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Read MoreOrganizations globally are investing $400 billion annually in training. But, if you invest so much in training, you should show a measurable positive impact. That’s where training evaluations come in. But are all training evaluations the same, and are the benefits of training evaluations worth the effort? We answer these and more by providing training evaluation examples you can apply to your organization.
A.C. Hamblin defined training evaluation as “any attempt to obtain information on the effects of training performance and to assess the value of training in the light of that information.” That’s a pretty broad definition, albeit true. And such a broad definition doesn’t provide much guidance to create an evaluation of a training course.
So, the idea of training evaluations is simple, conceptually. Your organization has developed a training program and wants to see its success. But the devil is in the details.
While the definition of a training evaluation isn’t complicated, measuring the impact of training isn’t so easy. There are examples of training evaluations that focus on the financial costs of changing behavior. And others that incorporate holistic measures of skill, ability, and knowledge. And in all fairness, isolating the impact of training is no straightforward task. For instance, an employee’s improved performance could result from several factors: office culture, financial perks, supervisory feedback, growth possibilities, and the training they have recently received.
For instance, perhaps you have designed examples of training evaluations for courses on improving employees’ productivity. Or the efficiency of procedures at the workplace. However significantly different training evaluations are necessary for other situations. For example, consider a course on selling instructional products to generate revenue or educating customers about a new product they purchased from you. These all need different examples of training evaluations. So, finding a suitable evaluation method is essential. To this end, we provide training evaluation examples for these and other situations. But first, what are the benefits of training evaluations, and are they worth the effort?
While many examples of training evaluations exist, designing the right one isn’t a trivial task. But before we get into specific examples, let’s highlight the benefits. As you’ll see below, the benefits of training evaluations are multi-dimensional.
One of the main benefits of training evaluations is pinpointing shortcomings and areas for improvement. What was missing? What was irrelevant? Should we restructure the format?
From the content to the planning and tools used to deliver the courses, slight tweaks can improve results. Moreover, with the fast-paced world of technology, ideas can quickly become out-of-date. And so it needs updating. All examples of training evaluations must provide recommendations on improving or updating your course.
The feedback provided can be another benefit of training evaluations and can be used to increase the engagement of future participants. You can gain valuable insights by including a few simple questions in your assessment.
For example:
Asking open-ended questions in whatever training evaluation methods you use allows you to receive more feedback than asking closed-ended questions. Genuine feedback from open-ended questions can be precious. With it, you can find out how to improve the training further. And are likely to identify improvements you wouldn’t have thought of, which will enhance participant engagement.
You can also use some of the positive responses from participants as testimonials to encourage others to take the training by building credibility in the course.
One of the main benefits of using well-thought-out training evaluation examples is that it helps to find out if the instructional goals of your training have been met or not. Typically, you can assess knowledge transfer at different points throughout the course. But, the particular approach will vary depending on the goals of the training. For example, learning specific knowledge and tasks will be easier to gauge. But, the success of less tangible outcomes, such as from a leadership course, may need to be observed in a role-playing situation. Or after completion of the training by assessment later. Such as a supervisor observing how a person interacts with their team members.
No matter the type of training course, you should always include one question in any examples of training evaluations you use. “What are you – the learner – going to do with this new training?” No matter what training evaluation methods you use, this should be a standard question.
As firms seek growth opportunities, so do employees. They search for professional development and better pay. Companies, by investing in training signal they value employee growth. An added benefit is that organizations providing training and development opportunities increase retention. So, quality training evaluations also improve employee retention by enabling future improvements in the training.
A focus of most organizations is the efficient use of their resources. And if used correctly, one of the benefits of training evaluation methods can be to enhance that. No one wants to continue offering a course that isn’t meeting expectations. So, find a way to improve it or stop running it. And divert those resources to areas that have a more beneficial outcome.
You can also use training evaluations to analyze the effectiveness of different training programs or delivery methods. For example, how does an on-demand e-learning course compare to an in-person instructor-led course? How does the achievement of the instructional goals compare? How does the ROI compare? Do participants prefer one delivery method over another?
Another of the less common benefits of how you construct your training evaluation methods is that they can help you receive extra funding. Businesses can use the results of training evaluations to support requests to expand the program. Or, if you are a non-profit organization, results and examples of training evaluations can support grant applications to scale or grow your program.
