Design and Development of E-Learning Training Using Project-Based Learning

1. Introduction

The digital transformation of organizations has generated profound changes in all spheres of society. In turn, the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has extended to the educational area, producing significant changes in the teaching and learning processes, affecting all educational levels, both basic education and higher education courses in most countries. Likewise, the pandemic produced by SARS-CoV-2, commonly known as COVID-19, affected more than 90% of students around the world (Sharma &Alvi, 2021), accelerating digitization processes and the use of virtual environments for learning in educational institutions. For this reason, most countries paralyzed face-to-face teaching during the pandemic (Hoque et al., 2021; Hossain et al., 2021a; Hossain et al., 2021b). So that online training was, at the time, the only way to ensure education with adequate pedagogical means (Basilaia, 2020). In this sense, Kucuk-Avci et al. (2022) carried out research to find out the effects of the pandemic on distance education in higher education, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has produced an increase in interest in e-learning and online training, as well as in focusing the investigation towards the teaching that is imparted and the methods that are used (videoconferences) more than in the students. In this way, digital learning has generated new scenarios and habits in the training and learning of citizens, mainly related to changes in the way of teaching and in the pedagogy itself. According to Saha et al. (2022) it is evident that face-to-face and virtual teaching are different, in which a change is generated in the roles of both teachers and students. It should be noted that online training or e-learning refers to a teaching-learning modality whose main characteristic is the spatial and temporal separation between the teacher and the students. In the words of Sangrà et al. (2011, p. 152) e-learning:

It is a teaching and learning modality that can represent all or part of the educational model in which it is applied, it is based on the use of electronic media and devices as tools to facilitate access to training, communication and interaction in order to facilitate the adoption of new ways of understanding and learning development.

For the proper development of online training, it is necessary to have some essential elements such as an internet connection and various tools that make the learning process of students possible, such as learning training platforms (LMS). According to Serin (2020) virtual training favors students to be more active. Some studies even point out how technology increases student participation in activities such as classroom discussion or their interest in the reference materials that teachers offer (Alhammadi, 2021). Also, the use of strategies such as gamification have positive influences on the motivation, commitment or satisfaction of students with their learning (Zhang & Yu, 2022). Although there are also other messages from educational actors (teachers, students or teachers) who consider that learning in virtual mode does not offer the same educational value as traditional face-to-face methods (Moghli&Shuayb, 2020). That is why the training programs developed through the virtual modality need to reconsider the pedagogical strategies used to achieve the learning objectives (Izquierdo, 2020). In this sense, the instructional design (ID) makes it easier for the design and development of training programs in virtual modality to be generated using the best strategies and tools to achieve the proposed learning objectives. According to Merrill et al. (2019) “instructional design is a technology that incorporates known and proven learning strategies into instructional experiences that make the acquisition of knowledge and skills more efficient, effective, and engaging” (p. 2). In addition, the instructional design ensures that a systematic process is followed.