Evaluation of training
I am an active user of social media (something we will explore here in more detail later), and one of the places I enjoy spending time is at LinkedIn. There is this very useful function where you can ask and answer questions about more or less about anything. The other day there was an interesting question put forth regarding how to evaluate training, and I gave a short outline of best practice as I see it. In short I rely on the model of Kirkpatrick, but use a more updated and business focused approach than what he originally postulated.
I am going to keep this short and straight to the point!
Ideally you plan the evaluation of training at the same time as you plan the training itself. As for the evaluation itself, best practice is to evaluate it at five levels.
Level 1 – Reactions : Immediately after the training session is finished you should give out “happy sheets”. Basically allowing the participants to give their feedback on what they thought of the training, the setting, the trainer and similar. Whereas this doesn’t tell you whether the training itself was effective, it is useful as it can help improve the training, and also as it gives the training face validity.
Level 2 - Learning: At the start and end of the training you need to give the participants a test that is reliable and valid on the topic they are receiving training on. With the pretest you will establish a baseline level of KSA. Any positive changes to the test scores when doing the test after the training should indicate that the training was effective when it comes to knowledge.
Level 3 – Application: After some time you would also want to evaluate whether the skills learned during the training is actually put in use. One thing is to establish straight after the training whether someone knows the training material. Another thing is actually whether someone is using the knowledge while at work. You would want to look at how often at to what extent a skill/knowledge is being used.
If you manage to evaluate training at these three levels, you are already doing a much better job than the great majority. However you still would want to look at level 4 and 5.
Level 4 – Business impact: You should also evaluate whether the training actually had a positive effect on the business. Did the sales training actually increase someone’s sales?
Level 5 – ROI: Let’s be honest, this is the real question in many cases. Did the business get a return on investment?
There is of course much more to each level of evaluation, and I should return to this topic later, but feel free to contact me should you need any more guidance right now.
Update
So, it has been some time now since the last time i added any content of value to this site. Believe me, this is not because i have lost interest in communicating my insights when it comes to psychology applied in an everyday setting – but simply an uncontrollable variable called reality 
I am not the one for complaining since the reasons i have been absent are all related to successes in other areas. Still, i have missed the opportunity to use this blog for reflection. So for those of you who have contacted me directly to ask whether i am to return from this self imposed blog exile, I owe you all a big thanks for making me remember that my time spent here is of use for someone else
I cannot promise weekly entries, but going forward i do promise to become more active again.
Thanks again for encouraging me to keep going,
Omar
Protected: Media psychology
I am still here
To all of you that have sent me an email lately; don’t worry, this blog is here to stay. In fact, as soon as I complete some extra assignments over the next two weeks you will see me post again on a more regular basis…. and i might even attempt finishing designing this blog
Thanks again, guys, for your interest and support
Omar
A comment on Creativity and Innovation
In today’s business environment, competitive advantage becomes less and less about having unique products and/or suppliers. Rather, competitive advantage is the ability to identify and capitalise on information. Understanding what the customer wants and acting on it before anyone else, or learning a smarter way of utilising web 2.0 technology before the competitors. The two main keywords here are learning and development – that is the organisation’s capacity to learn, and the organisation’s capacity to use that learning.
There are many different concepts, theories and practices that are thought to explain parts of how to either increase the organisation’s capacity to learn, or how to use learning into developing new products or processes. We can refer to the Learning Orgainzation, Organisation Learning, Knowledge Management and so on. Two of the more well known concepts for the public are creativity and innovation, to such extent that we often refer to these as management fads. What is for certain is that there is a massive industry of consultants built around creativity and innovation – with a few serious and credible entities (e.g. Edward De Bono and IWP), but with the majority presenting quick fixes, hence becoming fads.
Now this is not going to be a post where I moan about the abundance of self proclaimed management gurus out there, don’t worry. But even amongs the more credible professionals out there, there is not always a clear cut definition and distinction between creativity and innovation. Based on my own research and experience, it is useful to view creativity as mental processes and behaviours that the individual engages in, whereas innovation is often understood to be the structures and processes at work that facilitate creativty. The “management gurus” do have one thing right, though. Everyone can be creative. However, not everyone can express it effectively, and even fewer are able to implement creative ideas. Rather than focusing on whether a person is creative or not, we need to address whether the environment, be it the personal sphere or within an organisation, allows for creativity to take place! It is not enough to hire creative people if your organisation doesn’t have processes and structures conducive and supportive for creativity to take place in the first place.