If you use an instructor in part of your training, you can also provide feedback for them. Are there any areas for future improvement for the instructor or facilitator?
Despite these and other benefits, evaluations fail for several reasons. These include the following.
Training evaluations to be successful require at least some feedback from the participants. Suppose the participants aren’t willing to spend the time to provide feedback. In that case, you are missing out on valuable information.
Often, people are more willing to provide feedback if the time required to complete training evaluations isn’t extensive. Also, examples of training evaluations where participants understand why giving feedback is essential result in increased responses.
If your training evaluation methods are complex, people will focus on getting through them rather than on the quality of the feedback they provide.
You could miss out on many valuable insights if you ask the wrong questions. It’s easy to ask participants to complete a few multiple-choice or rate questions on a scale. And it’s quick for them to respond. But is it getting at the information you need to improve the course and measure its effectiveness? Often, the most valuable information results from an open-ended question. So, in developing your training evaluation methods, be precise in your questions and balance what you ask with the ease of completing it.
You could have the best training evaluation examples ever designed. But unless you act on the information they provide, it won’t help. You must use this valuable information to make decisions about the training.
Below, we discuss five very different examples of training evaluations. Each of these provides insights on how to develop various training evaluations. In addition, we provide a training evaluation template for three of the types of evaluations discussed below.
Our first example is training employees in a retail setting on new products.
You have probably heard of the Kirkpatrick method of training evaluations. While well known, this is only one of many training evaluation methods. It is most suitable to use where the training has very transactional aspects, such as in a training session on new products in a retail store selling garments in a clothing store.
It consists of 4 levels of training evaluation described below.
Level 1: Reaction
The degree to which participants find the training favorable, engaging, and relevant to their jobs
Level 2: Learning
The degree to which participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence, and commitment based on their participation in the training
Level 3: Behaviour
The degree to which participants apply what they learned during training when they are back on the job.
Level 4: Results
The degree to which targeted outcomes occur as a result of the training
Let’s assume that the training consists of a 1 to 2-hour session to explain a line of new clothing products to store sales reps. In particular, you want the sales reps to understand the new clothing line and the advantages of this line over other products to increase sales.
The first part of your training evaluation template could include a few questions about the participant rates from 1 to 5 to assess their reaction to the training. Was the session informative? Are they excited about the new product line, etc.?
The next part of the training evaluation could be a short quiz testing their knowledge of the products. It could be using multiple-choice questions to test knowledge about the features of the products. Or advantages of them over similar products.
The third part determines if they can apply the knowledge they have learned when they are back working. One way to do this is to have their supervisor observe their interactions with customers. The added benefit is that the supervisor can also provide coaching and feedback.
The final part of this training evaluation template could assess how well the training helps increase sales of the new products. To be effective, you must have baseline product sales data before the training. Or, if this is an entirely new product, you could have a few control groups. These are groups of untrained sales reps, and you compare their sales with those of reps who have taken the training. Based upon these results, you can assess how well the training contributed to the sales goals.
Download this training evaluation template and modify it to your specific circumstances.
A better model for training evaluations in less transactional situations is Will Thalheimer’s LTEM. This model is described below.
Let’s apply this model to an employee diversity training session. You could use these examples of training evaluations in other related situations. In this instance, the main goal of this program is to create a positive work environment by helping employees recognize and be tolerant of differences among co-workers. You can create training evaluation methods of this type as follows.
Tier 1 – Attendance. Measure how many people (or percentage) attended the training session.
Tier 2 – Activity. For example, how many people started the course, and how much of it did they complete?
Tier 3 – Learner Perceptions. This part of the training evaluation template could be in the form of a survey about the course. It could include feedback on a ranking scale about their perceptions. It could consist of anecdotal feedback as well. Questions can include how effective they think the training will be for them. Or what they would do with this new insight after the training.
Tier 4 – Knowledge. Testing for knowledge, understanding, and retention would take the form of a quiz. They could take a test at the end of the course to test for learning. Completing the test a few days after the course would assess for retention. This tests factual knowledge and could take the form of multiple-choice questions.
Tier 5 – Decision Making Competence. You can do this part of the training evaluation in many ways. For example, if part of the training is an on-demand course, the learner could complete scenarios about diversity situations as part of the online course. It could include selecting different options within the scenario and receiving appropriate feedback.
