If you teach, lead workshops, or run group activities, you have probably asked participants to evaluate their experience. Here are a few tips to make that feedback truly useful:
- A good response rate can help you feel confident that the feedback is representative of everyone’s experience. People will be much more likely to complete an evaluation form if they know their feedback is valued. During your course or session, explicitly ask participants to complete your forms and explain how you will use the information. If possible, describe one or two things you learned from previous evaluations and how they were used to shape the current session.
- Keep evaluation forms as short as possible. Ideally, if you taught or facilitated for less than a day, the forms should take less than 10 minutes to complete.
- Phrase things creatively. Instead of “what did you like”, try “what is one thing you learned that you will use within the next week?” Instead of “what could we improve”, try “if your best friend was going to take this class, what is one thing you would warn them about ahead of time?”
- Gather information about the things you are considering changing. For example, if you aren’t sure you’ll stay in the same venue, ask questions about how important things are to them such as parking, break rooms, computer access, etc. But if you can’t change something, you might not want to ask.
- You can find questions and ideas in an informal format here.
- Rutgers University developed a policy about how course evaluations should be used; you can find it here.
- Don Kirkpatrick is a well-known researcher who has focused on training evaluations. His family has built a company around his 4-levels of return on expectations model; find resources and tips on their blog.
