Creating Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide - Manual / Resource - Page 40
How and when should the evaluation be delivered?
For easy analysis, it may be easiest to offer people a url (link) to an online evaluation survey that you have prepared ahead
of time. You can allow for an appropriate length of time within the training agenda to complete this survey before people
leave. This ensures that you have a (near-) complete response rate. Alternatively, you can send participants the link within
24 hours of completion of the training, while it is still fresh in their minds. While you will not be able to ask for long-term
impact of the learning, you will still get a fairly high response rate. Feedback surveys days or weeks after the training
event may give you more insights into the lasting impressions and impacts of the training, but your response rate will be
significantly lower. Make sure people are free to stay anonymous or be identifiable (e.g., have an option to give their email
or name), as they may speak more or less frankly about what worked or didn’t work for them.
You can also offer people a copy of an evaluation form that they fill out by hand before participants leave. While common,
quick and easy to do, people’s hand writing can be hardly legible; some may also feel less comfortable to give feedback
because they may not feel anonymous.
In cases where a group is well established and you will have an ongoing relationship with the participants, you may also
choose to have an open feedback session (maybe in addition to an anonymized survey).
Your choice of how and when to deliver the evaluation also has implications for yourself: it is nice right after a training to
have some immediate feedback. This may help you process and let go the event. You may also need immediate feedback if
the sponsoring organization wants it right away. Or you may appreciate having some processing time just by yourself, on
the basis of your own impressions, and hear from the trainees only later.
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Basics of training design
Evaluation
