99 questions to ask in your post-training evaluation survey

If you’ve ever created a training course, you’ll know that the post-training survey is an important final step. Feedback from learners helps to identify which activities they enjoyed the most, what they struggled with, and how much they feel they learned.

Course evaluation forms can also help to spot areas for improvement and measure overall training effectiveness.

What questions to include in your post-training evaluation survey

The problem is, it’s not always easy to know which post-training evaluation questions to include in your survey. So, we’ve put together a list of some of the most important questions to ask to evaluate training.

You probably won’t need to use all 99 of them. Just choose the ones that are most relevant to your course.

Before the course

A post-training survey shouldn’t focus only on the course. It should also include questions about the pre-training phase. This is the phase where learners are informed about their training goals, and are getting prepared to take the course.

Here are some sample questions:

• How would you rate the pre-training preparation?
• Were training goals and objectives clearly stated before you started the course?
• Were the course’s title and description easy to comprehend?
• How would you improve the pre-training phase?

Course structure

Even with the best training material, a confusing course structure can be an obstacle to learning. Here are a few of the most important course structure questions to ask in your post-training evaluation:

• How would you rate the course’s sequence and flow?
• Did you feel equally engaged in each course section?
• Was there a clear separation between the course’s units?
• Would you prefer more frequent assessments?

Content

Your training feedback form for employees should include questions that will help you to continuously improve course content.

Here are a few ideas of what to ask:

• Were there enough audio and video files throughout the course?
• Was the quality of the content consistent throughout the course?
• Was there enough variety in terms of course unit types?
• Was the language easy to understand?
• How engaging would you say the overall content was?
• Was the reading material presented in an interesting way?
• Was the course’s content too challenging for an average learner to understand?
• Was the content in-depth enough?
• Did you like the types of assessments used?
• Did you find the use of assessments stressful? If so, describe which part was stressful: content, rating, number of assessments, etc.
• How would you rate the overall course content?
• Did you notice any unnecessary repetitions in the content?
• Did you, at any point, have to reread the content to understand it?
• Which sections did you feel were lacking? In what way were they lacking?
• Was the course easy to follow?

Delivery

Without opportunities for collaboration and interactive learning, online courses can turn into an isolating experience.

Include these questions in your post-training evaluation form to find out how connected employees felt to the overall delivery method:

• Did the course feel too distant?
• Did the course feel monotone?
• Did the course feel automated?
• Would you have preferred more interactivity while taking the course?
• How would you rate the overall course delivery?

For more accurate results, consider using Likert scale questions. Instead of limiting employees to answer with a “Yes” or “No”, you can give them more options and check their level of agreement, level of satisfaction, likelihood, and more.

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Duration

These sample evaluation questions will help you to identify how much time learners spent on the course.

This way, you’ll be able to find out whether you should make it more digestible, or if there’s some room for extra content.

Here are some questions to ask:

• How much time did it take you to finish the course, including all assignments and assessments?
• Did you, at any point, pause the course?
• Did you have enough time to complete the test(s)?
• How would you rate the total course duration?

Trainer

Instructors are an integral part of training. And, sometimes, trainers have to interact with learners. Make sure you include the following questions in your training feedback survey if your training includes an instructor.

Based on your learners’ answers, the trainer can find ways to improve:

• How would you rate your trainer’s empathy?
• How would you rate your trainer’s expertise?
• How would you rate your trainer’s communication skills?
• How would you rate your trainer’s delivery skills?
• Did your trainer respond to your queries in a timely manner?
• Did you feel comfortable expressing your problems to your trainer?
• How would you rate your trainer?

UX/UI design

A confusing or poorly designed learning platform can be very frustrating. Ask your employees for feedback on these questions about their LMS experience.

• How did you feel while walking through the course?
• Was the platform easy to get familiar with?
• Was the interface intuitive?
• What did you like the most about the design?
• What would you change in the course’s design?
• Did you receive clear directions on how to navigate through the platform?
• Was the layout cluttered?
• Did you feel that learning to use the platform stole valuable time off your training?
• How would you rate the course’s overall design?

