Research indicates approximately four billion smart phones will be sold between 2011 and 2015. According to the International Telecommunications Union, at the end of 2011 there were 5.9 billion mobile cellular subscribers – an 87 percent global penetration. Mobile technologies are transforming how people work and learn which is why workplace learning and development professionals need to pay careful attention to the mobile learning trend and make sure their learning strategies are effective and aligned with business needs, according the latest research from ASTD and the Institute for Corporate productivity (i4cp).

Mobile Learning: Delivering Learning in a Connected World reports the findings from 567 business and learning professionals and offers conclusions and recommendations for organizations looking to add a mobile learning strategy.

Key findings include:

• Over half of respondents believe mobile technologies will improve learning in their organization in the next three years.

• Less than one-third of organizations deliver learning content via mobile device, despite its high correlation with both the Learning Education and Market Performance Indices.

• Chief barriers to adopting mobile learning include budget, integration with legacy learning systems, and security.

• Less than 10 percent of respondents who deliver mobile learning have formal metrics in place to evaluate effectiveness.

When he introduced the research at ASTD’s 2012 International Conference & Exposition, held last month in Denver, Colorado, ASTD President and CEO Tony Bingham said, “Mobile technology is changing the world and our experience of it. From an organizational perspective, mobile learning allows for a spectrum of possibilities that were not present before, and they continue to evolve before us.”

One of the recommendations of the research findings is that organizations should remain device and platform agnostic and utilize HTML5 as a starting point for a mobile learning strategy. “An understanding of the technologies as well as learning will be necessary to ensure learning strategies and solutions are aligned with business needs,” the study says.

The full report Mobile Learning: Delivering Learning in a Connected World and a free mobile learning whitepaper can be downloaded from the ASTD website.