Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The surrogate in such a case is a Skill Demonstration
Assessment (SDA), where the trainee independently performs
the task(s) on relevant equipment outside of the real work
setting - off-hours, on placebo batches, during production
shutdowns, etc.
Turning next to the core concept “task completion,” there
are situations where the process cannot be broken into
discrete tasks, or is for some reason inaccessible. Consider,
for example, equipment that has a biennial preventive
maintenance schedule. That equipment may not be available
for the training of mechanics for more than a year. In such a
case, another kind of proxy must suffi ce. That is a Knowledge
Transfer Assessment (KTA). A KTA is a paper-and-pencil test
that predicts performance on-the-job. If task completion or
non-completion can be correlated with a test score, so that
high scores correlate with task completion and low scores
correlate with non-completion, then the KTA is validated,
and performance on-the-job can be predicted from trainee
performance on the KTA.
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If the KTA has not been validated, it can still prove useful
as an interactive element within the courseware itself. It can
take the form of “study questions,” providing guidance to
trainers as they interact with trainees in facilitating the
course. Perhaps, needless to say, in this form the questions
are not part of any assessment.
We have not included Donald Kirkpatrick's Level l, the
“trainee reaction” measure,
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in our list of assessments for
several reasons. First, there is no evidence that a trainee's
appreciation of - or affective response to - a training event
correlates with the trainee's task performance.
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Thus the
trainee reaction is not a surrogate for performance. Second,
if an assessment of the utility of the training content or
materials is needed, a review of the module during the pilot
implementation, by the training and development peers, will
