Striking a Balance: Online Training for Volunteer Organizations Sarah Peters and Sara Boyce Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
Introduction In the not so distant past, volunteering for local and national organizations was expected of high school and college students in the United States. Assisting at bake sales for the local animal shelter, building houses with Habitat for Humanity or bussing tables at a Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless, was viewed not in light of the extra line one could add to ones resume, but rather as a natural extension of charity. This act of giving ones time and energy to help others has been a lifelong commitment for many millions of volunteers; beginning in this century with the sacrifice of the Greatest Generation during World War II, and building through the foundation of volunteer organizations such as the Peace Corps, Special Olympics and Habitat for Humanity. The Boomer Generation was the vanguard of these humanitarian organizations; organizing, litigating and establishing the foundations and principles on which they stand. These volunteers signed up, showed up, were told what to do, and sent out to perform those duties to the best of their ability. Experience was gained over the course of a lifetime; and this experience was eventually translated into drafting and formalizing guidelines on rules, regulations, policies and procedures as volunteers and organizations matured. This generation of volunteers is now on the brink of retirement, and organizations are struggling to fill the gaps in their ranks with new volunteers who are not only willing, but also qualified to perform their duties. Sarah Peters and Sara Boyce are graduate students in the Department of Instructional Technology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.
Qualified? Since when does someone have to be qualified to volunteer? This is a valid question, and one for which there is an answer: The dawn of the 21st century put paid to the idea that volunteering is all about signing up and sending volunteers out to learn as they go. In this age of litigation, volunteer organizations are all too painfully aware of their liability when hosting events, and the importance of properly training their volunteers is a crucial step towards ensuring the safety of all participants who attend. How can these volunteer organizations, with their limited budgets and resources, train volunteers efficiently and rapidly? There is a delicate balance to be struck between getting the Millennium Generation to volunteer in the first place, and then asking them to take the time to complete a training course before actually participating in events. Add to the mix the need to assess that the training has been successful, the requirement for re-taking the training if the assessment is failed, and submitting to a background check for certain positions; this adds up to a recipe for driving potential volunteers away in droves. And these organizations don’t have droves of willing participants to alienate. So, what options do volunteer organizations have for addressing their training needs while taking into account the time constraints of the volunteers? How can the training be designed to meet objectives and be assessed without taking too much time and patience on the part of the volunteers? What is the optimal delivery method for a wide demographic of current and future volunteers?
Addressing the need Working recently on a project for creating online training for Special Olympics Pennsylvania (SOPA), our team conducted a front-end analysis to determine the training needs for the organization’s 56 Volunteer Coordinators (VC). SOPA is currently restructuring its training resources and putting training online to reach volunteers living 1
throughout Pennsylvania. The needs analysis was focused on collecting data on the current training provided by SOPA; job performance issues the volunteers had encountered; when, how and where they carried out their SOPA responsibilities; and technical parameters for delivering the training online based on the volunteers computer configurations and familiarity with online training. Data collected, based on interviews and surveys, as well as information gathered from seminars at the SOPA Leadership conference in Harrisburg, PA on September 15th, 2007, yielded some very interesting results. Our team found that the SOPA VCs had received no hands on training at all concerning the duties they were expected to perform, but had rather been given a 78page handbook detailing a wide range of responsibilities that were not necessarily relevant to their position. Information gained from interviews with the VCs further revealed that the current VCs had not read the manual due to its length and redundancy of information. The response was overwhelmingly positive concerning the shift in training delivery to the internet, which would give them easy access to the training from their homes or places of work. The importance of this access to online material was stressed by all the participants in the interviews and surveys because they worked on SOPA responsibilities most often while at work or on their home computers. {There are no central offices for SOPA in the 56 counties in PA dedicated to local chapters, therefore all volunteers must carve out time during their normal work hours, or use their own resources at home during their free time to perform their SOPA duties.} Due to the fact that this training was to be delivered on the
web, it was crucial that our team ascertain the VCs comfort level with navigating web pages, the technical configurations of their personal PCs or work computers, and where they would most likely be completing the training. We found that the VCs were relatively familiar with using computers for basic work tasks and went online on a regular basis. Some had gone through online training in the past and many had at some point had Computer-Based Training (CBT) or online courses. The greatest concern for delivering the training on the web was the diverse computer configurations trainees might be using and the connection speed of their internet service. Our data collection made it very clear that any training modules produced had to be relatively light weight to accommodate older operating systems and slower computers. The software used to produce the training also had to be easily accessed from offices or schools that might require administrative permission levels set for downloading plug-ins for Flash content or other software. Conducting this two week front-end analysis of our target audience was decisive to the eventual design of the online training. In light of the many organizations that are currently re-structuring their training for online delivery it should be stressed that instructional design teams must conduct a thorough needs analysis before undertaking the design and delivery of the of the instruction. Without detailed information on the trainees and the possible limitations of their computer hardware and computer skills, technicians will most likely overestimate the capacities of the computers used by the trainees. Data analysis of the information collected estimated that, had the training been delivered on a Flash platform at 2
least 25% of our target audience would have been unable to access the material.
