A study of accounting for differences in employees' summative end -of -course evaluations
Abstract
This research explored what accounts for the differences in reactionary summative end-of-course (EOC) evaluation ratings in a business environment. A homogenous convenience sample of employees (n = 55) from LifeWay Christian Resources, a publishing house in Nashville, Tennessee, participated in corporately sponsored seminars. The purpose of this study was to enable seminar instructors to know how to improve seminar instruction given the differences of employees with respect to learning style, years employed, job classification, frequency of seminar attendance, gender, degree of matching the instructor's learning style, and the comparison of the pre-seminar expectation survey (PES) ratings and the EOC ratings. Learning styles were assessed using the Learning Style Inventory designed by Kolb (1985). Overall, there were few significant differences found in assessing the relationship between reactionary summative EOC evaluation ratings and the respective independent variables. Seventeen of the 140 statistical tests found significant differences. There were significant differences among the learning styles regarding how the instructors managed the seminar time. Employees differed significantly, in how they perceived being allowed to participate. These differences were observed among learning styles, years employed, and in the comparison of PES and EOC ratings. Professionals perceived management's support of seminar ideas significantly different from other employee groups. Males and frequency of seminar attendance had an affect on how the use of support media was selected and used. Eight of the seventeen significant differences were found in the comparison of the PES and the EOC evaluation ratings. Overall, trainers for LifeWay Christian Resources have few instructional elements to modify based on the findings of this study. Additional research should be conducted in the areas of selecting and using media, clarifying what is considered management support, and investigating what employees consider as participating in a seminar. All of the instruments along with the reliability and validity ratings are included.
Subject Area
Curriculum development|Adult education|Business education|Continuing education
Recommended Citation
John David Tiller,
"A study of accounting for differences in employees' summative end -of -course evaluations"
(2000).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI3007579.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI3007579