Finding a Knowledge or Skills Gap When Creating an Online Course
There’s a couple of ways you could go about figuring out a topic for an online course. A good starting point is in the audience or customer research that you’ve likely already been doing. But now that you’re thinking of your audience as learners, we want to pay attention to the potential knowledge or skills gaps in your niche.
Common audience research methods still apply. Keyword research, checking online communities where your audience gathers, asking them directly, etc.
Here’s what to look out for when the purpose of your research is for an online course:
1. Current vs. Ideal State ⛳️
To start, watch out for signals of your audience’s current and ideal situations. What are they currently doing, and what do they want to be doing?
Here are some examples of what this might look like:
- “I want to start investing, but I find the stock market confusing and intimidating.”
- “How do I transition careers from graphic design to UX design?”
- “I recently started a new job and my team uses Excel a lot. I don’t even know how to set up a basic table.”
2. Knowledge and Skills Gaps 🕳
Once you’re clear on your audience’s current and ideal state, you can start looking for potential gaps in between. What gaps in knowledge or skills are preventing your audience from getting to their ideal state?
Building on the previous examples:
- New investors are not familiar with financial concepts and terminology
- Novice UX designers overlook the importance of research and communication skills
- New Excel users haven’t practiced using the tool
With some knowledge and skills gaps identified, you’ll start to see some potential topics and objectives to focus on in your course.
Think of it like you’re clearing a path for your audience to get to their ideal state, and equipping them with what they need to get there.
3. Root Causes 🕯
A common misconception is that learning just involves the transfer of knowledge and information. But there are many other factors at play that can boost or impede that transfer.
It’s worth investigating what’s causing the knowledge and skills gap because the answer could contain useful insight for your course. For example:
- Root cause A: Novices are not familiar with basic concepts or terms BECAUSE there’s a lot of jargon to remember
- Potential idea A: Provide a cheat sheet or glossary, or facilitate an activity for learners to create their own.
— - Root cause B: Novices overlook certain skills BECAUSE they’ve never talked to or worked with a professional in the field.
- Potential idea B: Invite guest speakers or record a “day-in-the-life” video so learners can learn via observation and modeling.
— - Root cause C: People haven’t used the software before BECAUSE it’s expensive to purchase on their own.
- Potential idea C: Provide a license to use during the course (perhaps even an affiliate code), or suggest free or cheaper alternatives.
By the way, in instructional design, this whole research process is called a Needs Analysis. It’s worth doing this research upfront because it will help you make key decisions about your course design; the topic, learning objectives, structure, format, activities, etc.
