Training survey questions: 29 ideas to kickstart your learner feedback process
Jacob Turner September 30th, 2024
Recently updated on October 2nd, 2024
Improving the training you offer is an ongoing process that relies heavily on measuring and implementing learner feedback. To get this learner feedback, you should be running post-training surveys after every course you run that contain targeted, specific questions to help you get the feedback you’re looking for.
This could be feedback on the overall effectiveness of a course, its delivery, practicality, how effective learners found the instructor to be, their sign-up experience, or any other area that you feel is important to get learner feedback on.
Sometimes though brainstorming a list of questions can be tricky, so that’s why we’ve compiled this collection of 29 training evaluation questions that you can include in your surveys. The collection contains questions you can ask to get learner feedback on the content of a course, the effectiveness of the instructor they were taught by, their overall feelings towards the course, and more.
By the end, you’ll have a nice selection of questions to start trying out.
What kind of questions should a training survey include?
The beauty of running regular training or course surveys is that you can customize them to include targeted questions that provide insights into various course-related areas. For example, if you’re just starting to gather feedback from your learners, you might want to begin with more general questions, such as:
How well did the training meet your overall expectations?
Which parts of the training did you find most valuable, and why?
Did you find the training easy to find and sign up for?
Gathering general insights is a great starting point and should provide you with actionable feedback and data that you can implement. However, as you receive more responses and conduct more surveys, you may find more specific areas of your training programs that you want to get feedback on.
Some of these more specific areas include:
Content relevance and depth -You may want to assess whether the content aligns with the learners’ needs and if it is presented at the appropriate depth
Instructor effectiveness – Understanding the impact of the instructor can provide insights into how to improve training delivery.
Learning materials and resources: You may want to drilling into questions that help you evaluate the quality and usefulness of the training materials provided, including whether they are helpful and easy to understand, as well as the effectiveness of any additional resources such as readings and videos. As part of this, you could also ask questions that assess whether your learners feel they can/or will applelearners can apply what they’ve learned in their work.
We’ll explore example questions you can ask that cover all of these areas below. Hopefully, you’re beginning to see that regularly surveying your learners can provide valuable insights into how they feel about every part of the course you are running.
Questions to ask to get feedback on your training content
The first set of example questions are aimed at helping you get feedback on how your learners felt about the content within a session a course:
1. How relevant was the training content to your job?
A specific question to start with, but a lot of the training you deliver will be aimed at helping learners improve upskill or improve at a certain part of their job.
Asking them if the training content on the whole was relevant will help you start to get an understanding of whether your content is hitting the mark. You can either ask for written responses or ask them to rate relevance on a 1-10 scale.
If you get insightful feedback to this question you can then get more granular and drill into specifics. For example, if you were instructing a course on project management, you might follow up with questions like:
Which specific topics or modules did you find most relevant to your current responsibilities?
Were there any topics that you felt were not applicable to your role? If so, please specify.
2. Was the training material clear and understandable?
In instructor-led training sessions, participants rely heavily on you or your instructors trainer’s ability to explain complex ideas clearly. If the content is confusing or poorly explained, attendees might struggle to grasp key concepts, which can defeat the purpose of the training.
This question will help you identify specific parts of the course that may need improvement. For example, if multiple participants flag a particular module as unclear, the trainer can revise that section, perhaps by using different examples or simplifying the language your using.
3. Did the content meet your expectations?
This question is important for assessing whether the training session or course aligns with both your learners’ expectations and the objectives you’ve communicated beforehand. By evaluating responses, you can determine if the course content fulfills what participants anticipated, as well as the goals outlined in the course description and pre-course learning objectives.
If you’ve clearly articulated what participants should expect from the training, it’s important to monitor whether they feel those expectations are being met.
4. How well was the training organized?
The organization of an instructor-led training session impacts how effectively the content you’re delivering conveyed and how well leaners retain it. If participants feel that the topics you presented were disjointed, it can lead to confusion and disengagement.
Feedback on organization and the flow of your sessions will help you pinpoint whether you need to set a clearer training session agenda or have better transitions between sections, to improve the flow of information.
5. Were the examples used in the training helpful?
Including relevant, real-world examples in your training helps make concepts tangible. If learners find the examples you’re using irrelevant or confusing, it will detract from their understanding.
