If we are doing Level 1 evaluations (and why are so many organizations doing training and not bothering to even start with a Level 1???) then we are all familiar with the use of the Likert scale for lots of simple evaluations.
I was lucky enough to attend a couple of sessions taught by Ken Phillips one of the lesser known masters of the evaluation world and have redesigned my Level 1's as a result.
Ken points out that if you give people a 5 point Likert scale you are almost guaranteeing scores very heavily weighted at 4/5.
People don't like to give a perfect score and that is probably valid. Very little in this world in Perfect.
But if it's better than 'average' then the only other choice on a 5 point scale is a 4. How little differentiation is there between something hat was just a little better than average and something that was nearly perfect.
So push to a 7 point scale. Or maybe a 9 point one if you can manage it.
Standard good practice in the evaluation world.
So why do SO many tools only allow you scales of 1-5?
I'm looking at LMSs for my client and many have built in evaluation tools and so many of them only allow 1-5 scales. The same is true in Captivate.
It's time the tool set for L&D Professionals caught up with our needs.
OK Rant over.
Happy learning.