Tier 6 – Task Competence. A great way in this type, of course, to test for decision-making competence during the session is to use role-playing scenarios. For example, attendees could split into groups of 3. Two members of the group have a role-playing scenario to act out. The third member observes the interactions and provides feedback using a job aide or reference sheet. After the course, team meetings can include role-playing to evaluate training effectiveness further.
Tier 7 – Transfer. An employee’s supervisor can do continued coaching and assessment as a formal part of the training evaluation. There is also the option of completing an on-the-job employee 360 assessment. This can provide a range of feedback on how the individual contributes to a positive work environment.
Tier 8 – Effects of Transfer. Employee engagement and satisfaction surveys can assess the longer-term effects of knowledge transfer. If there are control groups that did not take the training, a comparison can show the effectiveness of the training.
Thalheimer-based examples of training evaluations are more involved and take longer to plan and undertake. But, they provide a lot more in-depth assessment of the impacts of training and knowledge transfer.
Download this LTEM training evaluation template and modify it to your specific circumstances.
Thomas Gilbert (1927 – 1995) was a psychologist who used behavioral psychology to improve performance at work and school. Gilbert identified six variables that he believed were necessary to improve human performance: information, resources, incentives, knowledge, capacity, and motives. He called this his Behavioural Engineering Model (BEM). Gilbert believed the absence of performance support at work was the most significant barrier to performance. And not an individual’s lack of knowledge or skill. So, he believed it necessary to focus on variables in the work environment before addressing them individually.
At the essence of the model, training is only one component needed to change behavior. You must expand your training evaluation methods to include these extra components to assess the change’s success.
At Spark + Co., we have adapted Gilbert’s original model for specific situations.
For this example of a training evaluation, consider a situation in the Financial Services sector. A bank with a regulatory compliance problem often wants a simple solution and requests a training session. But we know that usually, this would very likely only make modest gains on its own. For instance, let’s use the example of a bank that needs to increase its compliance with anti-money laundering procedures.
You must exert influence over more than just the training to use this method effectively. Since you need to address other factors that impact the effectiveness of the process. To use this method, you will
All these factors contribute to an increase in performance. And while it’s more involved and needs more time to design and measure performance, it leads to enhanced results and improvement. And each of the five training evaluation examples we use contributes to the progress. In comparison, training alone can only improve about 20% of performance on its own.
So, in examples of training evaluations of this kind, you need to expand the assessment outside of solely the training component. And test all areas to measure effectiveness and make future improvements.
Download this training evaluation template based on the behavior engineering model and modify it to your specific circumstances.
Training evaluations for a course you sell directly to a consumer are often quite different from the previous examples of training evaluations we’ve covered. And in many ways, they are much more straightforward. Let’s take the example of a yoga instructor selling a course on yoga techniques and practice. In addition to developing evaluations for the skill you want your learner to perform, the following are less apparent aspects to include.
As with any course, you will want to assess the participants’ reactions and perceptions about the course. However, the main question you need to answer is how likely the participant would recommend your yoga course to a friend or colleague. This can determine your net promoter score (NPS). NPS measures a consumer’s experience and helps predict your business growth.
These training evaluation methods take the form of a question on a scale of 0-10. Those who score 9-10 are promoters. They are loyal enthusiasts who will buy your products and refer others, thus increasing your growth. Those who score 7-8 are Passives. Although satisfied, they are unenthusiastic consumers. And are likely to be tempted by your competitors’ courses. People who score 0-6 are Detractors. And often unhappy customers who might damage your brand and slow growth through negative word of mouth.
By subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, you get the net promoter score (NPS). It ranges from 0-100.
So, in this example, your training evaluation template could be one question. But we wouldn’t recommend that since you have an opportunity to collect more valuable information besides your NPS.
For example, what about the price of your course? During the course development, you’ll have done market research to identify a suitable selling price. But are you leaving money on the table, or do your consumers feel your course is overpriced? Adding a simple scaled survey question using these training evaluation examples can provide valuable insights.
You also have the opportunity to ask for a testimonial in your survey. It is often an excellent way to get testimonials to advertise and market your course. And if you have more classes, you can ask them about their interest in taking one of those. Or, if you are considering creating new courses, you can provide them with a series of topics asking which they’d be most interested in—helping you gauge the market for your next course.
