4:31 – the last learner blasts out the door. The class is but a distant dust cloud on the horizon. What’s the first thing the course leader does? Sit down? Breathe a sigh of relief? Clean up the classroom? Burst into manic laughter? No, run over to the stack of end of course surveys and begin pouring over them to see what participants liked and what they did not.
What do the surveys (aka smiley sheets, happy sheets, level 1 evaluations) really mean in the world of training – to the participants, the course leader, and the course leader’s supervisor?
The end-of-course survey is an important document, used by almost all training departments, but it isn’t scientific evidence of the effectiveness of the event. It is essentially a customer satisfaction survey – often filled out at the end of a long training session where the main concern of the learner is to get out of the room. The survey may ask about the learners’ reaction to the course leader, content, and/or facilities. While it is commonly done in hard copy at, or near the end of, the training session, some organizations are moving to an e-solution through their LMS or a third party solution such as Zoomerang.com or surveymonkey.com. Organizations (Langevin included) often quantify the results down to the hundredths of a percent. However, what’s being quantified is someone’s opinion which, by its nature, must be very subjective.
What does it mean to the participants?
For most, it’s just a chance to say “well done!” Most people are receptive to training either as time away from the workplace with pay or as something that genuinely makes their lives easier somehow. They appreciate the efforts of the instructor. Of course, by the same token, if any participants have some residual resistance to the training, it is a chance to voice that resistance. In either case, the overall scores of the evaluation tend to reflect those feelings (the “halo effect”). For example, if the learners like the content, they like the way the course leader conducted the course. If they didn’t like the content, the course leader may take a hit. Additionally, the end of course survey really does give the person who feels strongly about something – one way or another – an opportunity to be heard.
What does it mean for the course leader?
I call it a chance to polish the diamond. Most course leaders’ skills are solid. So, what the end-of-course survey provides is a way to make their skills even better. This is not to say that when the course leader considers the suggestions made on the evaluation sheet, he or she should blindly incorporate everything said on the sheet. Sometimes the suggestions involve things that are a characteristic of the design of the training or of a classroom constraint. For example, a participant may complain about “too much practice,” yet if the design of the training is highly interactive and a high degree of proficiency is required as they leave the room, there needs to be a lot of practice in the training. However, some suggestions provide an easy way to improve. For example, one of my learners commented that he couldn’t tell if I had good eye contact or not as the light reflected off the lenses of my glasses. I found that I could do fine without the glasses. Today, I don’t wear them in the classroom – Polishing the diamond!
Here’s a tip for instructors. Many instructors enter the training field because they are high performers – on the job and in the classroom. As such, they hold themselves to a very high standard. That’s great, but when adverse comments are made on an end-of-course survey, there is a tendency to take those comments personally. It is especially a problem when the instructor is exhausted physically and psychologically – like immediately after finishing a class. A suggestion given to me by one of my early Langevin coaches was to put off reviewing the end of course surveys for a couple of days. It’s a lot easier to be objective with a little “distance” from the training.
What does it mean for the supervisor?
One tool a course leader supervisor has for instructor development is the end-of-course survey. An occasional critical comment by a participant may mean little. People come into the classroom with the baggage of the day. If they are having a bad day outside of the classroom, the end-of-course survey may just as easily reflect that day as what occurred in the classroom. While critical comments should be followed up on with both the instructor and, as a customer service issue, with the learner, they are seldom a make-or-break issue for the course leader. What the supervisor looks for is trends. When overall ratings drop over a period of time or when a number of learners make the same comment, there is a problem with the facility, or the training design, and/or the delivery.
The end-of-course survey is one instrument to gauge the success of training. Important? You bet. Especially in this economy, listening to the voice of the customer is a key to survival. While there are other ways to see how effective the training is, the end of course survey is the most common way of listening to the voice of the customer, your learners.
Paul
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ahh the pain of the 1 or 2 below expectation evals.
Thank you for highlighting the importance of the evals. I have heard other organizations find them to not be important.
As you mentioned this level 1 reaction for training has a direct impact on the results. If people do not have a positive reaction to the training then the hopes of behavior change is limited.