To avoid this kind of feedback spend some time before a training course making sure that any examples, or case studies you’re using are tailored to your audience. For example, let’s say you’re teaching a course on effective communication to a group of customer service representatives from a tech company. Instead of using generic examples, you might:
Use sample customer emails that reflect common issues with the company’s products
Role-play phone conversations dealing with specific software bugs or hardware failures
Demonstrate how to explain complex technical concepts in simple terms using the company’s actual product features
Show examples of successful and unsuccessful social media interactions from the company’s own channels.
If you’ve gone through the process of including relevant examples in a course then feedback to this question can help you assess whether the examples are resonating with learners, or whether they need tweaking.
6. Did you find the topics covered to be comprehensive?
The aim of this question is to get an understanding of whether your participants felt that all necessary aspects of a subject were addressed during a session.
It can help you understand whether learners feel certain topics were overlooked, or whether the session covered them adequately. Identifying and understanding any gaps will help you instructors to expand or adjust course content for future iterations.
7. Were there any topics you feel should have been included?
An open-ended question like this invites your participants to share insights into additional areas of interest or necessity that may not have been covered during training. Such feedback can reveal emerging trends or skills that learners believe are essential for their roles, allowing instructors to evolve course offerings in response to learner needs.
For example, let’s say you’re teaching a course on digital marketing to a group of small business owners. In response to this question, several participants mention that they would have liked more information on using TikTok for marketing.
They explain that while the training covered Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, TikTok is becoming increasingly important for reaching younger customers, which is a key demographic for many of their businesses. The feedback provides you with valuable insights into an emerging platform and a concrete example for updating and improving your course content.
8. How well did the training align with your learning objectives?
Ideally, you should have clearly communicated the learning objectives to your participants at the start of the training. Assuming you’ve done this, this question helps you gauge whether you’ve delivered on those promise.
For example, if you stated that participants would learn techniques for creating effective sales presentations and you get feedback that participants felt equipped with practical skills and strategies to do just this after taking the course or session then you know you’re training is on the right track.
Questions to gauge the effectiveness of an instructor
If you can sprinkle in a few instructor related questions into your surveys, then do so, they should give you a good sense check of how your learners are feeling about the instructor who delivered the course/session, and their strengths/weaknesses.
Here are a few you can use:
9. How would you rate the instructor’s knowledge of the subject?
A direct question that will help give you insights into whether as an instructor you need to brush up on certain areas. For example, if participants consistently rate your knowledge as average in a particular module, it might be time to do some extra research or bring in an expert to co-teach that section.
10. Was the instructor engaging and interactive?
You should aim to make every training session you deliver is engaging. By engaging, we mean that a training session should ensure that participants enjoy the session, remain motivated throughout, and delegates’ learning needs are met so they can feel confident about the subject and implementation of their new knowledge and skills.
Asking this kind of question will help you understand if your training is delivering in these aspects, and hopefully give you some actionable feedback. For example, you might get feedback that participants felt there were too many slides within a training session, and from this feedback you could start planning to incorporate more group discussions or hands-on exercises within the session.
11. Did the instructor encourage questions and participation?
A successful instructor-led training session should be a two way street, meaning that instructors are delivering the session effectively, but also creating an environment where participants are encouraged and feel comfortable to ask questions throughout the session.
There are loads of different ways this can be done, such as:
Use case studies, examples and real-world scenarios, and ask participants how they would handle these situations, prompting discussion and questions.
After presenting a key point, ask participants to think about it for a moment, then pair up with a neighbor to discuss their thoughts before sharing with the larger group. This encourages participation and helps quieter individuals find their voice.
When participants ask questions or contribute, acknowledge their input enthusiastically. Phrases like “Great question!” or “That’s an interesting perspective!” can motivate others to engage as well.
The feedback you receive on this question will help you understand whether your learners felt comfortable asking questions and participating during the session.
12. How effective was the instructor in explaining concepts?
This question is important to include in a training evaluation survey because it helps determine whether participants are grasping the material and applying it effectively, which is key to successful learning outcomes.
If feedback suggests that learners feel the explanations could be clearer, an effective approach for instructors is to utilize learning techniques like the “learn, practice, apply” methodology, which encourages active engagement with the material.
