This is an area I have worked on periodically over a number of years and having tried various methods of follow-up evaluation I still haven't cracked this aspect of post-course evaluation.
Does anyone have an effective method (or can suggest a good tool?) to carry out post course evaluation whereby participants, with the benefit of hindsight, provide information on the impact of training progammes on their work practice?
Any helpful suggestions regarding this particular brick wall that I keep running into would be much appreciated!
I am trying to gleen some info on qualitative impact on work practice.
Thanks in advance for any kind souls who are willing to share your words of wisdom with me!
Ann Marie McIntosh
5 Responses
Evaluating the impact of training
Ann Marie,
I’d refer you to an article on the HRZone website features section, written by my business colleague Denis Coates, which you can view at: http://www.hrzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=166412&d=101&dateformat=%o-%B
Another aspect to consider in evaluation is covered in a book titled “What got you here won’t get you there” by Marshall Goldsmith. You can listen to an audio visual presentation which summarises Goldsmith’s approach at: http://www.2020insight.net/GoldsmithWeb%202/GoldsmithWeb%202.htm
I’ve run some evaluation surveys of training interventions for clients, collecting anecdotal feedback of the financial value of interventions, at senior level. These have shown a substantial ROI.
I’m happy to share learning from these.
Harvey
“Action learning” sets on agreed objectives
Have you tried action learning sets? I have recently incorporated these into our MD programme. Participants have to identify throughout a two-day course actions they can take as a result of what they’ve learnt within a given time period (e.g. 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months). They have to be as specific as possible, and also consider the potential impact of these actions. After 3 days/3 weeks/3 months they get back together and talk about what it was like to actually implement the actions they planned in the style of a psuedo action learning set (not perfect Revans, but still useful I think!).
Lunchtime Workshops
The most successful post-training evaluation I’ve carried out involved running a series of lunchtime evaluation sessions.
Every three months we would invite everyone who had attended a particular course to 45-minute long evaluation workshop. We provided a buffet lunch and in return we asked them to share successes (or otherwise) that occurred as a result of the training.
This is most effective when your delegates are based at one location and so can be brought together easily.
Learning Quality Manager
Hi Ann Marie,
I have faced the same issue as you and have dedicated the last four years to ressolving it. I am responsible for evaluating training programmes at a variety of levels including ROI and have developed several tools and techniques for collecting this data. I am just about to launch an automated evaluation tool within the organisation I work for. I would be more than happy to share some of the details with you.
Katherine Fuller
Practical suggestions
Hi Ann Marie,
It sounds like you have tried a lot of methods, so not sure if any of my suggestions would be new to you. However, it is always worth a look!
I have posted a guide to evaluating at 4 levels on http://www.trainerbase.co.uk. if you are a member, you can dowload it there (just type in ‘evaluating training programmes’) or go onto my website http://www.keystonedevelopment.co.uk and look under the free resources section.
PS – if you come up with anything new, it would be great to hear about it!