Learning Evaluation

How do you know if the training you have provided to your employees has truly succeeded in teaching them the skills and know-how they need to perform their duties? You could do a wait and see and watch their job performance and hope for the best or you can conduct a learning evaluation to determine the level of success a lot more quickly.

Sometimes companies only see the big picture and do not always take into account the individual learning styles of employees as well as a host of other factors which can affect training. Therefore, they do not know when their training materials and testing has not been stellar enough to transfer the necessary knowledge. However, with a learning evaluation, they can discover where the breakdowns are in learning the training material.

A learning evaluation will measure four basic things: how the employee felt about the training, the boost of knowledge and skills capability, the behavior of the employee or how well they implemented what they learned and the overall results, what effects the employee’s performance has had on the company since the training.

The reaction part of the learning evaluation is easily captured with feedback forms and questionnaires or surveys. Capturing the idea of how the actual learning part of the training went is not always quantifiable. Companies can test the employees skills before the testing and then after as one way to tell. Of course, quantifiable skills can easily be tested and evaluated.

The job implementation and behavioral part takes more time to assess in a learning evaluation because there are several factors that need to come into play. First of all, the company will have to interview and observe the employee who took the training to determine how well their jobs duties are going now afterwards as well as interview the supervisor or manager of the employee as well to judge job performance.

Of course, the results portion of the whole learning evaluation is fairly simple. It is a matter of whether or not the employee’s job is being completed correctly and in a timely manner. This is usually covered in normal systems already set in place by companies to evaluate performance on the job. Having the results of an overall evaluation can help companies change their training classes and curriculum to maximize effectiveness.