There is a framework which may help you, it is called Investors In People
and is the UK national standard for organisations who apply the systematic
approach of kirkpatrick to their training and development.
One word of caution though, many organisations take on the Investors
standard and begin to develop beaurocratic and paper heavy systems to
evaluate training which often results in much data and little analysis. By
far the best way is to ensure that the organisation is clear about why it
is investing in training and also ensuring that the individual is clear
about how their practice is expected to change as a result. This is as
easy to do verbally as it is to develop forms and documents. During the
development activity, participants should be encouraged to think about
what they are learning and how they will apply their learning, they should
also be encouraged to think about their own openness to learning as no
trainer can force an individual to learn. The problem with many
evaluation systems is that learners may tend to blame the trainer if the
outcomes do not happen as anticipated. If learners are encouraged to
check their own attitudes to learning and organisations take steps to help
the learner change their theory into practice more may be learned from the
results of an evaluation activity.
One more word of warning! Some organisations end up spending more time
and money trying to evaluate than the activity cost in the first place!
Be careful to make sure that whatever methods you use are as sophisticated
or simple as your organisation culture needs them to be. Happy to talk
more about this if you wish, reply to personal email or to LO list.
Sarah Pigott
--Sarah Pigott <sp001@netgates.co.uk>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>