Is assessing a Trainer during delivery a good option? What are the positive and negative outcomes that may arise in this scenario?

Trainer Assessment is necessary.  If participants do not actually hand in an assessment form there are 2 ways to look at this - either the trainer was uninspiring or the participants weren't fully engaged in the sessions.

I have given soft skills and ethics training in the companies I have worked for in the past and during my years in IT I have often done end user training for the application/solutions we were implementing.  I personally enjoy teaching and was also a substitute teacher to supplement my college days.

The key I find is that first impressions are hard to dispel.  If a trainer is not engaging with the participants in ad hoc Q&As or if the trainer seems to carry an air that they are the only knowledgeable person on the subject in the room, it's very easy to lose the interest of the participants.

Also if a trainer is literally reading off their powerpoint and not able to provide any sort of examples or real life experiences in the material they are presenting, it is easy to lose the attention.  It's like the school teacher who had zero love for geography and went through the lesson reading ad verbatim the textbook and unable to give students who were learning foreign countries any extra information to make the subject interesting.

Sometimes the dynamics of a trainer and the participants becomes more engaged and interactive with the right use of experience, icebreakers, task groups and the feeling of how passionate the trainer is on the subject matter presented.

I am guessing its really a case by case basis.  Thankfully when I have presented sessions both my mentors and the participant feedback have usually been positive, I take the negative feedback as points to reflect on and improve for the next time.  I also make it a point to engage everyone and make eye contact acknowledge good questions, address even the silliest seeming questions because I realise they wouldn't have asked that if there wasn't something behind it.  You get the hecklers in any session the know it alls but good trainers keep their cool and professionalism in addressing and delivery of content.

But trainers should always have an assessment form handed out at the start of a session and to encourage feedback from all participants and to also encourage during breaktimes questions that someone might be feeling nervous to ask in a large group.

Assessing a trainer during delivery is just like assessing the performance of the football team while playing in a live match. Assessing a trainer during delivery is only way to evaluate his style, communication, language, preparation, presentation, physical appearance, handling questions and sticky situations, showing respect, actual knowledge of the topic.

You can find a lot of advantages in assessing the live performance of a trainer. The worst disadvantage that can happen is when a non specialist assesses a trainer during delivery as the assessment will be highly subjective not objective.     

Thanks for invitation,

Yes of course, to be sure that trainees have a positive attitude against the training course and against the trainer himself. 

Assessing a trainer while delivery is one of the crucial ways to asses the ability to deliver and demonstrate his/her understanding on the given module and the skill in terms of how is the content disseminated to the participants.

This activity helps the assessor to point out the trainer's confidence level and his/her knack in ensuring the knowledge transfer to happen in a seamless manner.

Chances are during this process, the trainer might get cautious about he/she being assessed which would eventually hamper the delivery and he/she would not be able to give justice to the main aim of the training program.

What we do, before assigning a training session,we conduct mock session where expert opinion is generated about he potential trainer. It is very necessary to assess trainer communication style, delivery and grip on content. If we allow amateur trainer to conduct session then we might be in trouble and our reputation is on stake

It's better to provide a Mandatory assessment form which needs to be filled by every participant for the training program; This will serve the purpose of evaluation.

Thanks to invite.

Who will be the Assessor ?

If Trainees have to assess than it is wrong and if someone qualified Assessor is present than its too good. Assessment  is always conducted when anyone is involved actively on the  task. During the evaluation in the presence of trainees, there should be no comments for Trainer in any way especially on his/her weak areas. He/She must be informed other than class or training session.  

Never judge too early. Let them finish. then conclude. Otherwise you would miss some good learning just making your mind about trainer.

The participants must be handed over the Trainer Evaluation Form in the start of the course and it is upto them what high or low points during the course make their way to the evaluation!

As an experience trainer, I would welcome such an assessment apart from the formal and informal feedback gathered from the participants. Ideally, we should use all these combinations to have a rounded view of the trainers. One must know that trainer is the most important person in the entire training process. Today, contents are freely available in this wired world. What is needed is how a trainer is able to transmit knowledge, transform the minds of participants and enable easy assimilation and long term retention. I always believe that " there are no boring subjects; there are only boring trainers".  I have seen many trainers rely heavily on power point presentation with neither power nor point as a person. Observations during training will help in gathering insight into such areas of competency of the trainers. For instance, the trainers' use of latest and relevant examples, use of anecdotes, how they shape the idea for the participants, use of other training tools etc can be easily observed. While saying this, some of the negatives could be that the trainers may feel handicapped when they know the presence of observers. Other negatives includes incompetency of the observer and personal biases. If these negatives are taken care, concurrent assessment is an efficient tool. I bat for it!

Hello,

Assessing the trainer him/herself is only one dimension from the whole whole picture, you should assess the program level in terms of the efficiency of the training and the outcome on the performance before and after the training to make sure that your investment were right.