"Asking questions about things you can't do anything about to improve the effectiveness of a learning program wastes participant time and may eventually lead to participant frustration."

Kenneth Phillips

An ASTD Research report found that the percentage of organizations who measured the reaction of participants to a training initiative was 91.6%. However, the percentage of organizations that believed the evaluation had a high or very high level? 35.9%.

These numbers aren't surprising. What may be surprising is that we continue to utilize the same tool.

Dr. Will Thalheimer points to research studies that indicated that the information gleaned from Level One evaluations is virtually uncorrelated with learning results. He challenged that we change the evaluation focus from training specific to learner specific, suggesting that the questions should target:

This is the proposal for our evaluation-focused Learning Event. What best practices can we include in our Level One evaluation to provide actionable training measurements?

At the end of the event, learners will apply these best practices by updating an existing Level One evaluation.