258 — Are learner surveys a waste of time?

'What did you think of the trainer' and 'How was the lunch?' These are two questions we won't be asking today, as we get stuck into effective learner surveys.

Ross G and Owen are joined by Gent Ahmetaj, Head of Research at Mind Tools for Business, to discuss:

• the problem with traditional learner surveys
• the features of an academically robust survey
• issues with this approach and how to resolve them.

Show notes

For more details on our Insights team, and a delightful photo of Gent, see: https://emeraldworks.com/solutions/mindtoolsinsight

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed The Oatmeal's 'Why the mantis shrimp is my new favorite animal' and 'Why it breaks your brain to take a compliment'.

Gent discussed Veritasium's YouTube video on the '3x + 1' problem: youtube.com/watch?v=094y1Z2wpJg

And Ross discussed the time that the Australian army went to war with the emus, and lost: blogs.scientificamerican.com/running-ponies/the-great-emu-war-in-which-some-large-flightless-birds-unwittingly-foiled-the-australian-army/ 

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit emeraldworks.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerEW
• Owen Ferugson - @OwenFerguson
• Gent Ahmetaj - @GentAhmetaj