For those of you who have been following along with this blog series for the past several weeks, take a moment to rejoice; we have finally reached the end. It's been a long, treacherous path, but someone has to do it. All hyperbole aside, the evaluation phase of the ADDIE Method is the final and often most overlooked step of the whole process. The evaluation process is essential because it determines whether or not the goals established by the designer and the rest of the team have been achieved. Think of the evaluation process as reading a review left on Yelp or YouTube video comment and using that feedback to improve your content.
Evaluation typically occurs in the manner of formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments usually happen throughout the project in various stages. These are immediate evaluations that are meant to determine the effectiveness of individual components of the project. Thinking back to primary or secondary school, these are often the pop-quizzes or unit exams presented throughout the term. These assessments allow the designer to identify any potential issues or roadblocks early on in the design process. Summative assessments happen at the end of a project. This is when designers and project managers pull comprehensive data from the entire process to determine that learning objectives are met (aka, the final exam).
So what is the evaluation phase often overlooked? Put it simply: time and money. Often development and design teams are met with short deadlines and financial limitations. Evaluations can require additional time and resources to ensure product quality. When the budget is tight, so are project expectations. When deadlines are rushed, so are the results. The problem here in rises that there is no concrete way to test if the project is successful. This is often present in “participation training,” in which participants are simply credited or rewarded for showing up. Sure, they received the training, but did they actually learn anything? Maybe. But without proper evaluation, there is no natural way to tell other than their post-training performance.
Moral of the story? Don’t skip out on evaluations (at least when it’s possible). Don’t throw a half-baked idea on the table and call it dinner.
Bake the whole cake.
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Image Resources:
"ADDIE Evaluation" - Designed by CJ Fortune on Canva.
"Calculator" Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels
"Cake" - Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels.
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