Training surveys explained: questions, examples, and tips

Our world is rapidly changing alongside new technologies, globalization, and breakthroughs in all fields of study, which makes training and continuing education becomes more of a priority than ever before.

Most people have taken some form of knowledge and skills training in their lifetimes. For example, new employees attend new hire training so they can acquire the skills they need to navigate their new workplace. Your job function may require you to take additional training to learn a new skill. Or, perhaps you’re just taking a short training to refresh your skills for a certification. 

Training differs vastly from a traditional course of study, as participants and students expect to see improvements in their abilities almost immediately after a training session. A client in a physical fitness program, a student in a sales training course, or a participant in a Yoga program will discontinue their attendance if they do not see progress.No matter the use case, everyone being trained wants to utilize their skills as soon as possible.

Questionnaires and quizzes are a indispensable tools for training professionals, especially when you use them with models for assessing training effectiveness. You can apply the feedback you gather through surveys to evaluate training programs, course offerings and instructors; target specific skills development for individuals or groups; and plan focused training for any field or area of instruction.

Training surveys are an essential part of your training program. Gathering feedback from participants in pre-training and post-training helps you measure the effectiveness of your sessions and identify areas for improvement. You can also use the data to improve future training.

Pre-training surveys can measure existing knowledge of the participants, or help manage expectations for the training sessions if used before them. The survey data can help you plan that training material and help with implementation.

Post-training surveys help you see if your training sessions met expectations, provided value to participants, and whether it was effective overall.

Pre-training survey questions assist you in gathering information on running successful training sessions. You’ll find out:

Demographics help you understand your audience, their available time commitment, and their place in your organization. It is unnecessary to ask intrusive demographic questions such as ethnicity, gender identification, or age unless it is somehow relevant to the subject of the training. Learn more about demographic surveys.

With this information, you can structure your training appropriately to effectively meet the needs of your group.

Post-training surveys measure the outcomes of your training sessions. You can find out if you fulfilled your training goals and use the data to inform your next training. With a post-training survey, you’ll discover:

If a particular training is not well-attended or positively rated by attendees, evaluate whether it is a necessary part of your training schedule. Popular training can be updated and offered more regularly.

This is a good indicator of the most informative and effective trainers. This should be your impetus to find out what they do differently than other instructors so you can offer feedback and improvement opportunities to all trainers.

Was there anything that prevented the group from being fully engaged in the training? Identify barriers and strategies to overcome them.

Analyzing your data should reveal what improvements you can make to your future training sessions to make them more informative, effective, and attractive to attendees.

Ask post-training knowledge questions to assess whether participants acquired the knowledge or skills that were identified in your training goals.

Analyzing your post-survey data will offer valuable insights into planning future training sessions.

To obtain a thorough understanding of the impact of your training, try breaking your survey down into 3 stages:

Use surveys to explore what training to offer, the effectiveness of the training you’re delivering, and whether students feel they are acquiring the skills they desire.

Pre-training skills assessments should be run before training sessions. This will establish what your participants already know, their expectations for the training, and any learning needs and preferences. This information can be used to determine how you run the training, information delivery methods, and content.

Post-training skills assessments should be given as soon as possible—no more than 24 hours—after the training to collect feedback while the training is fresh in participants’ minds. The data from this survey can be used to find out learner satisfaction and experience with the training. Our training course evaluation template is a great place to start.

Compare data from pre- and post-training skills assessments to assess learning gains from your training.

Poll individuals at the outset of a longer training program to baseline where they are in relation to their goals. Chart their progress: Throughout training, ask students to assess their progress. Deliver your survey on mobile devices in the training environment for near real-time feedback or on social media to broadcast their achievements to their network.

Find out if the training you’re delivering is engaging and effective. Are you meeting the expectations of participants? Are they getting the instruction or information they thought they would? Use this feedback for continuous improvement.

Two trainers might deliver the same course material quite differently—and that diversity allows you to attract more students. Still, you want to know that all trainers are capably delivering training. Use surveys to gather students’ opinions of teacher effectiveness.

Get a start on your instructor evaluations with our course evaluation survey template and our university instructor evaluation survey template. Take a look at our education surveys  for other ways to lead assessments. 

