A survey was carried out to understand the need for e-Learning among medium to small sized companies in Korea. Out of 2,845 medium and small companies in manufacturing industry that participate in medium and small consortium, 540 samples were selected for the study.
The survey, completed by mail, was conducted during the period of August 9 through 24 of 2005. A total of 496 employees participated in the survey, which included 183 executives and human research development managers.
The major findings of the study are as follows. Firstly, companies (75.8%) of the respondents answered that they have conducted training in the field, however 20% them replied that they had no experience in using e-Learning. Regardless of the size of company, managers and business indicated that e-Learning was most needed in education and training that is related to specialized skills. As a way of promoting e-Learning in medium and small companies, the respondents emphasized the need for developing courses tailored to the characteristics of workers.
Secondly, most of the respondents working in medium and small companies had education and training experience. Most of them had the experience in so called classroom training of off-line training, and felt that the off-line training has an influence on their job performance. According to the results of needs analysis employees feel the biggest need for education and training in specialized skills, and wish to participate in off-line training courses more than any other training types. Most of them showed little preference for e-Learning due to their lack of experience in e-Learning.