Training Evaluation Strategies
Training evaluation process is simply a vital component of an organisation’s overall training program. The objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of training as an intervention to improve knowledge and skills of employees. Evidently, training has been shown to be a very hefty investment hence the need for the firm to hold itself accountable on how to well the employee training is enhancing the efficiency of the workforce and benefit the business. Therefore, the use of training evaluation to offer a reference point and the direction of the staff training will make sure that the training and considerable value to the firm.
Typology levels to evaluate the effectiveness of objectives
Research has established that developing a structure of staff training will significantly direct the steps of assessment that a company will adopt to give its staff before and even after the training. In addition to this, evaluation structure further will help keep the end objective of staff training at the forefront hence allow for the achievement of measurable ROI in training. Using ROI, the trainer will be able to understand the impact of training on the success of the firm and further create a standard measure useful for training activities and outcome (Bassi, & McMurrer, 1998). The Kirkpatrick method has been established as the standard method for training evaluation and entails four levels including reaction, learning, behaviour and result, which breaks down the assessment process of training effectiveness.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Reaction level- will measure how the trainees reacted regarding training. The organisation wishes to make employees feel that training offered was a highly valuable experience and at the same wish that they feel good with regards to the instructor, materials to be used, the venue, topic and even presentation. Measurement of reaction is critical since it will enable the instructor to clearly understand how the training was perceived by the trainees and at the same time help to improve training for the future employee such identification of vital area and topics that might be missing in training (Kirkpatrick, 1998).
Learning level- it measures what exactly the employees have been able to learn and how the training impacted their knowledge. In the preparation of the training, the instructor came up with specific objectives to be attained hence she form the fundamental starting point for the measurement (Kirkpatrick, 1998). It is essential to measure learning level since understanding what the training have learned and what they have not will help to improve the future training that would be conducted.
Behaviour level- this level contributes in evaluating how the trainees have significantly changed their overall behaviour due to the provided training. According to Kirkpatrick (1998), this level specifically seeks to understand how the employees were receiving the training will apply the information that they have attained. Arguably, a behaviour might change only is the existing conditions are highly favorable. It is worth to note that simply because the trainees’ behaviour has changed as expected; it does not imply that they have not learned anything constructive. There might be cases where their boss might not allow them to implement the acquired knowledge or they have learned something but lack the desire to put the knowledge into use.
Results level- at this level the instructor analyses the outcome of the training including the outcome that the organisation or the trainers have confirmed to be essential for the company, good for the workforce or even effective for the bottom-line.
Method to evaluate trainee performance of each objective
The most appropriate tool to gather information to assess the trainee performance of each of the stated purpose would be the interview. Using interview, the trainer will have a session w of about 30 minutes with each trainer with a list of survey question to evaluate the impact of the intervention of these trainees. The instructor will take the participants through some question and then note down the response that would later be used to determine whether the training intervention brought about some significant changes among the trainees (Velada et al., 2007).
Interview as a means to collect data is sufficient because it is specific, cost efficient and uses less time to gather vital information that would be utilised for the evaluation purposes (Velada et al., 2007). Further, the trainer might adjust the questions to suit the setting during the interview and obtain additional information that would not have been achieved if he had used questionnaire method to collect information. An interview will, therefore, give the instructor a better and clear understanding of where the trainees stand and what is important for the, to learn to ensure that they are transformed into a valuable asset to the company.
Design for evaluations
The most suitable design that would be used for every evaluation would be pretest/posttest design. The design entails gathering of both the post-training and pre-training information to determine whether a significant change had occurred after the employees were subjected to the training session (Velada et al., 2007). In this case, it will measure the level of change after training among the trainees. Based on this design method, a variation in the two levels of observations would inform the trainer whether the training session brought about a slight change among the participants over the period before and after the training session.
It is also assumed that a significant positive change that would experience in the study would imply that such a change was brought about by the intervention which in this case is training lessons. According to Velada et al., (2007), this design will be useful in this case because it helps the trainer to determine whether some aspect within the trainers has changed. For instance, the instructor will be able to identify whether the trainees' knowledge has improved or it has remained as it used to be but does not tell the coach why the change was experienced. In addition to this, it is the most simpler and easy to use a design for evaluation of an intervention like training.
References
Bassi, L. J., & McMurrer, D. P. (1998). Training investment can mean financial performance. Training & Development , 52 (5), 40-43.
Kirkpatrick, D. L. (1998). Evaluating training programs: The four levels (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Velada, R., Caetano, A., Michel, J. W., Lyons, B. D., & Kavanagh, M. J. (2007). The effects of training design, individual characteristics and work environment on transfer of training. International Journal of Training and Development , 11 (4), 282-294.