Technical issues

Bugs can ruin a learner’s experience. And you might not have noticed parts of your course that might look faulty.

These post-training evaluation questions will work as a heads-up in case some technical issues have occurred:

• Did you notice any bugs?
• Did you notice any delay in the delivery of the content?
• Did you notice any dead links?
• Did you notice any video that couldn’t load?
• Did you notice any fonts not displaying properly?
• How would you rate the quality of the IT team’s work?
• How would you rate the course’s overall functionality?

Environment

By getting to know how your learners took your course, you learn how to modify it according to their habits. The following post-training evaluation questions will help you get a solid grasp on your learners’ behavior:

• Where were you when you took the course?
• Were there any external distractions while taking the course?
• Would you take the same course on a mobile device?
• Would you take the same course on a computer?
• Would you feel comfortable taking this course while commuting?

Accessibility

One thing’s for sure: your course needs to be accessible to everyone. But sometimes you just can’t figure out which accessibility features work properly and which don’t.

Just put these questions in your eLearning evaluation questionnaire and you will:

• How would you rate the course’s audio guide?
• How would you rate the content’s font size?
• Was the content’s font eye-friendly?
• Did the volume adjustment work properly?
• Did the course’s colorblind mode work properly?
• Would you like to have seen more accessibility features? Which ones?
• How would you rate the course’s overall accessibility quality?

Gamification

Gamification in training is not a new concept. It has been used by companies for years, and it can significantly boost learners’ motivation and productivity.

The following sample evaluation questions will help you understand whether your gamification features were on point:

• Would you have liked to see gamification features in the course?
• Rate the quality of the course’s gamification features.
• Rate the quantity of the course’s gamification features.
• Were the gamification features distracting? If so, how?
• Did the gamification features make you feel like the learning environment was too competitive?
• Did the gamification features urge you to be better in assessments?
• Would you have liked for the leaderboards to be anonymous?

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Certificates

Certificates are motivating, add credibility, and help with professional growth.

Use these questions to figure out whether you’ve done a good job at designing the ones you offer at the end of your course:

• Would earning a certificate make you feel more driven?
• Did you like the fact that the course offered a certificate? Why/why not?
• Would/Did you share your certificate on your social media accounts?
• Did you feel that the certificate validated the course?

Training outcome

These sample evaluation questions will help you to identify gaps between learner expectations and the reality of their learning experience:

• Would you take a course like this again without it being mandatory?
• Did you achieve the overall learning goals?
• Would you recommend this course to a colleague?
• Were your training expectations fulfilled?
• Do you have any suggestions that would make this course better?
• Can you describe how successful the course outcome was compared to your expectations?
• How would you rate the course?
• If asked, would you be able to summarize the goal of this course in three sentences?

Learning experience

If the questions above don’t cover all aspects of the learning experience, it can be helpful to include more general questions in your eLearning evaluation questionnaire.

Just like these:

• Do you feel that your knowledge or skills have improved by taking the course?
• How would you rate your overall learning experience?
• How could we improve the learning experience?
• Do you feel that online training is more effective?
• Name the things you enjoyed the most in this course.
• Do you feel the course workload interfered with your everyday tasks at work?

After taking the course

In the section above, we saw questions on the overall learning experience. But the training experience doesn’t necessarily stop once the learners finish the course.

Here are some post-training evaluation questions to use if you want to gather information about the part of training that comes right after the course:

• Rate the post-training section.
• Would you consider further training on the topic on your own?
• Would you like to have received some further reading material on the course subject?
• Would you like to receive the course material in print for further personal research?
• Would you have preferred more follow-ups?
• Would you have liked further guidance after taking the course?
• Would you feel confident about taking another course on the same platform?

Over to you

If you’ve struggled with your training feedback survey before, this list of questions can get the ball rolling again.

You don’t need specific training evaluation tools. All you need is an LMS that offers surveys as one of their features, and you can gather the right information that will turn your training into a success.

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