Training Needs Assessment—Better Long or Short?

Many learning and development practitioners struggle with determining the right training assessment length when trying to identify development priorities and skill gaps.  Should training assessments be long or short? It depends upon whom you ask. 

Training survey experts will often recommend longer surveys because they understand that the more questions asked, the more information received. And that data, when thoughtfully analyzed, can drive toward the specific actions required to improve business results. They have a point.  You do need to gather enough data to get meaningful and valid results.

But employees and their managers will often vote for shorter surveys. Employees’ and their bosses are rightfully concerned about the amount of time required to take the assessment compared to the perceived value of all the other work they have on their plates. 

The question is whether or not their worries about time are valid enough to offset the value of gathering potentially richer data.  Our research shows that, designed correctly, it takes about the same length of time to answer 40-50 questions as it does to answer 20 questions. 

So as long as all of the questions are valid, relevant and will provide action-oriented data, don’t worry too much about surveys that approach 50 questions.  In fact, longer surveys often provide enough breadth and variety of questions to allow employees to become more engaged in the opportunity to make their voices heard. 

The bottom line - as long each question is necessary and the analytics and reporting functions are handled automatically, training needs assessments of up to 50 questions are perfectly reasonable.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/training-needs-assessment/