Technology-based learning and the project manager

Construction is a project-oriented industry that benefits from both the technical and interpersonal skills that a project manager has to offer. Increasingly, project management is viewed as being an integrated process relevant throughout the project lifecycle, which necessarily draws upon a broad range of knowledge and abilities. It is imperative that project managers, therefore, have ready access to education and training programmes that enable them to update their skills. This paper compares a new distance learning project management educational software application with a traditional multiple-media resource and a well-established postgraduate module delivered in part-time mode to establish the pedagogic effectiveness of distributed interactive multimedia. An analysis of quantitative data generated over a two-year period finds that whilst learning and confidence gains occur in all delivery modes, there is no significant difference in the academic performance of students between the traditional control and distance learning experimental groups.