Types and significance of evaluation of training program
INTRODUCTION
Training is vital for any and every organization. With the changing socio-economic and technological relevance of training, the definitions, scope, methods and evaluation of training program have also changed. One of the earlier classic definitions of training is ‘bringing lasting improvement in skills in jobs’. The present day definitions take a multi-dimensional perspective enveloping the needs of individuals, teams, organizations and the society. The steps in the training program development are planning, programme implementation, and programme evaluation and follow-up. The evaluation of any training system helps measure the’ knowledge gap’, what is defined by Riech as ‘the gap between what the trainer teaches and what the trainee learns’. Evaluations help to measure Reich’s gap by determining the value and effectiveness of a learning programme. It uses assessment and validation tools to provide data for the evaluation. Evaluation of training systems, programmes or courses tends to be a demand of a social, institutional or economic nature. A training program is not complete until you have evaluated methods and results. A key to obtaining consistent success with training programs is to have a systematic approach to measurement and evaluation.
Training Evaluation Approach
Evaluation methods should be determined based on the goals of the training process and should meet the demands of the various stakeholders involved. Every organization has multiple stakeholders and not everyone within the organization has the same information needs. Typically, organizational stakeholder groups include the training department, employees and business units. Their information requirements fall into two categories: whether the competencies have been learned and whether the learning has been applied toward improved performance.
DEFINITION * Goldstein (1993) defines evaluation as the “systematic