Manual on Staff Development in the Public Service

7.1         Concepts for Evaluation of Training Programmes          

7.1.1      Evaluation is an integral feature of training as it serves to compare objectives with effects and to analyse how far training has achieved its purpose.   It enables the department to decide whether or not the training was worthwhile in cost-benefit terms and what improvements are required to make it even more cost-effective.   Evaluation of training programmes is difficult because it is often hard to set measurable objectives and collect valid information on the results achieved.  Still, this is a very important exercise which an organisation has to complete in order to ensure that training programmes have contributed to a higher level of effectiveness, responsibility and expertise in the work force.

7.1.2      There are a number of levels at which evaluation can take place.  These include:

            Reactions.  The reactions of trainees to the training experience itself; how beneficial this experience has been; what they think of individual sessions and speakers; what they would like to include and leave out.

            Learning.  Evaluation at the learning level requires the measurement of what trainees have learned as a result of their training, the new knowledge and skills they have acquired or the changes in attitude that have taken place.  This should occur immediately after the training programme has been completed.

            Job Transfer.  Here evaluation attempts to measure the extent to which trainees have applied their learning in their day-to-day work.  This constitutes an assessment of the level of transfer of learning that has taken place from an off the job training to the job itself.

            Results.  This helps to measure the effect of changes in the job behaviour of trainees on the functioning of the section where they are deployed and the department, in general.  An assessment might be made in regard to improvements in individual output, quality of work, staff morale, level of responsibility etc.

7.1.3      Evaluation of training shows how the organisation as a whole and the individual employee have benefited from the training programme.  It would define whether the goals set down at the initial planning phase of the programme have been achieved.  Further information on training evaluation may be obtained in the Training Guidelines.

7.2         Submission of Reports on Training Programmes

7.2.1      Officers who proceed abroad for study purposes are required to submit to their employing department a report on the course, seminar, symposium or attachment, immediately on their return to Malta.  The report should cover the following aspects, besides other aspects which officers consider as being important:

  a)   details of the course attended;

  b)   teaching methods adopted;

  c)   degree of participation by officers;

  d)   assessment of relevance to officers’ duties;

  e)  benefit which has been derived by the Public Service;

                          f)    possible application of knowledge and/or experience gained in the                     departments in which the officers are serving, and/or in the service generally.

            7.2.2      One copy of the report is to be forwarded to the SDO at the Office of the Prime Minister.   Where a report contains information or suggestions which are of interest to other departments or organisations, a copy of the report should also be sent for the information of these departments/organisations.

7.2.3      Officers who undertake distance learning programmes or who spend some time on secondment overseas are also required to submit reports as indicated above.

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