Weights and Measures Division Training Evaluation Supporting Statement

OMB Control No. 0693-0033 – NIST Generic Clearance for Program Evaluation Data Collections

Weights and Measures Division Training Evaluation Survey

FOUR STANDARD SURVEY QUESTIONS

1. Explain who will be surveyed and why the group is appropriate to survey.

The Weights and Measures Division conducts technical training, seminars and presentations at NIST and around the country for a wide variety of customers and stakeholders in the weights and measures community. The training is technical in nature and unique in that no other entities offer similar training for weights and measures applications. The training is offered in an effort to fulfill the Division’s mission to secure uniformity in weights and measures laws and applications. In order to measure the value and success of the Division’s training efforts, participants of these training events should be given the opportunity to provide feedback on the course, the instructor and the appropriateness of the material for the level of learning desired. By surveying students after the class, the Division will be able to measure customer satisfaction and learning. Through follow-up surveys, we will measure students’ application of skills learned and the impact of training.

2. Explain how the survey was developed including consultation with interested parties, pre-testing, and responses to suggestions for improvement.

Questions for this survey were developed using the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate training. Donald Kirkpatrick first presented the idea back in 1959, and others have modified and built upon it in most of the training assessment literature published since then. The model covers four levels of evaluation: satisfaction, learning, application and impact. The first level evaluates whether or not the participant liked the training. The second level measures whether the participant actually learned anything. The third level evaluates whether the participant applied what was learned, and the fourth level measures the impact of the training. The division has been developing and refining these questions in conjunction with our instructors and stakeholders, and has held workshops to design our training program to best meet the needs of our customers. Being able to evaluate training at multiple levels is beneficial to our customers and to our program. The division believes this is a great improvement over past customer satisfaction surveys.

3. Explain how the survey will be conducted, how customers will be sampled if fewer than all customers will be surveyed, expected response rate, and actions your agency plans to take to improve the response rate.

All students registered for a training class will be surveyed electronically immediately following the class. Those indicating a desire to participate in a 45 day follow-up survey will be contacted a second time for additional feedback on how they applied the skills learned during training. Each survey should take about 5 minutes to complete. We expect an 80% response rate based on interest shown by customers in gathering this type of data. The division will promote participation in training evaluation during classes by presenting previously collected information and highlighting the usefulness of the data for both the stakeholders and the continuous improvement of the program.

4. Describe how the results of the survey will be analyzed and used to generalize the results to the entire customer population.

The results of individual training evaluations will be used by NIST staff during after action reviews to improve aspects of specific training programs. The results will also be analyzed and reviewed during strategic planning sessions on training to identify broader changes to our training program. Specific customer complaints or concerns will result in follow-up contact with the customer. The results will also be compiled for reporting division success measures as stated in the division’s operations plan.