Training Evaluation Questions to Get Actionable Feedback

Training evaluation questions help you get actionable feedback on your training program– helping you refine your offering to improve the learning experience for future students. But what should you ask? And when should you ask it? This blog will take you through survey questions for training evaluation before, during, and after a student has taken your course.

Why Ask Training Evaluation Questions?

By asking training evaluation questions to course participants, you can get constructive feedback on your course design, delivery, and content – helping you refine your training course and make it even better. Training evaluation questions can tell you more about customers’ opinions on:

 
• Your training methods
 
• Your tools and resources
 
• Your course structure
 
• Your course content
 
• Your assessment methods
 
• Technical delivery

A training evaluation survey can help to shape your course to your learners’ needs and make your training program more effective.

Three Main Stages of a Training Evaluation Survey

When you are conducting a training evaluation survey, it helps to break your survey down into three categories:

 
• Before the course – Find out what your participants are hoping to learn and how they rate the pre-course process
 
• During the course – Get evaluation on your course design, including content, structure, and delivery
 
• After the course – Receive feedback on the course overall as well as learner satisfaction and your follow-up process.

You might choose to conduct the survey at the end of the course or use a series of smaller training evaluation surveys throughout the course. This allows you to receive continuous, ongoing feedback from course participants.

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Survey question types

It’s important to give your respondents space to express their opinions, without using leading questions. To do so, you might like to use a combination of open-ended questions, rating scale questions and likert scale questions.

• Open-Ended Questions  – Evaluators type out a qualitative response. Useful when you want details and specific feedback.
• Rating scales – Evaluators give you a quantitative rating between 1-5 or 1-10. These are useful when you don’t need a descriptive answer, like overall satisfaction.
• Likert scales – Evaluators answer on a scale of Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Useful for getting a holistic view of opinions, and includes a neutral midpoint.

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Questions to ask students before taking the course

Use training evaluation questions before your course starts to get a clearer picture of what your learners hope to achieve by taking your course. You can also conduct a training evaluation survey to assess how well your customer onboarding process is.

Learner expectations

Asking training evaluation questions that focus on your learners’ expectations before the start of the course allows you to get a clearer idea on what content they want to see. These types of training evaluation questions can help you to understand how your course matches up to what people are looking for and gives you the opportunity to tweak your course as needed.

Try these ideas for pre-course training evaluation questions to help you drill down on what learners really want:

• What are your key learning objectives for this course?
• How confident are you that the course will deliver on the learning objectives?
• What are your motivations for taking the course?
• At the end of the course, what do you hope to have achieved?
• What topics, in particular, are you hoping will be covered in the course?
• What types of learning do you like best?
• What areas of this topic do you struggle with the most?
• What are the biggest barriers to you achieving your learning goals?
• Have you completed any other training in this field before taking this course?
• How do you hope this course will improve on previous education experiences?

Course preparation

Once the course has started, you can also ask for feedback on the pre-course preparation. This is important to make sure you are making a good first impression and hitting your onboarding targets.

Here are some pre-course training evaluation question examples to try:

• How easy was it to enroll in the course?
• How would you rate the pre-training process?
• What was missing from the process?
• How could the preparation process be improved?
• Was the course description easy to understand?
• Were the learning goals clearly stated before the start of the course?
• Was it clear what the course included?
• How would you rate customer service communication before the course?
• How would you rate the course onboarding process?
• How could the pre-course communication have been improved?

Questions to ask students during the course

Of course, any effective training evaluation survey also needs to include questions about the course itself, including delivery, content and the overall structure.

After every lesson you can deliver a training evaluation survey to find out if and how the lesson is helping participants reach their learning objectives. You could also use training evaluation surveys to see if learners understood the content of the course.

Here are some examples of good training evaluation questions to help you listen to your audience and tap into their expertise.

Course content

Continuously improving course content is a really effective way to make sure your course delivers what it promises and matches up against the competition. A training evaluation survey is a great method to get valuable feedback on your course content.

