session overview

Thursday 26th January 2012

11:30 - 12:30 Track 4 Session 3

Learning evaluation

Our speakers here have direct experience of proving the value of learning in their very different organisations - one of the world's largest universities, the other one strongly commercial. Kevin Streater of the Open University brings news that the death of Kirkpatrick may have been exaggerated. The OU's solid approach combines theory with sound practice to show that it really is possible to evaluate impact across a wide range of training experiences. Meanwhile, Matt DeFeo proves that evaluating learning takes one key thing: using the metric that matter to the business and showing improvement. Even if only a matter of a fraction of a percentage point, the right impact can be massive.

P1: Demonstrating value through good theory and practice

Kevin Streater, Executive Director - IT & Telecoms, The Open University

If you want to know whether your learning has achieved its goal, you need to evaluate it – but how? The Open University uses a blend of methods based loosely on Kirkpatrick’s recent ‘ROE’ business partnership model (which turns the original 1959 theories on their head) and research from Josh Bersin and Robert Brinkerhoff about the workplace learning environment. In this presentation Kevin Streater describes how this methodology has been robustly tested over a 9 year period and how it enables students’ employers to understand the impact of their learning.

What the Kirkpatrick model has to offer
How embedding learning at work boosts its impact
The crucial role of environment, line managers and teams
Enriching quantative data with qualitative anecdote
Predictors of whether learning is likely to be effective

P2: Proving the impact of business-led learning

Matt DeFeo, Senior Vice President, Sales, Training and Recruiting, Techtronic Industries, Inc.

Techtronic Industries is a $3.45 billion global company. No organisation grows to that size – and continues to grow – without a keen sense of what is contributing to its success. Since he joined the company in 2006, Matt DeFeo has made sure that rigour also applies to the learning and development function. In this presentation he draws on several instances of proving the value of learning, sharing some hard-won lessons along the way.