Evaluating the inclusiveness of learning & development

In today's world, our training rooms are vibrant tapestries of different backgrounds, experiences, and needs. Ignoring this richness not only hinders learning but also creates an environment where some feel (or are) excluded and undervalued.

Training inclusivity and inclusive training

Speaking to this very point, Ingeborg Kroese and Will Thalheimer have published a valuable series of evaluation questions specifically designed to uncover the successes and failures in how well diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are being supported within learning programs.  They did so from the idea that while it is good to provide training on inclusion, it is also important to be inclusive in other training.

On the site “Inclusive Learning Survey” they have published the questions and an explanation of how to use them. At LearningStone and the new platform TalentMountain, we needed to develop a way to check how inclusive our work is. Of course you can’t think of everything, so what’s better than to ask! In doing so, the questions and especially the underlying thoughts came in handy.

Step by step

We found that it’s not always easy to ask questions about this subject (where do you ask? When do you ask? How many questions?) so we appreciated the following points that Ingeborg Kroese and Will Thalheimer have made: You can’t ask everything at once, ask questions whenever it's convenient and understand that the questions “send messages”.

In our own words:

• • You don’t need to ask all the questions at once. Just do what you find possible and what seems acceptable to your learners. In the current changing political climate, some learners might not be willing to answer some questions. Simply make them optional so you can move forward. Do what you can.
    
    
  • You can ask questions in a evaluation at the end of a training, but if it works you can also do it earlier. If, as with LearningStone technology, you work with learning paths, you don't always have to wait until the end to ask questions but can do so along the way.
    
    
  • The questions “send messages to the learning designers”. This is a notion that Will Thalheimer developed in earlier work on learning surveys.  By going through the questions you’ll learn a lot about inclusiveness. Even before you get any answers on e.g. the question “If there were images of people in the learning program, how well did they represent you and others?” you might start thinking about creating images with a more diverse group of people than you initially were planning to. So the question you were going to ask, sends a message to you, the learning designer!
    
    

Free download

More information: inclusivelearningsurvey.org

Download Dutch version