Evaluating training: beyond reaction evaluation

In today's milieu of accelerated economic development, there is greater awareness regarding human resource development in all sectors of the Indian economy. With the changing employment scenario reflecting the needs, wants, and expectations of an ever changing society, [a] lot of focus is given [to] training and development which endeavours to equip trainees with required skills to cope with growing business complexities and dynamics of the competitive world. Every year, huge investment is done by national, state, private funding agencies, corporate, and practitioners/academics devote countless hours to the nuts and bolts of the curriculum designing and training but very little has been done systematically to study and evaluate training impact in terms of [the extent that] training programs succeeded in their difficult task of preparing the trainees with required skills and ensuring transference of learning. Many professional trainers and training departments are found to use only reaction evaluation at the end of the training program, whose results initially appear heartening and such evaluation can capture only immediate feelings and perceptions of the participants, which hardly indicate learning in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude and its transfer to the job. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether the training program has facilitated the process of acquisition of knowledge, skills, [and] attitude and whether this acquired knowledge and skills in turn has helped them in actual application of learning and has enhanced their performance. This study was also taken up to find out most effective training methods that help in ensuring learning and its transfer to real life situations based on Virmani and Premila's model of training evaluation.

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In today's milieu of accelerated economic development, there is greater awareness regarding human resource development in all sectors of the Indian economy. With the changing employment scenario reflecting the needs, wants, and expectations of an ever changing society, [a] lot of focus is given [to] training and development which endeavours to equip trainees with required skills to cope with growing business complexities and dynamics of the competitive world. Every year, huge investment is done by national, state, private funding agencies, corporate, and practitioners/academics ...  [+] Show more