If you want to find out more about the quality of your course content, try these training evaluation questions:

• Did the course content align with your expectations?
• How would you rate the quality of the course content?
• How engaging was the course content?
• How satisfied were you with the variety of the course content?
• Was the course content easy to understand?
• Was the course content detailed enough for your needs?
• Was the course content helpful?
• Was the course content repetitive?
• How satisfied were you with the methods of assessment?
• What was missing from the course content?

Course structure

Asking questions about the course structure also gives you a chance to gain insights into your learning path and any obstacles experienced by learners along the way.

Here are some training evaluation questions examples to give you a hand in designing your survey:

• How would you rate the course structure?
• How satisfied were you with the flow of the course?
• Was the course structure manageable?
• Was the course easy to complete?
• Was it clear when one unit ended and a new one started?
• Were the course milestones clear?
• Did you feel like you were making adequate progress through the course?
• Did you feel equally engaged in every section of the course?
• Which sections of the course worked best?
• How satisfied were you with the number of assessments?

Course delivery

As well as rating the structure of the course, it is also important to ask questions about the course delivery in your training evaluation survey. The quality of the delivery is crucial to the success of your course as that is how learners will receive the training. These questions will help you find out if your course is engaging, welcoming and accessible.

To find out more about your course delivery, try asking these training evaluation questions:

• How would you rate the course delivery?
• Were the course materials engaging?
• Was the course delivery accessible?
• How would you rate the opportunities for collaboration during the course?
• Did the course meet your expectations for interactivity?
• Would you have preferred more or less interactivity?
• How could the course delivery be improved?
• Was the size of your training group appropriate?
• Did the course feel welcoming?
• Did you feel like you were part of a community during the course?

Course instructor

Your training evaluation questions should also include space for learners to share their experience with your course instructors. While you might be reluctant to hear what participants have to say about your instruction – especially if you’re the one delivering the course – this section of your training evaluation survey should not be missed!

Here are some training evaluation questions examples to use:

• How satisfied were you with the level of instruction you were given?
• How would you rate your instructor’s delivery of the course material?
• How effective were your instructor’s communication skills?
• How would you rate your instructor’s expertise?
• Was it easy to ask your instructor questions?
• How comfortable did you feel expressing problems to your instructor?
• How confident were you in the instructor’s ability to help you?
• How would you rate the quality of the feedback you received from your instructor?
• Did your instructor meet your expectations?
• How could the quality of the instruction be improved?

Course timing

You might also like to include questions on the duration of the course in your training evaluation survey. This will give you feedback on your learning path, helping you to decide whether your course needs more content or could do with being broken down into several different courses.

Use these targeted training evaluation questions to get opinions on your course length, including:

• How long did it take for you to complete the course in full?
• On average, how long did it take you to complete each lesson?
• Did you take an equal amount of time to complete each lesson?
• If no, which lessons took the longest to complete?
• How satisfied were you with the length of each lesson?
• Did the length of the course fit your expectations?
• Were you able to fit your learning around your other commitments?
• Was there any point during the course where you were forced to pause?
• How satisfied were you with the length of the course assessments?
• Were you able to complete the assessments in the allotted time?

Learning experience and course design

When it comes to online learning, the quality of the learning experience matters a lot. Few learners will have the patience to take an online course if the learning platform is not functioning properly. That means it’s really important to get feedback on the UX/UI for your course so you can address problems as quickly as possible.

Try asking these questions in your training evaluation survey:

• How would you rate the user experience of the course?
• Was the platform easy to use?
• Did you find the interface intuitive?
• Was it easy to navigate through the course?
• What 3 words come to mind when you think about the course design?
• Did you find the layout confusing?
• Did you find the layout straightforward?
• How would you rate the course platform compared to other platforms you’ve used in the past?
• How satisfied were you with the overall user experience of the platform?
• How could the course design be improved?

Course accessibility

If you’re designing a course, it’s also important to bear in mind the needs of different learners. Adding accessibility questions to your training evaluation survey can help you to improve your course and make it more inclusive to a wider range of learning needs.

