End course surveys

Hey Ryan!

Thanks for posting your question! I can offer some suggestions based on personal projects/experiences.. sounds like you're looking to create  a post-course evaluation for your e-learning.

These post-course evals typically measure a participants opinion and personal feelings about an e-learning module, not the actual amount of learning that occurred, or how much a business was really impacted by training. To measure those, you'd need to take some other steps. That aside, you can glean some insight into what your learners liked and didn't like about e-learning course, and how satisfied they feel with it by giving them this type of survey. With that information, you can hopefully improve that course and/or other courses.

In the past a tool I've used to administer post-course evaluations (for free) is SurveyMonkey. There's other similar survey type software out there that allows you to set up the survey, the questions, and then e-mails you or notifies you in some way when people respond, and let's you look at and gather the results. (Apparently you can even Build an Online Survey Using Google Docs, Advice on Creating Evaluation Form)

Common types of questions that are usually included in post-course evals are things like:

• Did you like the training?
• Was the instructor any good?
• Were the objectives met?
• What topics should be added/omitted?

Those can give you some insight, however, I think it's also important to ask questions like:

• Rate your level of confidence with the new skills acquired on a scale of 1-10
• How do you feel you can apply what you've learned on the job?
• Do you have a task in the near future that allows you to apply the new skill/knowledge?
• Identify a specific work situation where you will apply what you've learned

Those questions should give you a little bit more information about how the training will actually impact the business and the bottom line. Here's a few handy links that I like: 

• In Defense of Post-Course Evaluations, Going Beyond the "Smile Sheet"
• Sample Evaluation Sheet Questions and Topics
• Training Evaluation: Forms and Questionnaires 

Hope this helps get you on your way with this. If you have any follow-up questions about anything let me know =)

End of course surveys realy depend on what you want to measure, and what the purpose of the course:

Did the learner enjoy the material

I often question what the value of these type of questions are, and what are you going to use the data for (is it just a pat on the back?).

Were the objectives met?

There are much better ways of measuring this than asking the user, and are the really the correct person to answer this?

Will this course change your behaviour?

Again these type of questions, are subjective and do they give real value answers (I dont know).

If you want to measure the effect of the course (and most courses are developed to change behaviour or meet a challenge) then this should e built in when the course is created not just bolted on at the end in a user survey.

It may be better to look at pre course,end of course and post course surveys to get meaningful data, it may also help to look at business deliverables and other data to determine if the course was successful.

Surveys at the end of courses rarely produce any meaningful data.

reading the links at the end of Nicole's post will help

Hi, Ryan: Here's a rough template I've used recently (attached). Hopefully it sparks a few ideas.

I usually use surveymonkey. Let me know if you have any questions. --Daniel