What do students or employees think of your organization’s job training and development programs? Do offerings support their career goals and ambitions? What education programs do they need to meet their objectives?

Find out if your company is providing ample training for employees to learn and grow on the job. Use our career development survey template as a starting point to determine whether you are helping employees reach their full potential.

Could seniors in your community use a hands-on technology course? Are newbie parents interested in parenting classes? Use surveys in your community, workplace, healthcare or fitness organization to plan classes and training that will benefit your residents, employees, patients or clients. Test potential offerings using SurveyMonkey Audience, which gives you access to millions of respondents similar to your target audiences.

Check out our guides on how to create and conduct surveys; here are a few other suggestions for getting people to complete your surveys.

If your survey is short and sweet, there’s a greater chance more respondents will complete it.

Give people the opportunity to give you additional thoughts and other feedback by choosing from the multiple question types including some open-ended questions with text boxes for unstructured responses.

Don’t use corporate-speak or language that’s stuffy or highly technical. Keep your tone conversational.

Avoid respondent boredom by offering a wide variety of question styles. Be sure to include some open-ended questions for personalized answers and unstructured feedback. 

Send your survey to some colleagues to test for glitches or questions that require clarification. Fix any issues before sending the survey to your list of respondents.

We’ve put together some examples of training survey questions to highlight some of the types of information you can collect.

As you recall, pre-training questions establish existing knowledge and expectations for the training session. 

As an example, if your seminar included training about SMART goals, a pre-training question can tell you what the participants already know.

What does SMART stand for in terms of goal-setting?

Use a comment box for participants to offer answers in their own words rather than choosing from a pre-populated list. 

What are you hoping to learn from this training?

Use survey questions to determine whether your participants have any accessibility needs for your training, so you can make any preparations.

Do you have all the tools you need to participate in the training?

During your training, use surveys to ensure you’re meeting participants’ needs and expectations.

Check to see if your content is working by giving a short survey between sessions or lessons.

The training content met my expectations.

Determine whether the training structure is in line with what participants wanted.

On a scale of 0-10, 0 being terrible and 10 being fantastic, how well was the training structured?

Get feedback on the training’s presentation, including if the instructor was engaging.

How engaging was your instructor?

Not engaging at all | Extremely engaging

Find out if the training was too long, too short, or just right for participants.

How satisfied were you with the length of the training course?

During the training, find out if the provided technology or materials worked well for participants.

Was the learning platform easy to navigate?

After the training is completed, post-training surveys will help you gather actionable feedback to use in planning future sessions.

Returning to our pre-training example, if you covered SMART goals in your training, you can find out if participants were engaged and can remember the content.

What does the M in SMART goals stand for?

Find out if your participants’ preferences about supplemental materials.

Would you have liked to receive course materials in print rather than online?

This is another question that examines the trainer’s presentation techniques.

Was the course content presented clearly?

You can plan the details of future training sessions based on answers to these types of questions.

How did the training content meet or not meet your expectations?

The list of potential training topics is endless. SurveyMonkey offers many surveys that can be used as-is or customized to cover many areas of training. Here are a few templates you might use with individuals, community residents, students and their parents, and employees.

What do your customers think of their experience with your business or customer service representatives? Use this feedback to explore potential areas of customer-service training for employees.

Preview template

Find out how parents support students’ learning at home or engage with their children’s teachers. Use this feedback to develop training that helps parents guide their children to develop good study habits, handle problems or challenges at school, or achieve specific learning goals.

Preview template

Ask students for their feedback on a teaching assistant’s course. Use this information to develop general training for teaching assistants across the university, or specific training for those in a particular department or group.

Preview template

Identify opportunities for improving both the hard and soft skill sets of employees and managers. Ask managers to assess key aspects of employee performance, and request employees’ feedback on the corporate management team. Use this feedback to shape your workplace training offerings.

Preview template

Survey management teams about the key capabilities of their departments or teams to pinpoint areas for training to improve skill levels and professionalism, good communication, and positive client or customer interactions.

Preview template

SurveyMonkey has 150+ survey templates, written by experts, to help you will all of your survey needs. See how SurveyMonkey can power your curiosity.