A global organization selling Internet hardware, software and services has an extensive set of internal training programmes, each of which is formally assessed. The company wants to reduce the size of the overall training budget through the use of e-learning, but is concerned as to whether learning through this mechanism is more effective, less effective or makes no difference. It is believed by the research team that e-learning will be marginally more effective – thus they have a working hypothesis.
All 200 members of a representative sample are given a pre-test of their understanding of a selected subject. Then the subject is taught to 100 participants through traditional, classroom learning (the XXX group) and to the other 100 participants through a specially designed e-learning program (the XXX group). All employees are given a post-test, and the gain-scores (the differences between the pre-test and post-test score) compared between the two groups.