The assessment strategy that you will create for your custom training program is important because it paves the way for better projects in the future. These programs are valuable in any business. Training is the only way that businesses can make sure that their employees are constantly improving so their productivity will continuously rise. With that improvement comes profitability.
To make sure that the skills and knowledge of your employees are increasing, you need to guarantee that your training program is improving as well. The best way to do that is by coming up with an effective assessment strategy. A well-constructed assessment will allow you to identify the weak points in your custom training program so you can improve it. At the same time, it will also allow you to see the best features of your course – something that you can replicate in future programs that you will create.
There are 5 things that you can do to help you make the assessment effective.
Start your course with a survey.
A great way to start your course is to find out the foundation of your trainees. The only way that you can measure the improvement caused by the course is by finding out where they are starting from. This can be a simple questionnaire to help you determine the prior knowledge that they have. Are they college graduates? Have they taken up courses that are connected to the custom training program that they are going to take? How long have they been working in this industry? There are important questions that you need to know so you can measure their progress more accurately. It will also allow you to gauge if the terms, examples and scenarios that you will use throughout the course will be understood in the right context. It will help head off any misunderstanding during the learning process. Take note that there may be times when you have to create different surveys – especially when the custom training will cater to a diverse audience.
Let the learners rate themselves against the course outline.
This is a great way to determine if your course can meet the expectations of your trainees. You can set this up at the beginning of the course – probably to pair up with the survey that you have created. Not only will you understand their expectations, this will help you gauge the level of interest that they have towards what the course offers. You can repeat this rating at the end of the course to see how they measure up to the expected results.
Map out the skills that they have and will learn through the course.
This is something that you need to do probably before the course creation – or at least while you are in the midst of it. You should try to observe the trainees on-the-job. By observing them in action, you can identify the skills that they need to improve on. Compare the existing with the desired knowledge and skills. The company management may be able to help you with this. It is a great idea to identify these skills from another perspective – and not from the trainees themselves.
Make the feedback compulsory at the end of the course.
Sometimes, at the end of the course, trainees are too wrapped up in moving forward. If you do not make the feedback compulsory, you might not get one from everybody. You want to understand how the learning process happened and you want to do it through the eyes of the learners. Get their feedback and make sure everyone gives you one. If this is not possible, you can probably select a few trainees that you think represent the various types of learners in the group. This is very helpful especially when you have just dealt with a diverse group of trainees in your custom training program.
Find out how the course was applied in real life.
This is when you will go out of your way to see how the people who took your training are faring in the real world. You can choose only a handful of representatives that will help you with this. You can opt to observe them yourself or you can send them a survey that will allow them to give you the details that you need to assess if the training was effective. To get another point of view, you can also talk to the managers of the people you trained to see if there were any improvements in their output.
Think about these different assessment strategies as you are finalizing your custom training program. Feel free to use them all or pick just a couple as needed.
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