Tailoring the Training The diversity of a target audience is a key consideration for instructional - designers to take into consideration when creating content for any field, but this is even more of a factor when designing training for volunteer organizations. The audience that the training has to reach is an audience of all possibilities since a volunteer can, by definition, be anybody in the population. How then to approach the design from an Everyman’s point of view and still be interesting and engaging enough to hold people’s attention? The best solution is to look not at the technical possibilities of designing instruction for computer delivery, since heavy multimedia content has been ruled out based on the findings of the needs analysis, but rather to address as many learning styles as possible. Concentrating on identifying as many visually relevant elements to the training as possible, the objectives our team identified were often based on procedural knowledge that the VCs were required to perform, such as filling out forms and processing volunteer records. The volunteers needed to recognize that these tasks were required and identify the proper steps to be taken in order to perform the tasks. Including as many visual identifiers as possible in the training addresses the learning styles of the audience by showing them the relevant forms they will be processing and using audio to explain the steps in the procedures. Visually reinforcing the environment in which volunteers will be performing their duties is also vital when designing training for volunteer organizations. Using photos of events reinforces for the volunteers the humanity
behind the cause for which the organization was created, and puts into context the importance of the tasks they will be performing. Is this strategy adequate across a spectrum of volunteer roles and volunteer organizations? There is a strong argument in favor of this training strategy, which is again based on recognizing the needs of the volunteers, and the time and budgetary constraints of the organizations. First of all the volunteers need to recognize policies relevant to their positions, they must be able to perform the procedures required for conducting their duties, and they have to be able to identify the materials required for their positions. This training should take no more than a couple of hours of their time, at most, so delivering the instruction over the internet, using visual and auditory elements to reinforce the learning tasks, and providing an easy means for assessing their competence, is key to ensuring not only retention but also interest. Secondly, online training is fast and accessible for most people, and as long as the development overhead is kept to a minimum, relatively cheap. Based on the diversity of the audience and the need to aim for the lowest possible bandwidth for delivering internet content, the costs associated with development will not be prohibitive to any organization with a presence on the World Wide Web.
Passing the Torch Volunteer organizations have realized that the need to attract new volunteers to fill the positions being vacated by trusted veterans is a priority for the future. As such, it is imperative that they adapt to a changing world where online training is the norm, and getting new volunteers into positions being 3
vacated has to be done as rapidly and effectively as possible. Designing the necessary instruction for these organizations however is not an undertaking that can be taken lightly by the instructional designers creating the training. It is imperative that a thorough front-end analysis be done, in order to ascertain the technical limitations that might be encountered when designing web based training for such a wide demographic, and to best assess the needs of the audience. The training has to be thorough and it must be focused on the essentials, or the audience will potentially be alienated. Keeping overhead development costs to a minimum is absolutely essential because these organizations do not have the budgets to spend on expensive training. By following these simple parameters, future training for volunteer organizations can be effectively produced and implemented; and organizations can be assured that their volunteers are qualified to perform the duties expected of them. The millennium volunteers will be not only be willing, but they will also be able.
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