Who cares about evaluation besides trainers?

The training literature is full of articles, theories, and models of assessment that span from simple smile sheets to complex Return on Investment (ROI) studies. I recently read a well written article by Jane Bozarth who did a nice job of reviewing a number of classic models of assessment and the ideas of a few contemporary theorists. Included in this review is a section on Daniel L. Stufflebeam, the author of a text that I use in my graduate course on evaluation, who takes more of a systems approach to assessment on program evaluation.

As I read this well-written article, however, I wondered “Who really cares?” As the author states, ‘the amount of talk about evaluation of training vastly outweighs actual efforts to conduct evaluation.’ What is clear to me is that this talk about evaluation is not something you normally find in business conversations or literature; instead, it occurs mainly among training professionals and in training literature.

Keep the beginning in mind!

Having spent a few decades in the training profession, I suggest that we trainers need to stop spending so much time on the issue of how well our program worked and more on the design to ensure that it works. I am not (maybe not) suggesting we abandon post-program assessment altogether; rather, let’s focus on identifying the core issue that needs improvement and design a program that will improve it!

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In part 1 of this blog [Part 1] I asked whether most e-learning courses are about learning or reading, and suggested that an explicit consideration of reading levels was essential to enable learning.

Instructional designers and writers must have a sense of the reading skill of their audience for reading-based courses to succeed. Assuming we have made this leap to ensure the material is being comprehended by learners, how do we ensure or foster both retention and on-the-job skill transfer?

First, let’s reduce the distance of transfer between learning and its application. Second, we must cause thinking and deep interactions within our training. Third, we need to incorporate social learning activities into our courses.

Transfer – To reduce the distance of transfer between classroom learning and on-the-job application, you must include real world applications of the behavior you are trying to teach. Use problem solving, debates, writing position papers, or making proposals to ensure the learner moves from the lower levels of learning (knowledge and comprehension) to the higher levels (evaluation and synthesis) (Bloom, 1984).

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