 25 content items are blended learning courses.
Most successful courses with more than 25 content items are pure e-learning courses.
So you can see that successful blended learning courses get by with significantly fewer individual learning content items – whereas successful e-learning courses with more learning content can be just as successful.
What is crucial here is not just the amount of content, but its structure. Successful courses often consist of many small, clearly defined learning units instead of a few very comprehensive modules. This structure makes it easier for learners to get started, increases the likelihood that they will begin the course, and at the same time boosts the completion rate.
3. Our Tips for Your Online Courses:
We have 3 tips for you on how to use this knowledge for your next online course:
Tip 1: Keep your blended learning courses short and sweet!
A blended learning course is a companion to face-to-face sessions and can therefore easily be shorter than a pure e-learning course: Not all learning content needs to be mapped online. It is important that you make the connection between online and face-to-face learning clear to the participants. A blended learning course can be a preparation for a live session, a follow-up of seminar content, or a complete accompaniment (before and after the face-to-face session).
Think about which content in your blended learning fits well into the online course. For preparation, you can, for example, query the current state of knowledge of the participants. For follow-up, practical exercises serve to consolidate knowledge over several weeks. Photo protocols of the face-to-face sessions are also perfect content for a short accompanying online course.
Tip 2: E-learning courses can be comprehensive – if the content is right!
Most successful e-learning courses on blink.it have more than 25 content items. Many even have more than 50, and some even have 100 individual learning units! If that sounds like a lot to you, keep in mind that each learning unit (for us: a Blink) in this case is only a few minutes long.
In a pure e-learning course, you should not overwhelm participants with pages of text or hours of learning videos. It is more important to break the extensive learning material down into bite-sized chunks. You probably know this principle under the term “microlearning”.
We recommend learning units that can be completed by the participant in a maximum of 5 minutes. So divide the learning material well and use different media: With a mix of short texts, self-recorded learning videos, and exercises, you can convey even extensive knowledge in an understandable and varied way.
Tip 3: Choose the right format for blended learning and e-learning courses!
One of the most exciting results of our course evaluation is that both e-learning and blended learning courses can be highly successful! We cannot and do not want to give you a definitive statement like “use method x”. It is important that you choose the format that fits your content. Success depends not only on the length, but of course also on the content!
Before creating an online course, consider:
Is the content suitable for a pure online course?
Or is support through matching face-to-face sessions more sensible?
Which media properly support my content?
How can I break down the entire knowledge into small learning chunks?
Based on these questions, decide whether a short online accompaniment or a detailed e-learning course is better suited for your planned measure!
4. For Statistics Fans: How Were the Results Generated?
If you are wondering how we came up with the results, we have an answer for you below.
The Study Design in Detail
Exactly 8,257 courses were evaluated as a random sample from the countless courses on the blink.it learning platform. Included in the selection were all courses on the platform that, at the time of the evaluation, had at least 5 active participants and 3 content items (“Blinks”). There was no upper limit, so courses with over 2,000 participants and 100 Blinks were also included in the evaluation.
The evaluation of the over 8,000 blink.it courses was carried out in 3 steps:
First, all courses were analyzed,
then only the successful courses.
Finally, the courses were divided into course types to identify correlations.
Step 1: Looking at All Courses
For the evaluation, the completion rate was basically analyzed in connection with the number of Blinks (content items) in the courses. For all courses overall, this looked simplified like the following graphic. Each dot is a course that matches the combination of completion rate and content count:
You can see that very many of the evaluated courses contain fewer than 25 Blinks. Only very few courses have more than 75 content items. And most courses have a completion rate between 25% and 75%.
Step 2: All Successful Courses
Since we are interested in the most successful courses in the second step, we set a minimum completion rate of 75%. With this filter, the following picture emerges:
Here, two fairly clearly defined groups emerged: One half of the successful courses has a maximum of 25 Blinks (Group 1). The other half of the successful courses has significantly more Blinks – from 25 upwards (Group 2).
Step 3: Successful Courses by Course Type (E-Learning or Blended Learning)
In the last step, the categorization was applied: Depending on the content, the courses were divided into the category “E-Learning” or “Blended Learning”.
The result of the categorization clearly shows:
The courses that are very successful with fewer than 25 content items are mostly blended learning courses for preparing or following up on face-to-face sessions.
The online courses that are successful with a large amount of content are predominantly pure e-learning courses for knowledge building.
Disclaimer: The results of the evaluation refer exclusively to courses created on the blink.it learning platform. Results from other learning management systems and learning platforms may differ. Furthermore, not all courses on the blink.it platform were included in the evaluation: It is a large-scale sample of 8,257 courses. If you have any questions about the study design or the evaluation of the data, we are happy to help.
Conclusion
The optimal length of an online course does not result from a fixed number of minutes or modules, but from the appropriate structure for the respective learning objective.
Our analysis shows: Blended learning courses work particularly well with few, targeted online content items, while pure e-learning courses can also be more extensive – provided the learning material is logically divided into small units.
For you as a course developer, this means one thing above all: Do not plan the length of your course first, but rather its learning structure. If content is clearly structured, short enough for your participants' daily routines, and methodologically diverse, the likelihood that your course will actually be completed to the end automatically increases.
A successful online course is therefore not the shortest or the longest – but the one that is consistently aligned with learning motivation and practical application.
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
How long should an online course be?
There is no optimal length. What matters is whether it is a pure e-learning or an accompanying blended learning course, and how the learning content is structured.
How many content items do successful blended learning courses have?
In the blink.it evaluation, most successful blended learning courses had at most 25 individual content items. They frequently served to prepare for or follow up on face-to-face sessions.
Can pure e-learning courses be more extensive?
Yes. Most successful pure e-learning courses in the evaluation had more than 25 content items. Some even comprised 50 to 100 individual learning units.
How long should a single learning unit be?
The article recommends learning units that participants can complete in a maximum of five minutes. Comprehensive topics should be broken down into several small learning chunks for this purpose.
What was investigated in the blink.it course study?
A sample of 8,257 courses with at least five active participants and three content items was analyzed. Among other things, the relationship between course length, course type, and completion rate was examined.
