Introduction
Organizations undertake a lot of internal (in-house) trainings for their staff or stakeholders. These internal training initiative focus on a number of topics including but not limited to sexual harassment, drug and substance abuse, child safeguarding (child protection), gender based violence, corruption prevention, community policing. The purpose and objectives of these internal organization trainings are as diverse as the training topics. These internal organization training initiatives (projects) should be evaluated. However, organizations may have challenges with evaluating these internal training initiatives. Identification of appropriate models for evaluating internal organizational training initiatives is one such challenge. To address this challenge, Kirkpatrick’s Four levels has been promoted and widely used in evaluating training initiatives and has been used and continues to be used in non-governmental, governmental, community based, faith based, private sector organizations, schools, colleges, universities. However, even in organizations that evaluate their internal training initiatives, the use of internal training evaluation findings has been identified as serious challenge for organizations and their stakeholders. Moreover, organizations that wish to assess how the findings of evaluation of their internal training initiates are being used equally have challenges as their have no information on the evaluation models for assessing the way findings of evaluation of internal trainings are being used by their organizations. Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation has been used as a model for evaluating utilization of evaluation results.
LDP 608 M&E ASSIGNMENT
The students are expected to select organizations of the interest as the case study organization. Students are advised to select organizations they have direct access to, preferably their organizations, or projects. The M&E research assignment has 2 phases:
Phase 1: Evaluation of a Recent Training in a Selected Case Study Organization Using Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels
In this first phase, the students are required to:
(1) agree on the case study organization and commit to support the research,
(2) discuss with the organization manager the purpose of this class research assignment, and assure him/her of confidentiality of the information (the organisation’s name will be kept confidential,
(3) undertake a comprehensive literature review on evaluation of training programs. Literature review should focus on the following themes: a: definitions/ concepts of internal (in-house) training; b: staff’s reaction/ attitude towards internal trainings/ in-house training; c: effects of internal (in-house) training on staff, d: benefits of internal (in-house) training on organizations), and e: Kirkpatrick’s model for evaluating training programs
(4) develop a brief interview guide using the Four Levels ( reaction, learning, behaviour and results: there are a number of excellent checklist or questions on these levels on the web),
(5) identify not less than 5 staff in the organization to interview, one identified staff should be one with training and management responsibility ( egg. Head, deputy, project manager etc),
(6) inform the identified staff and seek their permission and commitment to participate in the study
(7) Interview the staff either individually or in group
(8) take notes from the interviews (where possible record the interviews),
(9) transcribe the notes/ recordings,
(10) write a report from the transcripts based on the four themes: Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results.
Phase 2: Assessment of (Non) Utilization Training Evaluation Findings in Selected Case Study Organization Using Patton’s Utilization Focused Evacuation Model
In this 2nd phase, the students are required to:
(1) use the same case study organization in phase 1 or select a different case study but should be where one of the group members works.,
(2) discuss with the organization manager the purpose of this 2nd phase of the class research assignment, and assure him/her of confidentiality of the information (the organisation’s name will be kept confidential,
(3) undertake a comprehensive literature review on utilization of evaluation findings. Literature review should focus on the following themes/ topics:
(i) importance of utilization of evaluation findings;
(ii) how organizations use evacuation findings (uses/ misuse of evaluation findings;
(iii) factors that promote use evaluation findings; (iv) factors that affect use of evaluation findings;
(v) strategies that can improve consistent use of evaluation findings in organizations, and
(vi) Patton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation Model;
(4) develop a brief interview guide using Paton’s Utilization Focused Evaluation Checklists (there are a number of excellent checklist or interview guides on the web),
(5) identify not less than 5 staff in the organization to interview, one identified staff should be one with training and management responsibility ( egg. Head, deputy, project manager etc),
(6) inform the identified staff and seek their permission and commitment to participate in the study
(7) Interview the staff either individually or in group (8) take notes from the interviews (where possible record the interviews),
(9) transcribe the notes/ recordings,
(10) write a report from the transcripts based on themes on the Utilization Focused Evaluation Checklists.