ASTD Releases its 2002 Learning Outcomes Report

ASTD's Fourth Annual Report on Standards for Evaluating Firms' Investments in Education and Training 
 
Investments in education and training are rapidly increasing, and the returns on these investments can be linked to overall business strategy and success. For several years, ASTD's Benchmarking Service has served as a vehicle for organizations to evaluate the effectiveness of their education and training investments.
 
The 2002 ASTD Learning Outcomes Report combines the data collected from 1998 through 2001 on benchmarkable measures in workplace training and provides an overview of what has been learned when measuring and valuing these training investments. Major findings and highlights from the report are included below.
 
From 1998 to 2001, a total of 19,938 courses were evaluated, including 456,000 individual assessments of learning outcomes. The courses covered a wide range of subject areas, ranging from basic skills to interpersonal communication to technical processes and procedures, about 30 percent of which were delivered electronically.
 
Initial Evaluation of Courses
 
-Initial evaluations of the utility (or usefulness) of what the respondents learned over four years of data shows that respondents gave the highest ratings to sales and dealer training, new employee orientation, product knowledge training, and information technology (IT) skills.
 
-The lowest initial evaluations came from participants that attended courses on quality, competition and business practices, basic skills, and occupational safety/compliance.
 
-The data suggests that learners' self-assessment of how much they learned is highly associated with their prediction of the usefulness of what they have learned.
 
"Learners' satisfaction with the organization of the content and with the instructor had the strongest influence on the extent to which they thought they would be able to apply the course material to their jobs," said Mark Van Buren, Director of Research for ASTD. "These factors were closely followed by the extent to which the delivery mechanism was effective, the course met its objectives, the materials were useful, and they understood the course objectives," he noted.
 
Evaluation of Performance Gains
 
-Across all courses, learners reported that their performance on the objectives of the course rose 36 percent and their overall job performance rose 31 percent.
 
-From the learners' perspective, the types of courses producing the greatest gains in terms of course objectives, as well as the greatest increases in overall job performance, were those on product knowledge, sales and dealer, IT skills, and technical processes and procedures.
 
-The least effective courses with lower-than-average performance gains on both measures were those on quality, competition and business practices, managerial/supervisory skills, and interpersonal communication.
 
-Supervisors reported that new employee orientation and product knowledge courses produced the greatest performance gains on their course objectives, and that product knowledge courses yielded the greatest improvement in overall job performance.
 
 
ASTD members may obtain a free copy of The 2002 ASTD Learning Outcomes Report (PDF file) in the Members Only section of the ASTD Website at www.astd.org. Customers may also purchase a copy of the report for $29.95 (ASTD members) or $39.95 (non-members) online at www.store.astd.org or by calling 1.800.628.2783 (U.S. and Canada) or 703.683.8100 (International). Use product code 190204 when placing your order.
  
About ASTD
ASTD is the world's leading association of workplace learning and performance professionals, forming a world-class community of practice. ASTD's 70,000 members come from more than 100 countries and 15,000 organizations - multinational corporations, medium-sized and small businesses, government, academia, consulting firms, and product and service suppliers.
 
Founded in 1944, ASTD is now a global force, widening the industry's focus to connect learning and performance to measurable results, and is a sought-after voice on critical public policy issues.