How do you ensure the validity and reliability of your training evaluation data and methods?

To ensure the validity and reliability of training evaluation data, it's important to align the evaluation methods with clear training objectives. Using consistent tools, collecting feedback from a representative group, and combining both qualitative and quantitative methods helps achieve accurate results. Regularly reviewing and refining the evaluation process, along with collecting data at multiple points, ensures meaningful insights into training effectiveness.

To ensure the validity and reliability of training evaluation data and methods, employ established measurement tools, align evaluation criteria with predefined learning objectives, and use multiple evaluation sources (e.g., participant feedback, performance metrics). Standardize assessment processes, gather data consistently across sessions, and validate instruments through pilot testing. Regularly update assessment tools based on industry best practices, and seek feedback from stakeholders to enhance the credibility and effectiveness of the evaluation process.

Collect data from multiple sources and align it with multiple levels of analysis. You should be able to tell a story of training effectiveness beginning with attitudes, leading to knowledge gained, leading to behavioral change, and culminating in results achieved.

Always seek knowledge from reputable and well-established sources. Ensure that your methods align with your research objectives and consider the context, population, and purpose of your evaluation. Be mindful of potential biases in data sources and methods, as biased data can lead to inaccurate conclusions. By combining multiple data sources and methods, you can enhance both reliability and validity.

When choosing data collection instruments for training evaluations, avoid mistakes like using unclear questions, ensure content validity, confirm construct validity, and assess criterion-related validity.

It might also be important to re-evaluate acquired skills, attitudes over a period of time. I have found that even though stakeholders tend to improve immediately after training, the initial level of outcomes occasionally declines over time. Assessing outcomes more than once can help determine at what point a refresher course might be necessary or whether the training was in fact helpful to the organization.

How do I put this......? The author is turning training delivery into an onion with many layers, articulated with MBA jargon and perspective....good stuff for sure...but complicating a fundamental learning process and relationship. At it's core, management wants the trainee to learn the job as quickly as possible with a minimum of disruption to "getting the job done" , meaning the reason his/her department exists. That's it. Training Delivery, historically has been, and still is (IMHO), poorly done, and only becomes an issue when the poop hits the fan. Something has gone horribly wrong and people are looking for reason why it did. I'll add my approach in my next comment.

Part 2...When I was brought in to turn an operation around, I'd establish (not initially, you have to stop the bleeding first) a "Skills Depth Chart" whose purpose was to determine who knows what, and how many people know those functions (jobs and key functions within jobs). Along the vertical axis you had all staff names (supervisors, team leads, etc.) Horizontally at the top, I had the job titles and below each as many specific functions within the job that could be identified (this became the training checklist). The next process was to sit with the staff and tick the boxes ensuring that the staff and newly accountable, Training Delivery person (team lead) agreed on the level of proficiency in each function. Common sense follows next.