The ideal group size in online training: 1, 5 or 18?

In online training, collaboration can take place in numerous ways. In skills training, something which usually happens in groups in classrooms, the question arises: what is the ideal group size for online training?

1 (on 1)

Whereas 1 on 1 coaching is very common, 1 on 1 training is almost unheard of. What we mean with 1 on 1 training? Think about the piano teacher that comes by every week for an hour of practice-feedback-practice. This would be really useful for professional skills as well, but very expensive and inefficient. Online tools can fix the inefficiency (location is not an issue, no time needed for travel and the training can start anytime) and a clever program (in which the participant also makes a lot of hours without the training) keeps the cost down.

5 or 18?

We find that most online skills trainings are group activities. Because they started in a classroom and/or because 'learning from each other and bringing the department a step further' is an explicit objective. Group are usually in between 8 to 18 persons and then they consider: should they be split up in subgroups or will all of them be part f 1 group? When the group process is important, for example when teambuilding is a secondary goal, the latter can be considered. However, in all other cases, I think that (sub)groups of 5 persons max are ideal for online skills training.

The most important reasons for this are:

• the feedback is better: more personal and less polite (which, in this case, is a good thing)
• activity is higher: less possibility to freeride as people feel dependent on each other
• opportunity to tailor: depending on your goals, you might make subgroups of people that (do not) know each other, (don't) share a learning objective, or make for the proper group dynamic.