VII. Participant will evaluate the effectiveness of the training plan.

Evaluate Your Training Plan

It is important to gauge the quality of your efforts both during the planning and implementation phases and at the conclusion of training in order to improve the quality of future training efforts.

Evaluation measures should be built into the training design to measure the viability/relevance of the training content as well as the effectiveness of the training procedures and activities. The kinds of evaluation strategies developed are influenced by the expected outcome of the training and the resources available. As trainers develop evaluation measures for their training session they should consider four levels of evaluation.

Four levels of evaluation

1. Consumer/trainee satisfaction - The first level of evaluation occurs when trainees are asked for input regarding how well they liked the training. This is the most common type of evaluation conducted - and unfortunately for many trainings, the only evaluation done. Trainees may be asked about the relevance and clarity of content, the organization of the training, the quality of materials, and any other items the trainers want feedback on.
   See Resources Page for examples of assessment instruments.
2. Acquisition of knowledge and skills during training session - The second level of evaluation can be done formally through the use of quizzes, study questions, performance observation, and product evaluation or informally by probing participant's level of understanding by asking questions during discussions or using other strategies. This allows trainers to make modifications during the training and not find out at the end of the session that participants were not gaining the targeted knowledge and skills.
   See Resources Page for examples of assessment instruments.
3. Implementation of knowledge and skills in work environmen - The third level of evaluation measures/evaluates the participant's ability to implement the knowledge and skills in the training setting at their worksite. This level of evaluation takes place after the initial training and occurs at the participant's worksite. The same instruments that were used to measure participant performance during the training should also be used to measure performance at the worksite - it is not necessary to develop new measures. Common instruments used to measure implementation of knowledge and skills include performance observation and product evaluation tools. These types of measures give the trainers information on the relevancy of the training as well as the effectiveness of the training.
   See Resources Page for examples of assessment instruments.
4. Impact resulting from implementation of knowledge and skills - The forth level, and the most difficult in most instances, measures/evaluates the impact of implementing knowledge and skills on the participants or students they work with. In order to measure this impact it is necessary to collect pre and post training information to compare the changes in knowledge or skills. Trainers should be cautious when making claims of impact since it is difficult to make a direct cause and effect correlation between the training and changes in student performance. Pre and post quizzes, observational data and product evaluation can be used to measure impact.

Formative Measures

The following instruments will assist in the process of formative evaluation of your training materials and implementation.

Summative Measures

At the conclusion of training it is useful to examine both the results of training evaluation measures completed by trainees during the course of training and their perceptions of the usefulness of the training and suggestions for improvement.