When working with small groups or one-on-one, you can use learning techniques like the “learn, practice, apply” methodology. This approach focuses on getting learners to actively practice and apply what they’re learning.
Scott D’Amico, President of Communispond, recently shared his approach to using this concept during a recent webinar with Arlo. In his executive presentation skills training program, Scott asks each participant to bring a real-world example that will be the example they use in the training to apply the skills they learn to, such as:
A presentation they frequently deliver
An upcoming meeting they’re preparing for
An important email they need to send
During the session, Scott uses in-the-moment coaching to help his learners implement what they are learning ‘in-the moment’. This involves providing immediate feedback and guidance as participants practice their skills, rather than waiting until after they’ve finished.
Scott illustrates this point with an example of a technique he uses when he asks a learner participating in his executive presentation skills program to present in front of a group:
“If a participant is about to present and I notice they have their hands in their pockets, are shifting nervously, or mumbling, I’ll stop them right there. I’ll remind them of the techniques we’ve learned and ask them to start again, applying those skills. This immediate practice helps reinforce the right behaviors and allows participants to experience the difference in real-time.”Scott D’Amico, President, Communispond.
13. Did the instructor provide helpful feedback?
This question looks at whether learners felt that the feedback given by the instructor for improving their learning. To increase your chances of getting positive responses to this question try and ensure that the feedback your giving learners is specific, and full of examples of how they can implement the feedback, and impact it will have.
The best feedback gives a learner ideas for how to improve, and comes at the right time to make a difference.
A couple of tips that can help you do this are:
Use the “feedback sandwich – Start by pointing out something you did well, then give a suggestion for improvement, and end on an encouraging note. For example, “Your presentation was clear and well-organized. To make it even better, try making more eye contact with the audience. Overall, you’re really improving your presentation skills.”
Always be as specific as possible – Like we just said try and be specific and use examples in your feedback. Instead of using vague praise like “Good job,” offer detailed comments that highlight what the learner did well and provide suggestions for improvement. For example, you could say, “Your explanation of the sales process was clear. To improve it further, consider adding a brief example for each step to help illustrate your points.”
14. How approachable was the instructor during the training?
This question aims to get a sense of whether a learn felt they were able to ask the instructor questions or anything else within the session, and whether the instructor had created an environment which was conducive for learners to get the clarity they need for anything they’re unsure about.
An effective way of creating a comfortable environment for learners, and help them relate to you is to open up about your own learning experiences or challenges related to the topic being discussed. Sharing a relevant story where you struggled or had questions can humanize you as an instructor and encourage learners to feel more comfortable sharing their own uncertainties.
15. Was the instructor’s teaching style effective for your learning?
Your leaners will have a variety of learning styles, and the training you run should be set-up, designed and delivered to suit auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learners. If you’ve done this then responses to this question should be positive.
If the answers aren’t quite what you expect then it should at least give you insights into how you can your training to better meet learning styles.
16. How satisfied were you with the instructor overall?
This final instructor related question is aimed at getting a sense of how learners felt about the instructor overall.
How you lay out this question is up to you. You may just want to include a simple 1-10 rating to get this feedback, or you can insert a comment box where participants can leave their feedback.
Of course, questions like this are subjective but if your reply rates are good it should at least give you a sense for how learners are feeling about the instructor.
Questions focused on the experience of learners
These questions focus on what your learners gained from the training. Ideally, you want to be in a position where your learners are applying what they learned in your training to their day-to-day roles, and they’re informing you about it, and the questions you ask should prompt this feedback:
17. How satisfied were you with the balance between theory and practice?
Many training sessions fall flat because they either focus too much on theory and not enough on practice, or they are, quite frankly, dull. Often, from an instructor-led perspective, this means the instructor is sitting at the front of the class, talking at the participants from a PowerPoint presentation.
To avoid this, aim to include as many practical elements as possible, such as role-playing exercises, group discussions, case studies, and hands-on workshops. If you’ve done this, then this question will help you gauge whether your learners are satisfied with the practical elements included in the training or if they want more.
If you haven’t incorporated many practical elements into your training, the answers to this question will help you understand whether your learners desire more practicality and potentially what specific practical elements they would find useful. This is especially true if you follow up by asking your participants for examples of what practical elements would be beneficial to them.