Customer Education is often much more challenging to complete training evaluations. That’s because you are evaluating three different sets of training expectations. Let’s take the situation where you provide training for a software product sold to enterprise customers. Imagine you sell project management software to other businesses. You want to sell the software but also want people to use and love your product. And your customers want their employees to be able to use your product, and they want to justify spending money on the software and its training. As a Customer Education manager, you are often juggling three stakeholders.
So, in customer education, examples of training evaluations of each perspective need to be included.
Learner Focused Training Evaluation
When creating the learner-focused part of training evaluations, you will want to assess their
But that’s not all. You also want to determine in the training evaluation template the impact of the training. In this software training example, you want people to use the software. And many people feel that measuring the completion of the course is a critical metric. But that alone only has limited usefulness. It’s not much more than a Level 1 evaluation mentioned in the first example of training evaluations earlier.
Christy Hollingsworth (Senior Director Customer Education) at Heap agrees. Christy had this to say about designing training evaluations in a recent podcast.
“Over the years, I’ve started to care less and less about completions. You know, if they’re dropping off right away, I think that’s a very different problem. But if they’re getting 80%, through the content, and they’re not finishing the last few things, often, what I find is … they want to start applying it.”
So, measure activity and completion, but don’t focus only on that. Like with other examples of training evaluations, you want to understand the transfer of learning. What would you see if your training was making an impact? How would you know? How would you measure that in your training evaluation methods?
As the “training provider,” you are also under pressure to evaluate the impact of training on YOUR business. For a Customer Education professional, when your boss asks, “is the training working?” you want to be able to determine:
As Christy H puts it,
“My favorite report is simply taking a course engagement, and then looking at the learning objectives for that, and then tying that to product behavior. So very specifically,…, what behaviors am I trying to drive with a particular course? And did I influence that in the product? When you can see that somebody hasn’t engaged with a feature or certain part of your product. They take the course … and then are now engaging … with that. And that is, I think, at the end of the day really going to tell you is your content successful at driving value.”
So in types of examples of training evaluations such as this you need to determine what your boss deems essential to the business:
Then based on what’s important at your company, you can establish the story that your training is trying to tell. For instance,
Our training offering will _________________________
So that ________________
Leading to ___________________________________
We will know we are successful when _______________________________
Then design training evaluation metrics to measure the level of success.
What does your customer care about when investing in your training? Usually, they need to know that the time it takes for their employees to reach competency with the software has decreased. And that they are receiving more excellent value because of the training. Your training evaluation methods need to measure these. This helps them know that they made a good purchase and that your training has a positive bottom-line impact.
Measuring this in your training evaluation template can often be the most challenging. But if you can, measure account level “penetration” and active user data. At the “account level,” are enough of the customer’s employees taking advantage of the training? As discussed earlier, you might use a survey to measure the net promoter score as part of your training evaluation.
For your enterprise customer (and for your boss), the training improves adoption, product usage and adds value. It also improves customer retention and benefits the bottom line. So, the extra benefit of training evaluations is that they can show success to your customers and your boss!
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way organizations operate. By leveraging AI, organizations can also gain deeper insights, streamline processes, and enhance the overall effectiveness of their training programs. Below are examples of training evaluations that can be improved using AI:
By integrating AI into training evaluations, organizations can improve the accuracy and efficiency of their assessments and create a more engaging and personalized learning experience for their employees. As AI technology advances, its role in developing training evaluation templates is expected to become more significant, helping to drive innovation and excellence in learning and development.
Although we’ve covered a lot in this article on examples of training evaluations, below are five extra tips and resources to help you create training evaluations.
Has the journey of understanding Training Evaluations piqued your interest? We’ve navigated through the essentials and the vast benefits, provided templates, and even dove into the common pitfalls. But, acknowledging the complex and crucial nature of using these examples of training evaluations is just the start. Every organization’s needs are unique, as should be the solutions to meet those needs. This is where Spark + Co. can make a significant difference.
Customized training solutions aren’t just a service we offer; they’re a commitment to elevating your organization’s training to its highest potential. With Spark + Co., you’re not just accessing bespoke training programs; you’re unlocking a partnership dedicated to tangible impacts and measurable success.
Contact Spark + Co. today to discover how our customized training solutions can transform your organization’s performance. Let’s pave the way to exceed your training objectives together.
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