How do Evaluations work in the LMS

This handy guide helps you decide which type of evaluation works best for your events and courses

When adding a new evaluation, you will need an event to apply it to. Phew’s Learning Management System was created to help delegates book training courses, but do you know how much information delegates are retaining or how line managers have benefited from the training? Evaluating training effectiveness gives you a stronger picture of what items delegates know well and identifies areas for improvement.

Our evaluation feature enables you to analyse a training event. It allows you to measure its effectiveness using Learning Gain to gauge the quality of training by allowing delegates to rate various parts of the session including trainer, course content and material. You are also able to request feedback from the delegates using free-text boxes. The Evaluation system is set in two parts, Happy Sheets and Bespoke Evaluations.

Bespoke Evaluations

To get data that is specifically related to your events or your organisation, you can create a custom-made evaluation that can be tailored to your exact specifications. 

The Evaluations option from the left-hand menu will take you through to the following screen:

Question Answer Groups

Before setting up your evaluations, you will need to setup your Question Answer Groups - these are the answer options you can used for ratings or managed response questions. For a guide on how to set these up, visit the How to create a Question Answer Group in Evaluations article.

Post Event Questions

Post Event Questions can be setup to be used as default questions on all custom evaluations built. They appear as matrix table at the bottom of the evaluation. For a guide on how to set these up, visit the How to create Post Event Questions article.

Add Evaluation (New)

Applicable Event - when adding a new evaluation, you will need an event to apply it to. If you are creating an evaluation to apply to all future events, create a test event and apply it to that.

Delegate Feedback Sample Selection % - what percentage of delegates from each event do you want to complete the evaluation

Stop Delegate Activity Until Completion - this prevents delegates booking on future courses/events until the evaluation has been completed

Include Evidence of Outcomes Questions in the Final Stage - this option allows you to use Evidence of Outcomes, asking delegated to provide examples of how they are using their training knowledge

When adding a new evaluation, there are up to five stages you can choose per event:

  • Pre-booking Evaluation - these evaluations can be used to assess knowledge/confidence on the course topic to collect Learning Gain data. Alternatively, you may want to see what they are expecting to achieve from the course. 
  • Post Event Evaluation - This is included as standard and cannot be removed. Post event evaluations are sent to delegates as soon as they are marked as attending the event
  • Post Event Stage 2 & Post Event Stage 3 Evaluation - The optional 2nd and 3rd stage evaluations can be sent 10-180 days post-event, and can be used to check retained information and provide retrospective feedback on areas that required more focus. Alternatively, it could be used for the delegates to provide examples of how they have applied their learning to their day-to-day job roles.
  • Line Manager Evaluation - The optional Line Manager Evaluation can be sent 10-180 days post-event, and can be used to get information from a delegate's line manager to find out how the training has influence their job role and performance

Previous Actions and Feedback can be included in all optional post-even evaluations

 Add Evaluation (Copy) 

This functionality allows you to copy a bespoke evaluation from an existing event to a new event.

Preview Your Evaluation

Once you have built your evaluations, the system allows you to preview them as shown above, so you are able to see how the evaluations appear to your delegates when they are completing them.

Evaluation Reports

Once your bespoke evaluation is live and being completed, you will be able to start analysing the data and feedback provided by delegate:

  • Post Event - this report allows you to view data on ratings questions used in your post event evaluation. It will provide number of responses, average scores and the range of the scores given, as well as totals.
  • Learning Gain - this report provides data on the learning gain questions setup on your evaluations. It can provide valuable data on how confident a delegate feels on a top or knowledge levels pre- and post-training, offering you a great insight into how effective your course content is. This is presented as a numerical figure
  • Learning Gain: Organisation Type - As above, this report provides data on your learning gain questions but sorts by organisation type.
  • Individual Responses - this report allows you to view all responses submitted for each evaluation stage. The report is broken down into evaluation stages, allowing you to deep-dive into each stage to view all individual responses
  • Qualitative Form Report - this report allows you to view each individual evaluation sorted by each occurrence of your event. You are then able to see the delegates booked, who attended, and view all response across each stage of your evaluation process

'Happy Sheet' Evaluations

A 'happy sheet' evaluation is the default evaluation built into the LMS as standard, and when an evaluation is required for an event, this will be sent to delegates when no custom-made evaluation has been built.

It asks a number of questions designed to still provide useful feedback and data, whilst still remaining generic:

If you haven’t set up a bespoke evaluation and an evaluation is required for your event they will automatically have the default questions listed above before they can receive their certificate. To be able to view these responses on your left-hand menu you will need to select Reports > Evaluation Reports.

You will then have the option to filter by Event, Event Group, Occurrence Date and Occurrence Date to and From. It is also possible to download this evaluations report as a CSV and view it in Excel.

Turning off Evaluations

Not looking to use evaluations for your events? You are able to turn them off either globally, or on an event-by-event basis:

Turning off Evaluations globally

Select Site Settings on the Left-Hand Menu > Evaluations Active to Delegate and untick the box:

Turning off Evaluation per event

To remove evaluations per event you will need to make sure no custom evaluation has been made for this course.

When filling in details for your event under Other Event Settings you will need to make sure Evaluation Required is not ticked:

Please note, if a custom evaluation has been set already irrespective of whether Evaluation Required has been ticked it will still show an evaluation.

Still looking for further information? Email our Support Helpdesk on support@phew.org.uk