Training costs your company money and time. Therefore, in educational controlling, not only is the objective essential for success, but also the measurement of these goals. Find out now how you can evaluate training in a measurable way and achieve demonstrably better results.

Why a “Are you satisfied?” survey is not a good evaluation

The classic survey at the end of a training still often asks, “Are you satisfied with the training?” This question is perfectly fine – it just does not reveal any information about the effectiveness of the training. Whether participants implement what they have learned in the long term can only be measured months after the training.

Every training measure should start with a question: What is the goal? That goals are important is something most people acknowledge today: Educational controlling naturally includes determining educational needs and setting objectives.

However, the evaluation of these goals at the end of a training is often skimped on: No time, no desire, not thought of – or fear of real results. After all, the training is over, all organizational tasks are done, and attention may already be on the next training.

Trainer Zach Davis (Peoplebuilding) knows how quickly educational measures can become unmanageable:

It is important not to forget the bird's-eye view, such as questions like ‘What does the measure bring and ‘What resources does it cost along the way’.

What does educational controlling look like in your company? Perhaps you know the challenge of measurable results from personal experience. It is important here, on one hand, to delegate didactic tasks to experts and on the other hand, to remain involved.

Measurable results through transparency for all participants Often, HR developers and other decision-makers are only very limitedly involved in the training. The contact with the trainer is established, but what they specifically do with the participants in the course and how the employees are participating, HR personnel often cannot answer. This is precisely what makes measuring success in traditional educational controlling complicated to impossible.

But what if the training does not take place as a classic day seminar? What if the framework is chosen in such a way that other interested parties, such as HR developers or supervisors of the participants, can also be involved in the training?

This is precisely what is achieved with the concept of Blended Learning: In addition to classic seminars, coaching, or other live formats, participants are accompanied online. This mix of offline and online is called Blended Learning because at least two fundamentally different formats are mixed (to blend = mix).

The mix makes it: Live events and online support

The presence events in Blended Learning are important to lay the foundation for a successful training:

• establish a personal connection between participants and trainers

• possibly introduce participants to one another

• motivate participants to attend the training

• convey the process and objectives of the training

All of this works better in personal meetings or at least phone calls or live webinars than in the online course. On the other hand, e-learning methods offer other advantages, such as:

• long-term training instead of one-day seminars

• real transfer in daily work through daily online impulses

• minimal loss of working time due to high flexibility

… and ultimately measurable results that can be compared with the objectives! With Blended Learning, you achieve a new type of educational controlling – so to speak, educational controlling 4.0.

What does this 4.0 mean?
In various contexts, people refer to “4.0” when new developments are initiated by digitalization. For example Industry 4.0, Work 4.0, or also Trainer 4.0 and Human Resource Development 4.0.

Four methods with Blended Learning that enable measurability

Digital training units have the clear advantage that it can be documented very easily who has completed which exercises or watched which video. Quiz questions, surveys, and exams can also provide clear results at appropriate points in the online course. As an HR developer, you know at any time during the training how the measure is progressing – and the trainer or a supervisor can intervene to motivate the participant further or offer support.

In the following, I will present four typical methods with which educational controlling 4.0 is achieved: In the online part of a blended learning, you can transparently measure how far participants are from the current state of the objectives.

1. Insights: Who is how far along in training?

A training can only work if the participant is willing to contribute to its success: They should regularly engage with the online units, perform exercises, and generally be interested in successfully completing the training. In the online course, previously designated persons (as admins) can see which users have already completed which units.

Example with the blink.it platform:

As an admin in a blink.it course, you can see at any time with just a few clicks which participants have already completed which learning units (“Blinks”). Completed Blinks are marked in green, uncompleted ones in blue, and grey items have not yet been unlocked – because, for example, a previous Blink must be completed first.

2. Quiz: What is the current status of the participants?

Quiz questions are entertaining and challenge participants in a playful way. In the online course, quiz questions can be wonderfully employed to ask about the current status of the participants. In the evaluation, you then see the answers of individual participants and simultaneously get an impression of which questions may have posed difficulties for several participants.

This makes quiz questions doubly useful: As an HR personnel or a supervisor, you gain an impression of the current knowledge level, and as a trainer, you can subsequently adjust and repeat or deepen unclear content.

Example with the blink.it platform:

With the blink.it platform, a quiz can be set up so that a certain score is required to pass the course. If it is not a final exam (see point 4), the quiz can also be “passed” with zero points.

3. Survey: How do participants assess their progress?

I already referred to the classic “Are you satisfied?” survey above: With an online course, such a survey can be created in no time – and evaluated even faster.

A survey can already be useful during the training. Long-term changes in behavior can usually only be achieved with long-term training, for which blended learning is excellently suited. For example, if you find after a month that more and more participants are no longer actively engaged in the online course (see point 1), a survey can help identify the reason for it – and based on that, to find measures to motivate participants more.

Also, at the beginning of a training, a survey is useful, best done before the first presence date. In consultation with the trainer, HR developers and supervisors can ask in advance what is important to the participants and what they themselves expect from the training.

Example with the blink.it platform:

As an admin on the blink.it platform, view the results of a survey: If correct and incorrect answers have been set in advance, you can see whether the participant answered the question correctly.

4. Certificate: Who passes the final exam?

Not every training requires a final exam. However, it can be a good tool to motivate participants to successfully complete the training. Additionally, everyone logged in as an admin in the course can see which participants have passed.

A certificate may even motivate participants twice: Not only during the course as a kind of incentive but also at the end as a reminder to continue applying what they have learned.

Note: A final exam should be passable by all those who actively participated in the course. It makes sense to already apply measures for measuring learning success during the blended learning to avoid ending up with a surprisingly high error rate.

Example with the blink.it platform:

As a participant in a blink.it course, you can see that you have passed the course and can download your course certificate. As an admin, you can see the results of all participants and can mark participants as “passed” or “not passed” if you want to make changes afterward.

Now it’s your turn! How well does measuring the success of your training measures work? Perhaps educational controlling 4.0 with blended learning is also a method for your company to actually achieve predefined goals.

The aforementioned methods are formal ways to measure learning progress. Now also look at didactic methods of blended learning: How you can prepare participants for training with surveys or how to stimulate a virtual discussion. You will find a total of 40 methods in our card game for blended learning, the rocket pack. Get inspired!