Here are some ideas for training evaluation questions centered on accessibility:

• How satisfied were you with the course’s overall accessibility?
• How satisfied were you with the course audio?
• Were you able to adjust the volume to your needs?
• Was the course typeface easy to read?
• How satisfied were you with the colors used throughout the course?
• How satisfied were you with the font size throughout the course?
• Were you able to interact with the course in a way that suited your needs?
• What accessibility features did you feel were lacking from the course?
• Did you receive the accessibility support you needed during the course?
• What additional accessibility features could improve the course?

Technical questions

You might want to include technical questions in your training evaluation survey. These can help you to identify any technical faults that may be preventing learners from accessing your course resources.

Here are some sample training evaluation survey questions for technical problems:

• How satisfied were you with the technical delivery of the course?
• Did you experience any problems with the course log-in?
• Were you aware of any technical faults or bugs during the course?
• Did all the external links work?
• Were you able to access the course via your mobile or tablet?
• Did you notice any delay or lag in the delivery of the course content?
• Did the video content load on your device?
• Were you able to download the resources?
• Were you able to view all the images and graphics in the course?
• How satisfied were you with the quality of the technical troubleshooting?

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Post-training survey questions

When your learners have completed the course, it’s the perfect opportunity to issue a training evaluation survey to get honest feedback on their experience. A training evaluation survey can help you learn more about the learner satisfaction and overall customer experience.

Here are some ideas for training evaluation questions.

Certificates and awards

Certificates and awards can help learners feel a greater sense of achievement at the end of a course, while also helping with motivation through the course and professional growth. If you offer a certificate as part of your course, it’s a good idea to get feedback on this in your post-training evaluation survey.

Try adding these questions to your survey:

• Did you like that the course offered a certificate?
• Were you satisfied with the quality of the certificate your received?
• Would earning a certificate or award help you to feel more committed to the course?
• Did you share the certificate with colleagues?
• How likely are you to share the certificate on social media?
• How do you intend to use the certificate going forward?
• Did you feel that the certificate improved your overall perception of the course?
• How much did the course certificate influence your decision to take the course?
• Would you prefer to take a course that offers a certificate over one that doesn’t?
• Is there anything else that you would like to receive after completing the course?

Learner satisfaction

As well as gathering data on the learner experience during the course, it is also important to get an idea of your learner satisfaction overall. High learner satisfaction is the key to winning more business, so you don’t want to skip this step.

Here are some learner satisfaction questions to use in your training evaluation survey:

• Do you feel that you achieved your learning goals?
• How satisfied were you with this course?
• Did the course meet your expectations?
• Is there anything that you were hoping to learn that wasn’t covered?
• Do you feel like your skills have improved as a result of the course?
• What did you enjoy most about the course?
• What did you find most challenging about the course?
• How could the learning experience be improved?
• Would you consider taking another course on the same platform?
• How likely are you to recommend the course to a friend?

Pro Tip: If someone is likely to recommend the course to a friend, consider reaching out to them for a testimonial to add to your website.

Post-course experience

When learners have finished the course, you can also add training evaluation questions on the post-course experience and follow-up process, helping you gain more information on learners’ experience after training ends.

Check out these survey evaluation question examples to get started:

• How would you rate the post-training experience?
• How satisfied were you with the number of follow-ups after the course?
• Did the follow-ups meet your expectations?
• Would you have liked to receive additional materials after you finished the course?
• Would you have liked to receive the course materials in print?
• Would you have liked to have the chance to ask the instructor more questions?
• How would you rate the guidance you received after the course?
• Were you satisfied with the opportunities to provide feedback on the course?
• Did you feel like your needs were met after the course ended?
• Was it easy to apply what you learned from the course in real-world contexts?

What tools can you use for survey evaluation questions?

There are a range of different tools you can use to deliver survey evaluation questions. To easily collate information from your training evaluation questions, it’s a good idea to use a content management system like Shiken.