18. How likely are you to apply what you learned in your job?
If you’re delivering training that helps professionals in their day to day role then this question is an acid test of whether the skills you’re equipping your learners are going to be applied, or if they’re just going to be sitting as theory in a participants head.
If you find that your learners feel that they may not implement the skills in their role, then you can follow up to find out what they mean more specifically, and use this information to tweak your content.
19. Do you feel more confident in your skills after the training?
Similar to the previous question, this question should give you an idea of the practical effectiveness of your training. If your training is aimed at improving specific skills, you can list those skills within the question to obtain more precise answers.
20. How relevant were the case studies or examples to your work?
This is a key question to monitor feedback for, and as we’ve mentioned a few times throughout this guide you want to make sure the case studies and examples are tailored to the group/organization you are delivering the training to.
It can take some time to customize examples, but its worth doing, the more relatable and specific they are to your learners specific situation the more impactful and memorable the training will be.
For example, imagine one of your clients is a healthcare organization facing the problem of low patient satisfaction scores. Patients frequently report feeling rushed during appointments and unclear about their treatment plans.
In your training session, you could present a case study about a clinic that improved patient satisfaction by implementing a new communication strategy. This included:
Extended Appointment Times: Allowing more time for each patient to discuss their concerns.
Follow-Up Calls: Nurses called patients after appointments to clarify any questions about their treatment plans.
Patient Feedback Surveys: Regularly collecting feedback to identify areas for improvement.
By sharing this case study, you help participants see how these tailored strategies directly relate to their own challenges, making the training more relevant and actionable.
While this example may not perfectly align with the specific clients you train, the key takeaway is that case studies and examples should always be relevant to a specific situation a learner is currently facing or may face in their line of work.
21. Are there any specific skills you plan to implement immediately?
Answers to this question can help you make decisions about which parts of your training to prioritize and how to structure your sessions.
If feedback indicates that multiple learners are successfully implementing a specific skill, you may want to spend more time on it. Conversely, if there are specific skills that learners need to take away from the training and apply, but feedback suggests they aren’t, you might consider tweaking the course structure to spend more time focusing on teaching that specific skill.
22. Do you believe the training will positively impact your professional performance?
This question gauges whether participants see the training as beneficial for their jobs. If they respond positively, it indicates that the training is relevant and engaging. If not, it suggests a disconnect between the training content and their actual needs or challenges. If you can get specific answers to this question, it will provide tangible ways to improve your training.
To encourage more detailed responses, you can tweak the question to something like, “Do you believe the training will positively impact your professional performance? If so, in what ways? If not, how could the training be improved to better impact your professional performance?”
Questions around the logistics of the training and administration
Questions around the logistical aspects of your training, and registrant experience should give you insights things like whether you’ve picked the right, location whether it was easy for registrants to sign-up for the course they wanted to, and
23. How convenient was the training location?
This question will only really be relevant for in-person training classes, and you may need to take the answers with a pinch of salt, as invariably the location will be more convenient for some learners than for others.
That being said, if you notice a strong theme in the answers, e.g., “the location was great” or “the location could have been more centrally located,” then you’ll have some feedback to potentially implement.
24. Was the registration process easy and efficient?
A smooth registration process can be the difference between a participants signing up for one of your courses or not. This process starts as soon a user lands on your website. Your training website should focus on user experience first, by that we mean it should load quickly, it should be easy for a user to navigate to your course overview pages.
Within the registration form itself try and not overwhelm the user with more fields than are necessary. Capture the information you need, provide various payment options for the user, clearly display wither the course is free or paid, and allow them to sign up for multiple courses at a time.
25. Did you receive timely communication regarding the training?
Registrants should, of course, be aware of any changes made to the course they’ve signed up for. At Arlo, we’ve found that the most important communications to set up are:
Course registration and payment confirmation emails
Course detail emails that contain essential information, e.g., location, duration, date, etc.
Reminders and emails notifying registrants of any course changes, e.g., a date or time change
Specific notification emails regarding waitlists and availability. For example, if a registrant is on the waitlist for a course that is full, they should receive an automatic email if a space becomes available.
You can see an example of what a course registration reminder email from Arlo looks like below.
Setting up and sending these emails can be an administrative headache if you’re doing it manually, particularly if you’re setting up custom emails for every course you run.
