The Evaluation phase of the instructional design process

During the implementation phase of the ADDIE process some evaluation of the course was done while it was implemented. The evaluation phase done during this last phase of the ADDIE process consists in doing a final, overall evaluation, making some adjustments to the course and releasing the project. The evaluation process continues by doing some personal reflections about the project.

During the the evaluation phase the following actions will be taken:

• Conduct a final overall action of the course
• Collect data and summarize the responses
• Adjust the course design and some parts of the media
• Release the project
• Write a summary and some reflections about anything learned for doing the project

Some interesting questions to ask :

• Did the learners achieve the goals of instruction?
• What did they like best or least about the course?
• What kinds of responses did one get when they rated parts of the work?
• What did one learn from all of this?
• What did one like or didn't like about designing one's own course?

The answers to some of these questions allow to know if learning happens effectively or not. Evaluation provides feedback and helps to improve the course. It can also lead to refine or reconceptualize and redo some elements of the analysis part of the ADDIE process

During the evaluation process the following steps will be taken:

Step 1: Plan and conduct the project evaluation

One will need to find out if the course fits the learners. How to determine that? The actions that the learners do as a result of taking the course can help to evaluate the learner. If the learners understand the lessons and do all the requirements correctly it means that they are doing well. However if If they don't understand the course and don't show anything related to their understanding it means that they are not doing well.

A course evaluation enables to find out the following information:

• All parts of the course are appropriate and useful
• The course parts flow in a convenient sequence
• All topics are suitable to the course
• Learners gain skills and knowledge
• Learning and instruction activities are appropriate. effective and efficient

One makes a copy of this worksheet for each people who participates in the course. One asks 5 people who participate in the Beta test evaluation in the implementation phase to fill out the evaluation form and to return it.

The results of the evaluation form allow to:

• Study the opinons and results of the evaluation
• Allow to adjust the project design and some parts of the course media
• Release the project
• Evaluate one's performance about doing the project 

Step 2: Write project reflections

After learning the main phases of the ADDIE process and doing this project it is time to reflect. The following questions can help write about these reflections:

• What were the surprises?
• What can one remember about doing this project?
• What is the favorite part or achievement in doing the ADDIE process?
• What parts of the projects one desires to go back and do better if one has the chance? This worksheet can help to write and summarize the reflections about the project experiences