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There’s this common-sense misconception that learning the hard way is the right way to learn just about anything. With the ascension of gamification in business (one could almost say “the business industry”) and with the ever-present pursuit of “trying one’s best” in its most damaging, burnout-inducing version, tutorials on video sites seem to save the day.
At least that’s the case for many developers just starting their careers.
The Trials of Learning as a Developer
How did we get here? The 1980s were a ripe era for the emergence of online courses, but this is far from common since it was even before the dot-com bubble burst into the scene in the 1990s. In fact, it could be a form of proto-online and business-centric gamification. It’s likely it was also prompted by new trends in behavioral economics.
At the edge of the curve were “the learning companies,” a relevant concept today.This statement unilaterally places employers’ goals before employees’ learning and development (no matter how implicitly).
One could then wonder if “tutorial culture” is the result of employees turning to informal education to suit their needs when employers fail to match their ambitions.
A 2020 learning study from the Brandon Hall Group highlights the difference between competency and capability and how education can bridge that gap. However, it found that 46% of companies stated their learning strategy includes and aligns with business goals.
This probably means that many companies are not willing to invest in education, as they do not view education as a necessary resource to highlight and promote employee development.
Why ‘Coding Education’ Is Only for the Short Run
First, the video format ensures what some studies have called the effectiveness of “information condensation.” There is so much flexibility in the tutorial format that it can be hard to distinguish quality from quantity. Some tutorials are completely silent. Some presuppose coding levels and levels of information reached in order even to understand and break down why a specific line of code means what it means or works the way it does.
Second, as international tech publisher Packt assures, “It’s important to recognize that for the most part, free resources are well-suited to problem-solving and short-term learning. That’s just one part of the learning cycle. Long-term learning that is geared towards building individual skill sets […].” Short-term learning, and visual learning specifically, is not always transferable into long-term projects or more complex organizational structures, such as a mid-sized remote team.
This should mean that some specific knowledge — especially related to coding in a business setting — is not transferable. For instance, what about translating client needs into a front-end visual scheme? What about correcting, refactoring and improving upon code that, while advanced or complex, doesn’t work?
The Trials of Self-Paced Tutorial Education
Some tutorials may teach viewers how to build a CRUD SPA from scratch and explain everything from downloading the program to testing the final results. Of course, at the end of the video description, there is a link to GitHub, so one could easily copy and paste the code without effort.
Learning to code by video exclusively, thus, could be causing aspiring developers to blur the credibility of the speaker, teacher or account with educational quality or community learning. In this sense, learning to distinguish between view count and comments vs. rigorous teaching is essential.
Credibility leads to views, and views, in turn, lead to credibility. Just like any (scripted) media, a video should ensure coherence and clarity. While it’s true that a developer is the sum of their work (what they can prove through their portfolio and in situ problem-solving), a professional is also the sum of what they learn to do and how.
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How to Support Budding Developers’ Education
Learning companies, granted, are not recent phenomena, with internship programs and company seminars aimed at setting the common ground for certain business policies. But it is far from the norm. Just by looking at job postings on popular networking sites, one finds junior developer roles that require one or two years of experience — a near-impossible ask for young programmers looking for work.
What can we do to bridge the skill-capabilities gap and improve our employees’ educational experience in our companies?
According to research from 2015 on visualization in paid online courses, “learner control and motivation are crucial issues for successful online education.” This indirectly means that not all educational methods are qualitatively the same. Those that include visualization, be it in the form of graphic or color distinction according to different types of coding, do better with students or casual coders looking to gain new skills. Additionally, those tutorials include gamification in progress bars, points and other forms of motivation.
Here are some of the ways to distinguish valuable educational opportunities, keeping in mind that YouTube videos themselves, while very limited by the platform and format, can incorporate some of these instances:
• Consider granting unlimited access to courses from paid sites, such as Udemy, Coursera or EdX.
• Look for those courses that include practical exercises, live feedback and quizzes or assessments.
• Have a tutoring system in place.
• Implement bonuses for performance outcomes based on learning new skill sets in development.
If you’re looking for tutorials on YouTube as an employer:
• Look for “follow-along” tutorials with exercises included, plus an explanation of basic concepts.
• Courses that include external sources or further reading are encouraged.
• Look for videos imparted by experienced developers and trusted professionals in the field.
When these criteria are applied correctly, a company’s learning experience and system can be greatly improved.
