Lambda Solutions' Top Takeaways from ATD 2018 (Day One)

Team Zoola Analytics is busy connecting with delegates in San Diego for the ATD International Conference & Exposition at stand #1027 in the Totara exhibition area. Our VP of Product, Stewart Rogers and CEO Shevy Levy are reporting back to HQ from the conference. Read on for their top learnings from the conference.

ATD 2018: Day One

Keynote Speaker: Barack Obama

No introduction for this speaker is needed here! Here are the key takeaways from President Obama’s keynote speech from our CEO, Shevy Levy:

Seeing Barack Obama in person for sure made it for us and clearly the former popular President is sorely missed! The line-ups were the biggest I have ever seen but it was well worth the wait. Over 10,000 people in the large hall cheered and hugged him from a distance (we could see him clearly on the huge screens). We all miss him and he started his talk by saying he also missed us :) Obama is one of us. He leads by inspiring, by sharing, by listening, by making mistakes, by being honest, by living with facts. He stated that the only way for us to lead, is to learn from information gathered, and choosing the BEST solution, not the only one. True to form is this gifted man’s incredible sense of humour: “It is sunny in San Diego, do you have on the ATD program any sessions on surfing?”

Tracks: Learning Measurement & Analytics - Getting Radically Improved Data From Learner Evaluations

Will Thalheimer, President of Work-Learning Research, Inc. discusses a radical new method for smile-sheet questions that can used to build improved learner-feedback questions, based on his award-winning book. This session is perfect for anyone doing online learning as it enables the option (or should enable the option) to collect course feedback and use analytics to identify opportunities to improve.

Key Takeaways:

• Learning evaluation is HOT again! Smile sheets, surveys, NPS, Kirkpatrick are some of the buzzwords related to evaluation.
• The key is to gather good data and common learning evaluation methods include observations, assessments, interviews, control groups and surveys.
• Will asked the audience this question: “How many in the audience think they are doing "beautiful" learning evaluations? Zero people raised their hand!
• Towards Maturity did a survey in 2017 and found that 97% want to improve the way they gather and analyze data for learning evaluations.
• Ends up that Kirkpatrick did not invent the 4-level learning evaluation model, Raymond Katzell did. However, the 4 levels were first published in 1956 in an article written by Kirkpatrick.
• Research suggests that Likert-like scales provide very weak correlation to the quality of your course and therefore are measure uses to determine quality.
• Always close your evaluation feedback surveys with open ended question to collect comments.
• Three goals in collecting evaluation data: 1) are the questions well designed? 2) are we asking questions that support the Learners? 3) is the data we collect actionable?
• You can obtain more “stuff from Will” and learn more about the Learning-Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM).

Stewart’s take on this session: L&D professionals should be continuously evaluating their courses, AND continuously reviewing the evaluation data they are using and how they are collecting that data for their courses. Are you confident your evaluations are giving you accurate and actionable data? 97% of peers suggest they are not.

Stay tuned as we continue to report our key learnings from ATD2018!