Evaluating Training Activities in European Youth Work

Am I reaching my objectives? Did the participants learn what they needed to? Will there be an outcome after my training? As a trainer or training organiser, you might be full of these sorts of questions. SALTO has worked to produce a tool that you can adapt for your own training activities.

Questionnaires are aimed at getting the individual opinion of the participants. Questionnaires are part of an integrated evaluation strategy.

Three different questionnaires

• pre-training course
• post training course
• Follow-up (3 - 6 months later)

You can compare the data at each stage, to see how much of an impact your training has had. The participants can also follow their own learning, by comparing their answers on the previous questionnaires.

Some questions appear the same at the different stages. This is so you can see the change and progress of the participants due to their involvement with the training course.

For more information about the content and make-up of the questionnaires, click here

Where can I get a copy of the questionnaires?

Click here to go to the page where you can download the Word versions of the 3 different questionnaires.

When handing out questionnaires to participants:

• allow participants to have sufficient time to complete filling in the form
• take time to introduce the questionnaire
• explain the 'why' and 'what for'....What will be done with their validation
• stress the importance of evaluation as being part of the learning process
• make sure that participants can have a copy of their own filled-in evaluation form

Limitations and value of questionnaires:

Questionnaires can provide us important information about:

• how participants see their competences regarding the topic of the course
• the general satisfaction level about the training programme
• the high and low points of the training programme
• the impression participants have about their learning achievements
• the result of the learning process in the working environment

Questionnaires are used in an extensive way in the training field.  Therefore it's good to realise also the limitations of this tool:

• questionnaires give only an impression of the participant's view of that very moment they fill in the form which can be influenced by all kinds of different elements (eg. the need to express "being a good participant", the emotional mood of the last day, there are cultural differences about the extent you are allowed to criticise a trainer etc)
• especially the 'end of training course questionnaire' only provides little indication of the transfer of learning to the working environment.

Different kinds of questions

In these questionnaires you will find different kinds of questions:

• Open questions: eg. "what have you learned during this seminar?" Space is left for participants to write down in their own words what they've learned.
• Yes/No quetsions. eg. "Have you created any project as a result of this training course?"
• Scale questions: "What is your knowledge of the YOUTH programme?"

very little                                                         in-depth knowledge

1	2	3	4	5	6

• scoring different elements of the programme in a scale: in a frame the different programme elements of the course are mentioned and participants are asked to score these elements from 1 - 6
• combined questions: a combination of Yes/No quetsions or scale questions with the request to explain the score.

The disadvantage of 'open questions' is that you can get very different kinds of interpretations of the question, which makes it difficult to analyse and group the data that come out. Next to that the ability of participants to express themselves in writing has a big influence on the answers.  At the same time the answers to open questions can give you a good impression of the personal views of participants.

The Yes/No questions, also known as 'closed questions' provide you with clear answers.  Participants are forced to make a choice.  These kinds of questions can also help you to get clear data about eg. the number of projects that are planned.

The scale questions provide you with data but be aware of the limiation of the value of these data.  What does it mean when somebody answer 4?  Is that the same 4 as of another participant?

The combined question is often used in training evaluation questionnaires and has the advantage of giving you data and an impression about what is behind that data.

Considerations

• What type of questions do we want?
• What to do with the outcomes? (see using outcomes)
• How to analyse the outcomes?
• Do we need questionnaires?
• How much time do we need to analyse the outcomes?