Assess the Employees’ reaction to training
The most common way to evaluate a training session is by a survey among students. According to the 4-level evaluation model develop by Donald Kirkpatrick, such evaluation (level 1) gives you the employees reaction to training, also called smiley sheet.
Educators conduct this to measure whether learners find the training engaging, favorable, and relevant to their jobs. This level is most commonly assessed by an after-training survey that asks students to rate their experience.
In this blog we will look at some of the biggest problems with smile sheets and give some ideas of how you can improve.
Are you asking the wrong kinds of questions?
One of the big problems is that we're asking the wrong kinds of questions.
The kinds of questions that we often ask relate to things like:
- Did you like the training?
- Did you learn from the training?
But studies show that having a high score for "liked the training" and/or "learned from the training" doesn't mean the training was actually effective. In short, that means that the people who attend a training aren't good judges of whether or not they learned.
What we should be do is asking if the learners feel that the training prepared them to apply the skills explained during the training when they return to the job.
A crucial component of Level 1 analysis is a focus on the learner versus the trainer. While it may feel natural for a facilitator to fixate on the training outcome (such as content or learning environment), the Kirkpatrick Model encourages survey questions that concentrate on the learner’s takeaways.
What are good questions?
One crucial answer is they must give meaning to you as trainer and educator. So, think, what kind of information do I need, what is useful for me? A simple guideline can be:
- Avoid vague questions.
- Try to relate the questions to ability to transfer training to later on-the-job performance.
- Write them to provide feedback that gives you insight into whether or not the training was effective.
- Write them to provide feedback that provides valuable information to you for improving your training.
Tips for Implementing Level 1: Reaction
- Use an online questionnaire.
- Set aside time at the end of training for learners to fill out the survey.
- Provide space for written answers, rather than multiple choice.
- Pay attention to verbal responses given during training.
- Create questions that focus on the learner’s takeaways.
- Use information from previous surveys to inform the questions that you ask.
- Let learners know at the beginning of the session that they will be filling this out. This allows them to consider their answers throughout and give more detailed responses.
- Reiterate the need for honesty in answers - you don’t need learners giving polite responses rather than their true opinions!
