I am working as part of cross location project looking at how we evaluate our courses, learning events etc. through the 4 Kirkpatrick levels of evaluation. I have been tasked with looking at the course evaluation sheets and I am after some examples of the question used, how the delegates reactions are recorded and what is done with the information after the course. If you are willing to share you information and examples please contact me on my e-mail address.
Many thanks for your help.
Wayne Davies
Wayne Davies
7 Responses
5 1/2 steps to evaluation success
Hi Wayne,
I’d be happy to email you a copy of my latest white paper entitled “5 1/2 steps to evaluation success”.
It’s not reliant on only using one of the many different approaches to evaluation and may give you more about evaluating at levels 3 & 4 of Kirkpatrick’s framework.
For those new to evaluation, Kirkpatrick suggested there are 4 levels to evaluation:
L1 – reactions of the learners – typically this is the ‘happy sheet’ approach most used by trainers.
L2 – what did the learners actually learn – usually evaluated by testing knowledge and skills during the training, usually at the end.
L3 – transfer to the workplace – changed behaviours – (how) have behaviours changed in the workplace as a result of the training?
L4 – impact to the organisation – has productivity, profits or income gone up due to the training? Have costs come down as a result of the training?
There are many other issues around evaluation that go far beyond the L1 happy sheets.
I’d be happy to email copies of the white paper to others – just email me!
[email protected]
You may also be interested to look at the 4 part series on the subject I had published here on trainingzone last year :
Pt 1 = http://www.hrzone.co.uk/item/140573
Pt 2 = http://www.hrzone.co.uk/item/140574
Pt 3 = http://www.hrzone.co.uk/item/140577
Pt 4 = https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/item/140580
As far as a form or questionnaire is concerned, I suggest keeping it simple, just 2 questions:
Q1 Would you recommend this course to anybody else?
Q2 Why?
Typically I’d look to discuss these reactions with the trainee’s line manager and/or sponsor of the training course, partly to see how their learning and its application can be supported by management (and me!) and partly to see if there are some process improvements to be made with the training process as a whole.
Best wishes,
Martin
Logs
Hi Wayne
You can have a copy of my logs. Email me on [email protected]
Cheers
Rich
what i have found useful
In the past i have collected in evaluation sheets with as many as 10 questions, and i agree with Martin in that simpler is better. Having said that, by giving multiple choice answers can make life easier when logging them on a spreadsheet.
In addition to the traditional happy sheets, what i do now is give out a self assessment sheet at the start for the behaviours we will cover during the day, get delegates to complete it again at the end to see any immediate changes/improvements in knowledge/behaviours etc, then ask them or their Manager to review them again after a few weeks or during a performance review to see longer term impact.
Hope this helps. If you would like to see a self assessment sheet i use please e-mail me.
Alison
Darrington Training
Evaluation toolkit
We use a two-page evaluation questionnaire which mainly focuses on Kirkpatrick’s level 1. The trainees’ and trainer’s feedback is then collated and summarised.
You can download the evaluation toolkit from here during the next 7 days:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=DD5579B96E7BCEEB
Training Needs Assessment Methods, Tools and Techniques – Jean B
Whilst in the USA last week I picked up a book on called “Training Needs Assessment Methods, Tools and Techniques – Jean Barbazette” in addition to the methods all ready common to most people of the employee evaluating the training and the trainer at the end of the course, and the Manager evaluating the effectiveness of the training on the employee before and after the course another suggestion is for the trainer to evaluate the perform of the individual on the cost i.e. Did they participate, paid attention, attended all sessions etc.
Solution focused question
We use a rating system (out of 4) then ask if you didn’t give the maximum rating what could we have done to make it a 4?
This tries to encourage participants to give us ideas/solutions rather than just complaining.
Other questions we use are:
What significant things did you learn today?
How will you use what you have learnt?
Cross checking
I developed a questionnaire for use on a course we repeated on a regular basis. The main focus was on listing the learning objectives that we stated at the start of the day. We then evaluated against each learning objective if the learner felt they knew enough to tackle that element (in my case an element of a business plan). The questionnaire had only 2 elements to tick 1, they felt able to start work on it. 2, they needed more help. With the questionnaire in front of them we went through the learning objective and posed the question who felt they would tick option 2. This gave us chance to tidy up any misunderstanding or lack of comprehension after which they could tick either box. We made it quite clear this was for us to monitor that we did give them the correct level of training and support. Handled with care they will give very honest feedback. The beauty of this questionnaire was analysis of the feedback, which enabled me to compare different presenters and events. From this I was able to find which topics were generally difficult to comprehend and where it flagged up a particular trainer having issues I could put them with another trainer for help support and a few tips. To see the reality between what the trainee thought they could do and the reality we started the next session (a week later) with trainee feedback of how they actual faired putting the training into practice. Regards Steven