TIS Webinar instills evaluation mechanisms

The polls conducted during the webinar threw up some interesting perspectives. TIS polled attendees who responded on key challenges while measuring learning effectiveness. The result revealed that there was a lack of knowledge about evaluation mechanisms (61%), a primary concern, besides citing lack of time (33%) as another reason for not measuring learning effectiveness. This seems to turn the tables on the popular assumption that measuring learning effectiveness is by itself a tough ask and perhaps learning professionals also need to increase their knowledge of evaluation mechanisms and start applying them.

In yet another poll, a sizeable majority of the attendees believed that training evaluation data would help improve employee as well as an organization's performance. They were also of the opinion that training could become a partner to business rather than being just a vendor.

The poll further included questions regarding organization's readiness to conduct evaluation at different levels'. The poll results indicated that ‘50% of L&D departments have never tried to conduct learning effectiveness evaluation beyond Kirkpatrick Level 2', while 35% have managed to get to Level 3, with only 15% reaching Level 4. Therefore, while most attendees agreed that evaluation helps increase the business value of training, most training departments are not going beyond Level 2 evaluation. This could well be due to the lack of knowledge about evaluation mechanisms cited in the key challenges poll.

Learning and development (L&D) professionals across geographies responded overwhelmingly to the challenges in learning effectiveness evaluation during a poll conducted by Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) as part of its interactive webinar on ‘practical approaches towards learning effectiveness evaluation'. The attendees, belonging to L&D functions, were polled on several parameters ranging from ‘how they evaluate learning effectiveness' to ‘how effective they are' and ‘what tools are used to measure effectiveness'.

The TIS webinar presented by Poushali Chatterjee, principal learning designer and delivery head, Kolkata centre, TIS, mainly focused on the challenges facing L&D, learning effectiveness models as well as creating an evaluation plan. She emphasised on the need to create an evaluation plan as part of the learning activities rather than a separate one.

This tied in well with the objective of the webinar, where Chatterjee explained how to build an evaluation plan and the kind of mechanisms that can be used. Responding to questions from the attendees. Chatterjee went on to explain how to address some specific challenges, like frequent attrition and whether quantity and quality are both equally important when it comes to evaluation.

"Having evaluation measures in place acts as a leading indicator as it is an in-process measure and enables you to take pre-emptive actions to improve your chances of achieving your L&D objectives," said Chatterjee.

Chatterjee added, "A lag indicator, however, is when you are measuring the effectiveness when the process is over and you are measuring in retrospect. Hence, it is always important for training departments to align their objectives with the organization's goals and then with the department's/individual's objectives."