The Local Training Service’ (currently the Training Planning Service) of the Barcelona Provincial Government proposed back in 1998 the need to measure the quality of training in aspects that most directly affect the population and the internal management of training in local administrations. Part of this project consists of the annual evaluation of the impact and transfer of training by means of diachronic studies (See file on “Evaluation of effects and transfer of training” and on “Longitudinal evaluation of the impact of training”). Another part consists of promoting materials and guides for evaluation in the workplace.
The first phase of the project was the creation and validation of 14 generic guides on the same number of training programmes; the second consisted of their conversion into guides depending on their protagonists and their validation through direct application.
The evaluation guides are produced in consideration both of their individual use and the possibility of posterior triangulation on the basis of their use by different protagonists of training. To do this, three model guides were planned and designed for each of the training actions, in such a way that the same were evaluated by the very participants in the training actions, by their direct supervisors, and by an external evaluator who could be the human resources manager or another professional.
Each Guide is composed of different files or sections, which are all independent and enable expatiated application by the user and even for this person to select the most appropriate in order to obtain realistic information about development in the workplace.
The files are structured by different types, which are:
- Files on perception and/or self-perception: the activity requires the trained person to present their point of view in relation to different subjects related with the training activity.
- Files on evidence: the activity demands the compilation of different documentary facts that offer evidence of the mastery of a skill or techniques.
- Files on reflection: the activity implies that people that have participated in the course can analyse and evaluate a series of questions and make decisions aimed towards improvements.
We also find proposed files and activities that make the collection of evidence necessary and, at the same time, encourage reflection regarding the activity done in the workplace. What this achieves is that the worker, a certain period of time after the end of the training activity, can once again consider the content worked on during the training and evaluate the way it has been applied, or not, to his or her job. The evaluation process thus also becomes a space for refreshing knowledge and reinforcing new behaviours and attitudes that are developed as a consequence of the training, as well as encouraging workers to review their current practices and adapt and/or improve on the basis of what was learned during the training.