With evaluation the theme of the month on TrainingZone.co.uk, the Browser has gone in search of some of the free online tools and tips available to help trainers assess the value of their courses.
Starting at the beginning, how about the humble happy sheet? Browsing through the archives, Godfrey Parkin wrote this excellent guide to questionnaires How to design an evaluation survey for TrainingZone.co.uk.
In a similar vein, the Intelligent Measurement blog written by Richard Gaunt in London and Glenn O’Neil in Geneva and focuses on evaluation and measurement in communications, training, management and other fields. The list of resources includes writing better survey questions and Likert scale surveys and best practices.
Businessballs.com has this overview of evaluation, including a toolkit for a training evaluation questionnaire, written by Leslie Rae, and details of Donald Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation.
Martin Schmalenbach wrote a well-read four-part examination of the theories of evaluation starting with Training Evaluation Part 1 – What’s it all about?. The article looks at some of the big names in evaluation, such as Donald Kirkpatrick and Jack Philips' work on return on investment (ROI) while part two looks at less well-known methods such as: Tyler’s Objectives Approach, Scriven's Focus On Outcomes and Stufflebeam’s CIPP (Context evaluation, Input evaluation, Process evaluation, and Product evaluation). Part three of this guide addresses when and how to evaluate, while part four foucuses on ROI. For more on return on investment, Jack Philips' ROI Institute has a selection of tools and templates to download.
Also on TrainingZone.co.uk, you'll find Paul Kearns Bitesize business partners series – a step-by-step guide to proving and improving the value of training to the business. The series includes details of Kearns' Baseline evaluation model
A downloadable white paper from Mike Ditchburn of Redtray e-Valuation – Beyond Kirkpatrick looks at evaluating elearning courses. While this discussion paper from CS Group looks at evaluating the ROI of a learning management system (LMS).
Share your favourite sites, blogs and resources: Post a comment below or email Claire Savage at news@trainingzone.co.uk
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