Last month, Extraordinary! by Design finished an elearning project for a national franchise. Actually, it was our second elearning project for the franchise. The franchise contracted with us to convert existing paper-based training to elearning. The timelines were tight as we worked to have the elearning ready to unveil before a new product line was released. We used Rapid Prototyping, working design and development phases concurrently to create a functional prototype for review. We created Level 1 evaluation items to measure what the learners learned from the elearning modules; however, we did not develop evaluation instruments for evaluation levels 1, 3, and 4.
Now, a month after completion of the second elearning module and two months after completion of the first elearning module, we are circling back to engage the client about creating assessment instruments for level 1- reaction to training and level 3- behavior (or transfer of training to the job).
Results from evaluation of the training will reveal areas for improvement and help to determine the effectiveness and suitability of the training for the audience. Training uninformed by evaluation results is like practice without feedback; if it is not conducted, ineffective, erroneous, or inefficient knowledge and behaviors may persist– negatively impacting business or organizational goals.
We are eager to obtain evaluation results so that we may revise and amend training where appropriate and continue to create extraordinary results for our client.
For more information on evaluation of training programs, check out Implementing the Four Levels: A Practical Guide for Effective Evaluation of Training Programs by Donald Kirkpatrick and James Kirkpatrick.
-WB