A dedicated training management platform like Arlo makes this process easier. When you go to schedule a course you’ll have access to a range of email templates that you can use to automate the delivery professional and timely emails across the entire learner journey, these include:
Course registration emails
Course payment emails
Reminders
Pre and post-course surveys
Course completion certificates
Notification emails for things like waitlists and more.
Each email can be branded and customized to contain the information you need it to, and set up to send automatically when a certain event occurs e.g. a new registration is made.
26. Was the size of the training group appropriate?
The ‘right’ size for a course or training group is often subjective and will really depend on the subject matter of the course. If you’re running a course teaching a group a specific skill or qualification, you’ll likely find that smaller group sizes work better, as they allow for more individual attention.
Of course, if you’re not in a position to put on smaller class sizes, you can always look at ways to break up large groups into smaller groups within a session. The answers you get to this question should at least give you insights into whether learners feel that the size of your classes is appropriate, or if they think improvements could be made.
Questions around participants overall satisfaction
The final questions in your survey should give participants a chance to share their feelings about the training they’ve just completed as a whole. These can include questions about how likely they are to share your training, whether it met their overall expectations, and if they’re likely to attend future training sessions you host:
27. Would you recommend this training to a colleague?
A simple one, but useful for getting a sense of whether your learners will recommend and refer your training to others.
If you can really hone in on making sure your training is delivering results for your learners, then them sharing and referring others to you, who then sign up for your training, will often start to occur naturally, and it can quickly become your most powerful marketing channel.
28. How likely are you to attend future training sessions?
Feedback to this question should give you an idea if your participants are feeling obligated to attend the training you’re putting on, or whether they are genuinely interested and see value in it. If they’re eager to attend more sessions, it’s a good sign that your training is hitting the mark. Low interest might indicate a need to revamp your content or delivery methods.
29. How well did the training meet your expectations overall?
This final question is worth asking towards the end of a survey. It gives participants a chance to share their overall impression and helps you understand if the training delivered what they hoped for.
Their answers can highlight what worked well and what didn’t, and give you final insights that you can use to make targeted improvements for future sessions.
The technology you need to run training feedback at scale
Of course, running regular training feedback surveys is ideal, but unless you have the right technology in place to set up the survey and schedule it to be sent automatically to registrants upon completing a course, you may end up spending a lot of time manually sending out surveys, responding to feedback, and collating responses.
There are platforms available though available that can streamline these processes so you can automate survey distribution, analyze responses in real time, and gain valuable insights without the administrative burden.
One of these systems is Arlo. Arlo is a training management system that streamlines and automates nearly every process involved with setting up, delivering and reporting on instructor-led training programs.
Arlo integrates with email marketing and customer feedback platforms like SurveyMonkey to make it straightforward to set up and send pre-and post course surveys for the courses you want to get learner feedback for.
You’ll need to have an active SurveyMonkey account to do this, but providing you have (and once you’ve signed up for Arlo) you can navigate to the Settings tab and connect Arlo to Survey Monkey.
When you’ve set up the integration you can choose to set up your surveys within your Arlo or SurveyMonkey account. Once the surveys are set up you can set them to send pre or post course, and they’ll then automatically send at the desired time.
You can learn more about how Arlo and SurveyMonkey work together here, and see a quick 90-second overview of Arlo below to get an idea of what else our all-in-one training platform can do ⬇️
Regular feedback is your ticket to understanding what’s working and what’s not with your training
Regular feedback is your ticket to understanding what’s working and what’s not with your training.
These questions should have given you a good idea of some of the different questions you can start asking your customers to get insights into everything from what their experience is like signing up for your courses, all the way through to when they start implementing what they’ve learnt.
The benefits you’ll enjoy from regularly surveying your learners are:
• More opportunities to improve the quality of your courses: You can make adjustments based on what participants say, leading to better training experiences.
• Increased engagement: When learners see their feedback is valued, they feel more connected and invested in the course.
• Better planning: Insights from surveys help you make informed decisions for future courses, ensuring they meet learner needs effectively.
The result of these benefits? Happier learners, more sign-ups, and a thriving training business with learner feedback at its core.
Jump in and find out how you can automate your learner feedback process with Arlo.
