Training Evaluation

Training Evaluation

The process of examining a training program is called training evaluation. Training evaluation checks whether training has had the desired effect. Training evaluation ensures that whether candidates are able to implement their learning in their respective workplaces, or to the regular work routines

Techniques of Evaluation

The various methods of training evaluation are:

• Observation
• Questionnaire
• Interview
• Self diaries
• Self recording of specific incidents

Types of evaluation

Evaluating the Training (includes monitoring) addresses how one determines whether the goals or objectives were met and what impact the training had on actual performance on the job.

Generally there are four kinds of standard training evaluation:

1. Formative
2. Process
3. Outcome
4. Impact.

1. Formative evaluation provides ongoing feedback to the curriculum designers and developers to ensure that what is being created really meets the needs of the intended audience.
2. Process evaluation provides information about what occurs during training. This includes giving and receiving verbal feedback.
3. Outcome evaluation determines whether or not the desired results (e.g., what participants are doing) of applying new skills were Achieved in the short-term.
4. Impact determines how the results of the training affect the strategic goal

Evaluation Methods

• Evaluation methods can be either qualitative (e.g., interviews, case studies, focus groups) or quantitative (e.g., surveys, experiments)
• Training evaluation usually includes a combination of these methods and reframes our thinking about evaluation in that measurements are aimed at different levels of a system.

Formative Evaluation

• Formative Evaluation may be defined as “any combination of measurements obtained and judgments made before or during the implementation of materials, methods, or programs to control, assure or improve the quality of program performance or delivery.”
• It answers such questions as, “Are the goals and objectives suitable for the intended audience?” “Are the methods and materials appropriate to the event?” “Can the event be easily replicated?”
• Formative evaluation furnishes information for program developers and implementers.
• It helps determine program planning and implementation activities in terms of (1) target population, (2) program organization, and (3) program location and timing.

It provides “short-loop” feedback about the quality and implementation of program activities and thus becomes critical to establishing, stabilizing, and upgrading programs.

Process Evaluation

• Process Evaluation answers the question, “What did you do?” It focuses on procedures and actions being used to produce results.
• It monitors the quality of an event or project by various means. Traditionally, working as an “onlooker,” the evaluator describes this process and measures the results in oral and written reports.
• Process evaluation is the most common type of training evaluation. It takes place during training delivery and at the end of the event.

Outcome Evaluation

Outcome Evaluation answers the question, “What happened to the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of the intended population?”

This project would produce both “outcomes” and “impacts.”

Outcome evaluation is a long-term undertaking.

Outcome evaluation answers the question, “What did the participants do?”

Because outcomes refer to changes in behavior, outcome evaluation data is intended to measure what training participants were able to do at the end of training and what they actually did back on the job as a result of the training.

Impact Evaluation takes even longer than outcome evaluation and you may never know for sure that your project helped bring about the change.

Impacts occur through an accumulation of “outcomes.”