Progress in evaluation and cost benefit research

For the last seven years we have been involved in feasibility studies, applying the economist's rigorous cost benefit analysis techniques to training investments and activities. The progress of the research has been well documented in various journals. Very early on it was demonstrated that although cost benefit techniques could be applied to certain forms of operator training, they only formed a part of the armoury of a training evaluator when more complicated skills and job organisations were encountered. In 1970 a progress summary was published in this journal. As a part of the current debate about the evaluation of training we have been asked to write a further progress summary. Rather than repeating parts of other articles we have attempted to do two things in this article: first to clarify some confusion we see developing in the terms used by trainers, and secondly to air some ideas which are being developed in the various research projects in which we are engaged. In this way we hope we can illustrate, by implication, the current thinking in the ITS about evaluation of training.