It's a really common learning trope. Learners must view every screen in sequence and can't progress until they've clicked all interactive elements on the current screen. This is known as selective release and it's probably one of the more harmful learning practices in current use.

Let's start with the obvious: it's extremely frustrating for learners. Assuming you've written a good page title, learners may quickly glean their familiarity with the content and be ready to move onto something new, only to find they're forced to click through the entire section first. Don't be mistaken, just because you force a learner to click everything, doesn't mean they actually read everything. The only thing you've accomplished is ruin their appetite for learning something new.

How selective release skews engagement data.

Now here's the worst part: If you actually care about learning metrics such as engagement and drop-off rates, selective release inflates the number of page views for each section. It becomes very difficult to tell if learners skip past sections that don't offer value because they can't skip past sections.

Fortunately we can still capture the duration spent on each screen but research shows that once a learner skips past one section, they start clicking through the rest of the course whether it provides valuable information or not. The time spent on each screen is going to plummet irrespective of the value offered by that screen – you've created disengagement where previously there mightn't have been any.

Let's look at some example engagement data.

Which is the more effective strategy? The course where every learner views every section for a short period of time, or the course where fewer learners spend longer on sections they find more useful. If we know which sections are under-utilised, it provides an opportunity to go back and revise that content, or get rid of it entirely if it isn't offering value.

This problem is just as prevalent in video content that needs to be watched to continue.

When you disable the seek bar and force someone to watch a video, you decrease the usefulness of captured video analytics. Your metrics will show that every single learner watched your video from start to finish – great work! But did they actually watch it? Or did they press play and switch tabs, or walk away and get a coffee? If you don't force learners to watch the video then you're able to measure if they actually watched the video or not.

You should care about your learners.

More than anything else, selective release is a cheap tactic to force learners to view every screen. Maybe you worked really hard on that content and don't want it to go to waste? You lovingly crafted every screen, packed it with helpful information and enabled selective release to make sure nobody missed the ground-breaking content you created. Unfortunately you've done yourself a disservice because nobody goes to an art gallery if they're forced to look at every artwork in the exhibit. If you created great content, let people discover it for themselves.

If you created low-quality content, you're using selective release to mask just how bad that content is (and shame on you). Take a step back and explore how to create engaging content that will resonate with learners. Take pride in up-skilling your learners. Make the content interesting and entertaining and you won't need selective release to sustain them.

Save selective release for the times where it actually enhances the learning experience.

The way to use selective release effectively.

Let's be a little more specific. Selective release is only detrimental when it's overused as a catch-all to force learners to view everything. Where topics build on top of each other, selective release is useful to ensure learners don't jump ahead without the necessary prior knowledge.

There's an easy solution for this problem. Use selective release to lock access at the topic level and allow learners to jump ahead by passing an assessment or self-check. Think of this as a Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) check – if a learner can prove they comprehend the topic, let them jump ahead to the more advanced concepts.

If you're concerned learners are unexpectedly passing the quiz and jumping ahead too soon, it means one of two things:

• Either your content isn't providing value and rehashes concepts they already know, or;

• Your quizzes are too easy and the answers are all guessable. In this case, learn to write better quizzes.

Think of selective release as a way to enforce prerequisites instead of sequential access. There are many benefits to allowing learners to skip ahead and providing autonomy means you’ll increase the effectiveness of that content, even if individual screens result in lower engagement.

How do you measure engagement and effectiveness? Check out the related articles below.